Publishing Houses and Web 2.0
Tags: , book publishing, canadian publishing, Publishing, web-2.0
In my Book Sales and Marketing class recently we had to analyze a publishing houses website for its success in terms of marketing. What really struck me was how passive these sites were. Sure, they give the necessary information–upcoming titles and events and information about the author. There wasn’t any sense of community or any sense of identity with these sites.
What if publishing houses attempted to build an online brand around themselves and built a web community on this? What if the publishing houses interacted directly with readers? Supplied RSS feeds for news and events? Gave the editors behind titles a face with their own blogs? Allowed readers to interact with them through comments on books, on authors, on events, on anything? What if readers followed these houses on Twitter? What if the houses themselves supplied readers with materials and ideas of interest and not just rely on their authors to do this? What is publishing houses–even the big ones!–had personality?
I recently had a teacher tell me that if the old methods work, we don’t need to go outside the box when it comes to book marketing. This type of thinking is just plain wrong. In a world where publishing industry is changing–and changing dynamically–where fewer people are reading books than ever before, publishers need to get better at reaching their readers, and connecting with them in ways the reader wants. Why is everyone so afraid of failure?
I’m sure the average reader doesn’t know who publishes their favorite author–and doesn’t care. I bet we could change this. I’ve seen some change. Coach House has an RSS feed for their news and events and almost every Canadian publisher has a Facebook group. But publishers need to be better engaged and capitalize on these new opportunities being presented to them.
Sure, their website is a great place to buy a book. But it might be a great place to talk about it too.
Does anyone have any great examples of this? I’d love to see one.
Image by inju. Lisenced via Creative Commons.
“I recently had a teacher tell me that if the old methods work, we don’t need to go outside the box when it comes to book marketing. This type of thinking is just plain wrong”
Yeah, and it’s not likely that this teacher is ever going to read this post because they aren’t getting it through their RSS reader because they don’t know what an RSS reader is and they can’t be bothered because they don’t even have high speed internet.
The good news is, there are enough people who DO get what’s going on. The key thing is to find and connect with those people and build on that mutual appreciation. The more people who get it, the more we can all help each other out. Network, build community, reciprocate knowledge sharing. You will find the people who get it.
Meanwhile, the dinosaurs are responsible for their own journey towards the tarpit.
I also wanted to add that the same pattern exists in education (i.e., top down traditions work. tradition is the way. it worked for our generation). Right now, there’s a battle going on in education between the traditionalists (stand and deliver transmission teaching) and post structuralist teachers (collaborative teaching w students, transactional). I’ve seen a lot of teachers, especially at the secondary level, who are extremely resistant to the trends and culture of wired youth - who reject social media whole cloth without ever actually participating in it. Not unsurprisingly, these are the very same sorts of teachers who believe they are education’s gift to the empty-headed students who they will fill with their wisdom.
The new model of education is one of transaction and collaboration and inquiry. Where students are encouraged to see themselves as learners and co-teachers. To empower them to feel like stakeholders in their own education. We can’t enable that, of course, without making learners feel as though they are bringing insights to the class - insights that are different than those of their teacher (and each other as individuals).
Fostering and encouraging change involves identifying the attitudes that don’t work (as you have above) while suggesting alternatives (as you have above).
Of course I’m reading your blog instead of studying for our MARKETING exam!!
To respond to your query: HarperCollins has a pretty good site in terms of fostering a community. They have a facebook group, myspace page, RSS feeds, newsletters, PROSEcasts and 4 different points of interaction with readers (one is a program that matches ARCs with readers to get their feedback). Not bad for the publishing industry!
oooh, thanks ellen! I’ll definitely check it out!
PROSEcasts made me laugh.