How to Market Books (4th edition)

Citation

Hannabuss, S. (2009), "How to Market Books (4th edition)", Library Review, Vol. 58 No. 4, pp. 317-318. https://doi.org/10.1108/00242530910952864

It is good to see a new edition of this well‐established textbook. Earlier editions date from the first (1990) and follow through with the second (1997) and the third (2000). The immediate target readership is two‐fold – practitioners, especially new ones, to and in “the book trade”, and students on courses (pre‐ and post‐experience) studying for qualifications that allow them entry into the trade or faster progression in it (or at least the satisfaction of knowing more). Over the years the book has attracted innumerable compliments for its common‐sense and practical information: it has appeared on reading lists everywhere, on the shelves of libraries supporting study in the field, and in small firms and departments where publishing and bookselling take place for real. It is a good book, too, for schools and colleges to have in order to help pupils and students work out ideas for a career (and in this respect it avoids falling into the trap of making publishing seem something for amateurs).

The real gift of this book is its ability not only to describe what things are like (such as briefing a designer or writing effective copy) – something always good for outsiders to the trade and students wanting to come into it – but to discuss the key things that insiders should think about and actually be carrying out themselves. This second thing is never patronising and never trotting out the merely obvious: there are checklists but they are helpful, and such things are specific enough to apply in many situations without being merely generic or generalized. Alison Baverstock also looks at things from at least two points of view – the person in publishing and bookselling, as well as the other people (designers, librarians, consumers) they deal with (typically, designers and printers). Here, too, key elements of what such relationships set out to achieve – for example, get the design costs right, or in direct marketing, the plus and minus calculus of dealing with list brokers or developing your own database. For insiders there is information about a possible schedule for a direct marketing campaign, yet readers completely new to the field will get a lot from knowing what schedules look like.

One reason that the book has continued to do and sell well is that it achieves what it sets out to do – it offers a great deal of sensible and relevant information that readers really want and need. We get told of catalogues and advance copies, costs per mail‐shot in direct marketing, setting up a website and getting the domain name right, writing press releases for the media, dealing with literary editors, running sales and press conferences, and what's involved with promotions. You get the impression – as in the best travel books – that the author has actually been to and lived in the country she describes. But there is more on offer too. All too much talk, ironically, in publishing and bookselling books, is just chat – without hard data, hard figures to back things up: for me this is incomprehensible, given that publishers and booksellers (and other practitioners like librarians) deal with figures all the time. Baverstock provides some useful financial analysis for direct marketing and, in chapter ten, explores and explains “the bottom line” features of marketing budgets, determining and monitoring costs, and getting value for money. A snapshot only but at least one is there. Confidentiality (and perhaps some fear of numbers) seems to explain how reticent writers on publishing and bookselling often are about financial information. Often new readers have to place generic information (say about financial statements) alongside what they find about publishing and make of it what they can. Baverstock (at least in the marketing area) provides real help here.

The business is fast‐changing – change is the only constant and all that – and this drives new editions such as this. By that token, this fourth edition contains much more on online and the internet (for instance, chapter six on the internet and websites, emails, blogs, search engines and so forth) and more emphasis on telemarketing at various points. The last chapter (chapter eleven) examines specific interest markets (general reader, children, school and academic, medics, professionals) and communicating effectively to them requires special skills and techniques. Any reader from any of these backgrounds (e.g. a teacher or a librarian) will find this discussion of great interest. Librarians in particular – many of whom are themselves getting far more interested in professional standards of marketing – will have a lot to learn from the book as a whole and from this chapter. I would have expected more on journal publishing and marketing, and a fifth edition may (and should) contain more on Open Archive and consortial initiatives (even though stuff is out there on, say, Elsevier journals and purchasing trends).

It is easy, also, to expect more from a book than it set out to deliver. Baverstock keeps her focus on the marketing of books, and has updated this most competently. For more general aspects of publishing and bookselling there are other books, a lot of information in sources like The bookseller and its sister publications, and for publishing law there are books like Jones and Benson. Ideally I would like to see more marketing law here, not only in general but with regard to website and internet law: perhaps a symptom of increasing legalism in the business, but also something that readers of marketing want and ought to know. Kolah's textbook is probably a good place to start for marketing while internet law is widely covered.

These are not criticisms of How to Market Books – merely indicators of boundaries that all such books must have. Baverstock has updated this practical guide in a way that will appeal to readers not just in the UK but anywhere. There is a list of contacts, a glossary, and a short bibliography at the end, along with an index. Online is growing fast and I would imagine that, preparing for the fifth edition, she will be closely examining the viral aspects of blog marketing, international segmentation (international marketing could be developed here), value‐added functionalities in online bookselling, Google‐led consumer behaviour, and the delivery of full‐text and e‐book commodities. Nonetheless, as a state‐of‐the‐art, a sure seller for practitioners and for any library serving practitioner‐led marketing in the field.