Book Marketing
With Indira Birnie - former senior audience marketing manager at Penguin Random House
“I was told that one of the biggest things that swayed the interviewers in my favour was my clear enthusiasm for books and reading, and my knowledge of the biggest books and trends at the time.”
Book marketing is all about creating awareness – both for people in the trade, like booksellers, and the general public – with the ultimate goal of selling books. It can take on many different guises; you could be working on a huge campaign that involves billboard advertising or something on a smaller scale where you’re focusing on social media. You could be working on partnerships with brands or you could be working with influencers. In fact, each campaign will involve thinking about all the different places you could reach your target readers and using a range of methods to get the book in front of their eyes.
Whatever type of campaign a marketer is working on, it usually involves working closely with most departments from across the company too, so close relationships with the sales, publicity and editorial teams are all really important. It’s a really varied part of publishing and that’s what makes it so exciting!
As for me, I’ve loved reading for as long as I can remember but I never really knew publishing was a thing, or a thing that I would be able to do. I got a weekend job at my local Waterstones when I was 16 and I worked there throughout university, taking on extra shifts whenever I could. Through that job I gradually discovered more about publishing as an industry and started thinking about how I could get into it. Being a bookseller obviously isn’t a requirement when you’re looking for a job at a publishing house but it’s certainly been helpful to me to have that knowledge to draw on (and it was nice to spend much of my free time surrounded by books!).
Like most other people in publishing, I did a couple of work experience placements before I got a permanent job. It was a helpful way to get some hands-on experience as well as get a flavour of different publishing houses' "personalities". Other than that, I did go to university but I didn’t do an English degree. It was something I worried about when I was applying for publishing jobs but in the end, I was told that one of the biggest things that swayed the interviewers in my favour was my clear enthusiasm for books and reading, and my knowledge of the biggest books and trends at the time. Since then, a number of publishers have also done away with their degree requirements for job applications, which is a good step towards making publishing more accessible to different types of people.
I started my career in publicity but moved to a digital marketing role after a couple of years. Since then, I’ve become more of a social media specialist and more recently I’ve turned my hand to podcasting as well – so you can see what I mean about marketing taking on different guises! I wouldn’t say you need specific technical skills to be a good marketer but aside from all the usual stuff that most jobs need (like good organisation and communication skills), I’d say creativity and curiosity are key, as well as the ability to be analytical and think strategically.
Indira Birnie @IndiraBirnie