We are proud to be working with Houghton Mifflin Harcourt on their blockbuster marketing campaign to launch the 5th edition of their American Heritage Dictionary. How beautiful, comprehensive, and connected does a print dictionary have to be in this day and age to pay $60 for it? Just walk into a bookstore and pick one up, you’ll see.
We think this edition provides a great example of how to create the kind of print experience readers crave while also providing the connectivity they require. In publishing, as in advertising, you have to know your medium and know your audience.
As an advertising agency, part of our job is to keep our clients up-to-date on late-breaking availabilities, good deals, and what’s newly possible. Sometimes it’s a homepage takeover, sometimes it’s a full page print ad, and sometimes it’s a prominent billboard.
We are big fans of Jeffrey Eugenides’ work and his latest book in particular. So we were thrilled when Farrar, Straus and Giroux gave us the go-ahead for a Times Square billboard for his amazing new novel, “The Marriage Plot.” OK, maybe a little surprised, but FSG has always been good at keeping us on our toes. Our design and production team had a blast working on the creative.
The board has been up for 24 hours and already the notices are coming in:
The indefatigable Jose Afonso Furtado pointed out an article on eMarketer today about mobile versus standard Web banners that cited a recent Media Mind study: “MediaMind found that the average CTR on mobile banners on their network was 0.61%. That was more than eight times as high as the CTR for standard online banners.” It’s worth noting that we have seen a similar range of performance in mobile versus Web banner campaigns for books. Does that mean every book should run mobile ads first and Web ads second? Not necessarily.
Because of format limitations, mobile ads work best for books that come with either a big name-brand author (“New from Patricia Cornwell!”) or a concept you can get in under eight words (“Could Hitler’s talking dogs have won the war?”). Mobile is not the platform to tout a host of stellar reviews or introduce a new author whose nuanced prose you’re hoping to develop over time. Mobile ads are also great team players: they perform very effectively as part of a larger campaign where they can reinforce a message that also appears in print, broadcast or online.
We are grateful to Digital Book World for allowing us to present the latest survey results at their 2011 conference. Some of the results were more than surprising and the news was picked up throughout the industry and around the world.
In partnership with Digital Book World, Verso Digital has run a new survey of reader behavior on our network (with huge thanks, again, for the work of Burst Media on all these surveys). The results will be presented at next week’s Digital Book World Conference. But already word is getting out there about some of our findings:
Shelf Awareness notes that the survey suggests good news for independent booksellers. Not only is it true that “E-reader owners are buying nearly as many print books as e-books,” but also that “81.7% of all e-reader owners said that if e-books are priced competitively, they will buy them from indies.”
Publishers Weekly picks up on one of the new questions in this year’s survey, revealing that “the library remains an important source of books for readers, with 45% saying they borrow books from libraries, the largest single channel for getting a book.”
The Bookseller also highlighted the 81.7% figure, headlining their post “Consumers ready to buy e-books from indies.”
On his weekly Twitter conversation, #pubQT, Ron Hogan posted: “Interesting bit from the new Verso/DBW survey: Consumers SLIGHTLY more likely to say they buy books from indies.” Then followed up with, “However, WOMEN (who drive the book market) are 7% more likely to prefer retail chains to their local indie bookseller.”
We look forward to presenting the information in full next week, and discussing implications with clients, readers and everybody in the publishing community in the coming weeks.
The estimable UK site, The Bookseller, reports on the BEA presentation of our latest Verso Survey–conducted in cooperation with the American Booksellers Association. Check it out.
We were honored that the American Bookseller Association asked our own Jack McKeown (alias @bookateur) to present the keynote at this year’s Winter Institute — and excited at the chance to expand on the “Indie Mindshare vs. Marketshare” meme that is developing out of the first Verso Survey of Book-Buying Behavior. After the great conversations that started at Digital Book World, we knew independent bookstores would have a lot to say about our results. And did they ever! The twitter activity was off the charts and is still rolling a week later (thanks to @jchristie for creating the archive). See below for a small sampling of Winter Institute press and tweets that mention Verso’s Survey.
Some of the Press
Bookselling This Week wrote, “For 90 minutes on Thursday morning at the Winter Institute, booksellers zeroed in on the provocative aspects of consumer demographics and book-buying preferences offered by Jack McKeown…”
The day after the keynote,Shelf Awareness called it a “well-received breakfast keynote [that] many booksellers said gave them both hope and ideas for concrete action.”
Publishers Weekly reported that “Jack McKeown’s keynote on Verso Advertising’s survey of consumer book-buying habits was a relief . . . [highlighting] potential opportunities for independents to be in the digital space.”
In their wrap-up of the Winter Institute, Shelf Awareness wrote, “After the first day of sessions on technological trends, many booksellers felt overwhelmed and feared an e-future that would bypass bookstores. But the next morning, the mood changed, beginning with a presentation by Jack McKeown…”
The news was even picked up in Australia. From the PNP Booksellers Blog: “Even though [the Verso Survey] was about US readers there is a tonne of relevant information for the Australian market…..”
Some of the hundreds of Tweets
Verso’s stats about indie mindshare are definitely heartening #dbw [full results here: http://bit.ly/bR5WEQ ] –@vsandbrook, 2/11/10
Thoughts from #WI5: from the Verso survey: How can indies convert mindshare into marketshare? — @corpuslibris, 2/9/10
Hey indies! RT @DBerthiaume Complete #WI5 slide presentation of Verso survey results now up at http://www.versoadvertising.com/survey/ — @vertigobooks 2/8/10
Beyond thrilled to be hearing ebook convo based on DATA, not just feelings and anecdotes. Many thanks to @bookateur. #Wi5 /via @bookavore @oblongirl 2/5/10
RT @BooksellersNZ: #Wi5 check out www.versoadvertsing.com/survey for insightful research of importance to booksellers — @KatMeyer 2/5/10
Feel much more encouraged & excited on #wi5 day two! :) — @AvidBookshop 2/4/10 (tweeted after Verso Survey Presentation)
Over 45% of males 18-34 download pirated copies. Bad boys. Whatcha gonna do? #wi5 — @yrstrulyREL 2/4/10
Hooray, data bears out that a large chunk of people are interested in bundling. Hope pubs saw this at DBW. #Wi5 — @bookavore, 2/4/10
RT @AvidBookshop: Thinking the same!RT @bookavore: Search engine marketing needs to be priority for indies. Good thing I went to a panel on it yesterday. #Wi5 –@JogglingBoard, 2/4/10
RT @bookavore: “Think about older market as cash cow to pay for experimentation with younger market.” #Wi5 –@NVbibliophile, 2/4/10
Interestingly, much of @bookateur’s #wi5 keynote applies to niche publishing, too. “Community, convenience and price.” –@glecharles, 2/4/10
Cannot tell last time I’ve seen “hissy fit” in PowerPoint. <3 @bookateur. Good job doing #s in early AM. #wi5 –@SarahRettger, 2/4/10
The recent Digital Book Worldconference was one of the best run and most useful conferences we’ve been part of in recent years. It did a great job of airing necessary conversations and forging new ideas about the present and future of our industry. We couldn’t have picked a better place to debut the initial results of our Consumer Survey. This is an industry that’s ready for hard data. There has been a lot of talk going on related to the conference over the last week, easily trackable with Digital Book World’s own link round-up, here.
If you want to focus on what people are saying, reporting and questioning about the Verso Survey Results in particular, however, here’s a list of some of the talk our survey helped generate:
Publishers Weekly reports that “Verso’s Jack McKeown offered a consumer book survey that acted as a counterweight to Napack’s manifesto…”
On the Digital Book World blog, Guy LeCharles Gonzalez comments on our survey results, “Indie Mindshare Offers an Opportunity…”
The Philadelphia Social Media Examinercites Verso’s “massive” survey results in the article headlined “Nervous publishing community braces for the e-book revolution…”
Publishing industry newsletter, Publishers Lunch headlines an article, “Verso Presents Consumer Survey; Asks Why Indie Market Share Is So Much Lower than Mindshare.”
Industry newsletter Publishing Trends is not available without subscription, but here’s a glimpse of their report on the conference:
Publishing Trends on Verso Survey
SOME OF THE BLOGS:
FSG’s Ryan Chapman: “Verso’s Jack McKeown notes that people who go through the effort of downloading illegal copies, for the most part, represent an opportunity for booksellers….”
Dainty Ninja: “Among the findings was one surprising bit of data that could be a sign of encouragement for beleaguered US independent booksellers…”
Paul Biba led off his Teleread post with “Dedicated e-book readers won’t be the easiest sell if you go by Verso’s 2009 Survey of Book Buying Behavior—presented at DigitalBookWorld…”
Mick Rooney on the Verso Survey Presentation, “It was perfect, and set the tone among delegates for the rest of the day….”
SOME OF THE TWEETS:
@MJRose BTW, I think studies such as Verso’s and BISG’s on book buying behavior are very valuable. –@DonLinn
If you’re an indie bookseller,you need to see Verso’s #DBW presentation and think abt converting mindshare to mkt share http://bit.ly/aAF7qS –@DonLinn
RT@GalleyCat: RT@eBookNewser: Generation Lost? #DBWverso: 2/3rds of avid readers surveyed are 45 or older; 28% are in the 18+ bracket #DBW –@CitrusNaNo
RT @DigiBookWorld: RT @ljndawson: Survey says even avid readers who own ereaders are buying both p-books and e-books. Not mutally exclusive. #DBW #DBWverso –@coopertjon
RT @DigiBookWorld: RT @ljndawson: Maximum $ willing to pay for ebooks! 28% won’t go above $10. 28% are flexible between $10-20. 37% not sure. #DBW #DBWVerso –@krishvenkatesh
RT @BookPros: RT @RonHogan: RT @ljndawson:Author publicity and instore events are biggest driver to purchase. But author tours are dying! #DBW #DBWverso –@ShennandoahDiaz
RT @KatMeyer: slides from @versodigital will be available on slideshare and versoadvertising.com — EXCELLENT information. highly recommend #dbwverso #dbw –@toddbeals
am i crazy to think verso study shows demo most likely to pirate books is demo least likely to *buy* them in any format –@Booksquare
… AND FOR FUN:
CNN’s report on the iPad quotes pundits at the conference and shows Verso’s presentation (don’t blink):
Many in the publishing crowd recently enjoyed Ta-Nehisi Coates’ reading from his memoir, The Beautiful Struggle at PAMA’s cocktail party hosted by The Atlantic. Our very own Dan Sharkey was inspired to read the book!
When your desk is overflowing with books of every variety it takes a truly special case to stand out, but Ta-Nehisi Coates’ memoir did just that. From the opening page I was in awe of this young author.
This novel is powerful on so many levels. A driving lyricism draws you in from the start as the poetic prose dances with beat box rhythms. An unguarded honesty gives the narrative weight as it lays bare the universal struggles of a child on the cusp of adulthood. And in both aspects it soars. And for both aspects this book could be written about any time and any place and still resonate. But it doesn’t take place just anywhere.
Our author didn’t find his way in some faceless city or tucked away suburb. Instead he grew up in Baltimore, on the West Side—in the dark heart of the American dream. He grew up at a time when crack rock was sweeping through the community like a plague—leaving bodies in the streets and kids on the corner. He grew up in place that poverty and violence seemed determined to erase from history. And so this story is all the more affecting for surviving in the face of such odds.
