Author Podcasts Supplement Book Promotion Effort

HarperCollins Canada is adding podcasts of interviews with authors to its bag of tricks for generating interest in new books coming out this summer.

The interviews, conducted by podcaster Cathi Bond, will feature a HarperCollins author talking about their recently published book.

But HarperCollins Canada's Steve Osgoode (in a response to my e-mail) says the podcasts will supplement, rather than replace, the company's regular marketing and promotions.

"All of the books will have significant marketing support behind them on top of being featured in the podcast program," he said. That includes Flash trailers posted on the HarperCollins site.

Osgoode points to the podcasts created by science journalist Jay Ingram to support promotion and sales of his book Theatre of the Mind (also by HarperCollins), as proof that podcasting and book publishing can be a good match.

HarperCollins and their PR firm Sequentia Communications engaged Tod Maffin's Four Sevens Podcast Network to produce the podcasts (Bond has a podcast in the Four Sevens family).

How will HarperCollins measure the success of the podcasts?  Within the context of the overall marketing effort.

"Obviously we’re going to be tracking downloads and subscribers but we’ll look at those numbers within the context of them supporting the rest of our marketing," said Osgoode. "I definitely think we’re going to continue to experiment with podcasting and we’re just going to pilot as many different methods as we can around our books and our authors."

Among the titles to be featured is Dennis Bock's The Communist's Daughter, Rebecca Godfrey's Under the Bridge, Gautam Malkani's Londonstani, Jon Evans' Invisible Armies, Sara Gruen's Water for Elephants, and Lydia Millet's Oh, Pure and Radiant Heart.   

Tags: books, canadian, publishing, promotions, publicity, authors, podcasts, podcasting, cathybond, jayingram, todmaffin

Powered by Qumana

Comments

[cathi bond]

Hi there!

Thanks for mentioning the prosecast. I just spoke with Gautam Malkani and it was a total blast. This is going to add another whole level to promotion of books and eliminate the wall between readers and authors.

Cath

[Eric Eggertson]

No problem, Cathi. Now, if Margaret Atwood can get her robotic book-signing machine working properly (and add some personal touch that makes it seem less, well, robotic), the grinding book tour may become optional, rather than mandatory.

[Dave Traynor]

Thought you might want to know that Saskatoon author Art Slade has a book coming out this fall called Megiddo's Shadow that is also getting the whole treatment from Harper Collins. They've done an intriguing video cast of the book -- sort of a movie trailer format. You can see it at Art's website at www.arthurslade.com. Nice to see Canadian publishers jumping on this bandwagon.

[Eric Eggertson]

Cool. I'll have to check out Art's website.