By Roger Tagholm
Notice anything odd about this illuminated panel advertisement for Sean Rayment’s Bomb Hunters currently adorning the London Underground? No? Try answering this then: who’s the publisher?
It’s a real oddity. Think how many times you read about publishers launching new imprints, re-vamping existing ones, re-doing their logos “we’re really pleased with this design, the way x represents y”, coming up with names –- Cornerstone, Swordfish, Fourth Estate or whatever — hiring consultants for image makeovers (in the old days anyway, when they had money) etc., etc., etc.
Presumably the folk at Collins sanctioned this advertisement, so they’re happy about their name not appearing. It just seems strange to look at. But perhaps it doesn’t matter. After all, isn’t it still the case that Penguin is the only publisher name that means anything to anyone outside the business?
That said, you do see one name there featured prominently…a name that the public presumably does recognize . . . Amazon.co.uk.
5 Comments
Very interesting take on things. Good article!
This is a very good article and a telling turn of events. I believe it suggests that the market place is indeed moving aware from the reigns of publisher’s branding (and in many cases limited and stagnant vision) in search of compelling and original works of quality regardless of the source.
I think this move should be extremely encouraging for authors who have elected to self-publish and venues that have courageously opened their doors to high-quality books by these emerging authors.
I applaud Collins on their courage.
Ask Lonely Planet if the publishers’ brand doesn’t matter!
For general trade titles, I’ve always considered the publisher’s brand important when communicating booksellers and librarians and less so for consumers, but it’s a brave publisher who writes themselves out of the story completely, especially in deference to a single retailer. Can you imagine a film poster that doesn’t say somewhere – even in small print – that the film came from Disney, Pixar, New Line Entertainment or Dreamworks?
My hunch is that publisher brands (and I’d include book livery in this) do matter with consumers but in a subtle, subliminal way. Consequently, is leaving your brand off an ad not in some way saying that you don’t matter? There’s surely a risk that the move might be self-fulfilling.
When I started publishing my own books in 2006 I recognized that it was vitally important to establish a brand for booksellers and marketplaces, but I never allowed myself to cleave to one bookseller or another. The fact that Amazon put its web site URL on the book’s cover only means something to buyers, not sellers, and the publisher would be selling itself short by making the book unavailable everywhere but Amazon. Most authors would never allow this to happen to their books. And marketing mavens stress the importance of the author’s name, not the brand name, because you never know when that author may hit the NY Times Bestseller list. No, I think this time the publisher has gone too far.
This ad looks like the author broke into his cookie jar and paid for not only a spiffy vanity press job, but also he seems to have had enough cash on hand to buy ads telling people about the only outlet that would carry his offering.
The book jacket as display ad space for the bookseller? C’mon… This is one small step less stupid than hawking the book with a missionary premium—like a cool free ringtone of bombs exploding with every e-book download.
These hyper-caffeinated marketing savants are fun to watch, though.
Does the publisher matter to the average reader? I would offer for consideration the mountainous and decades-old statistics available from the white label (“generic”) grocery industries: Yes, there is a highly-profitable, easily identifiable and eminently small segment of every market for every thing that ingests and consumes crap and doesn’t care who makes it.
Bon appétit.