Why publishers' blogs are rubbish

Filed under Promote your book.

Book publisher's blog

Book publishers’ blogs should be amazing. Really, I mean it! They should be the best book blogs on the web. After all publishing houses are packed full of people who not only know the reality of the publishing world, but also have a passion for books. So why are so many of their blogs simply rubbish?

The answer…they are trying to sell books.

You see us (readers/writers) don’t really want to read about the books publishers are selling. We want to read something informative/educational/amusing/controversial. We want to connect and feel part of the process.

So what should publishers’ blogs be about?

1. The gap – This is the space between the knowledge that the reader/writer has of the publishing industry and the reality. We don’t understand what goes on at books fairs, or why a publisher focuses on a particular genre or even why they pick one book idea over another. The gap is the place where publisher’s blogs should make their home.

2. The process – We find the publishing process fascinating. We want to know about the slush pile, we need to find out what makes a good submission, we also love to hear all the behind the scenes details. I am not joking! The process of cover design is fascinating, the way a book is prepared for print holds a certain interest and the distribution chain is a mystery waiting to be unravelled.

3. Free stuff – Oh and we also want a chance to get free stuff. We promise to give glowing blog reviews to all the books we love. In return all we ask for is a free review copy.

If a publisher was doing all this then readers would flock. We would talk about the blog. Tell people to visit. We would connect, interact and perhaps, after a trust is built, even buy a few books.

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  • http://www.ospreypublishing.com/blog Richard Sullivan

    Despite the cheeky title I think you has a point. We are always trying new things on our blog and we’ve had some success with things like insights into the mind of an artist and snippets from an author. We’ve also tried to give a glimpse into the life of a book although not to the extent you suggest (yet). Our most popular posts include competitions but also anything on which Osprey books are available and what would you like us to publish next?

  • http://jenniferambrose.blogspot.com/ JenniferWriter

    I agree that these suggestions would make publishers’ blogs more interesting to read, but I think the issue is: what’s in it for the publisher? I assume they often have some editorial intern working on their blog. If we want them to do more, they have to get something out of it. I can see how giveaways could lead to free book PR but I’m no so sure how the publisher benefits from your other suggestions. Do you think these blogs will actually gain customer loyalty if they develop a better blog? I suspect they might just get more unsolicited submissions for that same EA to slog through in the slush pile.

  • http://www.dianeshipley.com diane

    Having written a few things for Picador’s blog I feel a bit defensive on their behalf! – I think they get it right by asking books journalists to contribute, and allowing us to talk about books in general, not just the Picador catalogue. That allows for a more interesting discussion for starters. I do think you make some good points, though, and perhaps what it boils down to is that providing good, relevant (exclusive) content in a friendly way is often good for business, whereas the hard sell (especially using social media tools) is always a turn off. x

  • http://jenniferambrose.blogspot.com/ JenniferWriter

    PS I wouldn’t be surprised if part of the reason publishers have blogs is just to boost SEO, in which case they wouldn’t have much motivation to do more than just pimp the books they publish and hope to boost their google standing.

    Just some thoughts from someone who used to blog for an online retailer.

  • http://www.ospreypublishing.com/blog Richard Sullivan

    I can only speak for enthusiast publishers but I think our blog is invaluable. We have a range of voices including two directors and several editors and get a lot out of it. At a very basic level it allows you to keep your website fresh with new content going up on a regular basis. Going deeper you get to talk directly to the customer, test ideas, solicit feedback etc. On a personal note you also get to indulge (a little bit) your enthusiasms, as they are appropriate and ride your hobby horses occasionally. I find it adds to my ability to understand who we publish for, why we publish it and I can then bring that back into my day-to-day decision-making. Priceless!

  • http://www.ospreypublishing.com/blog Richard Sullivan

    Yes we do blog about upcoming books but we know those posts get read. And sometimes we’ll link posts to books we like. It is a marketing tool in part but it also (used properly) so much more.

  • http://www.angryrobotbooks.com Lee Harris

    As one of the crew over at Angry Robot, I wholeheartedly agree – publishers’ blogs should be more interesting. It’s something we’re trying to do over at our site (and we blog most days). We also try to ensure the personalities of the team come through, rather than a bland corporate style.

    We do the job because we love it, and we believe it to be interesting – why shouldn’t others people find it interesting, too?

    As for giveaways – we’ve had competitions, we run extracts from all our books, and we give other book sites and blogs exclusive content, too. It’s all about the love.*

    Book trailers, audio content (coming) and free stuff (where appropriate, of course). Come on over – the water’s lovely.
    .

    *well, it’s all about the marketing, of course, but it’s all surrounded by a big ball of the “L” word…

  • http://rocketkapre.com/ Paolo Chikiamco

    Thanks for the informative article–our company just launched our own site and blog for our digital publishing company, and I spent a lot of time before launch surfing the net and trying to make a list of the elements readers would want in a publishing blog (I learned a lot from the Angry Robot Books site, from Tor.com and from Jeremy Tolbert, who designed our web page). Since we’ll be dealing primarily in ebooks for the foreseeable future, we figured that having a well-designed site and an active, engaging blog were must-haves. Luckily there’s a lot going on in the Philippine Speculative Fiction scene, and there are a lot of passionate readers and writers of Spec Fic here so hopefully by providing a service by spotlighting/generating interesting content, we’ll be able to form a good community around the site even before we have ebooks to sell.

  • http://angrywhofan.blogspot.com John Rivers

    OK disclosure time – my name’s John and for two years I was heavily involved with the blog 5th Estate for Harper Collins. I was Digital marketing manager for Press Books and was made redundant in April this year.

    I would say that running a blog for a publisher is tricky for a number of reasons but here’s a list of different things I encountered.

    1. No one wants to bloody write for it.

    Trying to generate content between various editors, sub-editors, marketers, publicity people, business developers and authors may sound easy, but no one has time and everyone thinks it will just happen by itself. 5th Estate was always strongest when it had a strong editorial voice. To start with it was the brilliant Kate Hyde and then the delightful Mark Johnson. Then the less-brilliant me and after that the brilliant-once-again Louise Tucker. However all four of us were doing jobs at the same time and couldn’t all devote the time that was needed to the blog. Would other staff lighten the load? Not very much… So now the blog seems to be in the capable hands of Jeremy LoCurto who is on Harper Collins’s super fasttrack publisher of tomorrow intern programme, who at the time I left was being assigned to the Press Books marketing department.

    2. Should marketing really be in charge of the blog?

    In addition to the problems above you had the notion that marketing shouldn’t ‘run’ the blog. Marketing should maintain it (ie my job was to fix it when it broke), but really it should be an editor who ran it or someone equally creative. This then begs the question ‘what is the blog for?’ is it for editors to say powerful things about publishing and their books or is that, by definition, a promotional tool for marketing? The end result is a bit of both and pleases neither party. Incidentally, I think I’m right in saying that Kate Hyde’s original vision for 5th Estate was somewhere that Press Books’ authors could go to write articles, but authors are usually too busy writing books…

    3. Getting content to the blog

    The post above reckons that publishing blogs should get out to book fairs and develop content that way and two years ago that’s exactly what Mark Johnson and myself said we should do. The result was the 5th Estate Estate (http://bit.ly/3Tr0bp) and we ended up at Oxford (http://bit.ly/YI4R6), Cheltenham (http://bit.ly/WYgj) and Hay-on-Wye (http://bit.ly/r43A3). We did interviews, wrote reports, gave away books and generated loads of content.

    Of course there’s a cost element to this. And marketing had to end up paying for it. This becomes particularly tricky when you have to suddenly explain to a Fourth Estate editor why he/she’s book can’t have a crosstracks poster campaign across London Underground, cos two marketing bods went to a festival. Therefore these sorts of jaunts are limited. You could ask someone in PR to go for you, but they’re usually too busy making sure their authors are in the right place at the right time.

    Giveaways are also tricky. We would offer to giveaway stuff on Fifth Estate and NO ONE would want it. So the fantastic Sam Shone realised you’d be much better off dictating your giveaways through a more social medium i.e. Facebook. And that’s a much more effective way to do it.

    I’m very proud of the fact of the content that we did generate on 5th Estate while I was working on it. It was fun and different, with lots of multimedia to support it. Much better than Penguin’s blog, which at that time, was usually written by the work experience person on a Friday and was either a post about how great Penguin Books was or something they’d found on Youtube that amused them.

    4. Causing controversy

    One of the things digital marketers are consistently tasked with is ‘getting the numbers up’ – Fifth Estate was no exception. One of the ways I decided to go about it (and probably stunted any career I would have in publishing as a result) was to get a bit controversial. In June of last year Sara Lloyd published her very interesting, if densely written, Digital Manifesto for Pan MacMillan. The PM blog was always at the forefront of digital publishing and it was clear that the guys behind it had real passion for what they did. The Digital Manifesto was praised in some quarters, a real wake-up call for the industry. I had a different experience. In editorial and marketing meetings explaining digital to editors meant soothing fears that very soon the book medium would be dead. It occurred to me the PM Manifesto would only end up panicking editors. So I decided to write a short counter-piece to the manifesto and if I could be controversial it would ‘up the numbers’ on the blog.

    Looking back at my piece now (http://bit.ly/19FX8q) it is somewhat confusing and hastily written, though I do stand by the points that crowdsourcing of books presents many logistical problems and that publishers should protect an author’s integrity and not bastardise a text for profit or because the online community says so. However, it was mission accomplished. Lots of angry comments, not least of which from Richard Charkin (I was particularly pleased about that) and I created a debate. Bingo – I had a spike in the blog views.

    Overall I loved working at Press Books and in publishing in general, but 5th Estate did present its own particular type of challenges. The blog now is producing some great interviews and articles and seems to have been largely left alone by group marketing who instead concentrate their efforts on Authonomy (there’s all your articles about the slush pile right there) and BookArmy (*shrug*). I think the problem will always come down to time and money and doing something worthwhile and readable usually always needs both.

  • http://angrywhofan.blogspot.com John Rivers

    Hi Gary

    thanks for your response – a couple of bits I’d pick up on.

    The ‘taking seriously’ comment I think is right at a board level – while my boss and the MD at Press took 5th Estate seriously, it probably wouldn’t be discussed by the board. The head of marketing at HC Charlie Redmayne (at least when I left) couldn’t give a toss about it either way.

    Interacting with bloggers/reviewers was always something we were keen to do and one of the last things I did was set up a blogger engagement programme to get our titles out there and get that conversation going.

    With the help of an online PR specialist we targeted niche genre blogs, because all the more well-known lit blogs were over-subscribed.

    Like all good ideas in digital and books Amazon has taken upon itself to own the space and so created the Amazon ‘Vine’ programme. Publishers pay, Amazon sends out books for review, people review them. When the programme started there were equal negative and positive reviews and the publishers didn’t like that so the better reviews started appearing at the top of the titles pages. Why pay in time and money for a risky blogger dialogue when Amazon can do the job for you in the retail space?

    This makes it very difficult for bloggers I think, integrity comes with a price and in a struggling economy and industry, publishers simply might not be that interested.

    All the best

    John

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  • Gary Smailes

    To be honest I would have picked at Osprey as one of the publishers that approach blogging with a fresh mind. The point of the post is to challenge publishers to justify their blogs and hopefully make them better.

  • Gary Smailes

    What publishers get out a great, interactive blog is excited and motivated followers. These are followers who will talk about the blog and spread the word. Over time the blog will develop trust and in turn in a position where they had actively engage with their followers about new titles.

  • Gary Smailes

    You are right. Perhaps a publisher to should go a whole month without ever mentioning one of their own books. Instead they should post articles that they think would excite readers. I bet a month down the line they have a better blog with more engaged readers.

  • Gary Smailes

    The best SEO comes from articles that are linked to by other sites. The better and more interesting the article the more the links and thus more google juice. People tend not to link to blog post about the latest book but will link to one that explains why a publisher offer just 5% royalties to their writers.

  • Gary Smailes

    Lee, Angry Robot are one of the growing list of publishers that seem to ‘get’ the internet. However, you are in a minority with most seeing the blog as simply a tool for promoting their latest book.

  • http://jrobertking.com Rob King

    Lee’s absolutely right. His posts and Marco’s invite the reader to join their Robot Army–a cheeky and often hilarious group. It’s like getting to hang out with the Pythons. What better way is there to promote good books than to write well?

  • Gary Smailes

    I think the key is to produce a blog that becomes a ‘hub’ for like minded people. A place that potential readers WANT to come and visit. This often means you have to stop being a salesman and instead become a leader and facilitator. Over time people will see your products and, as trust builds, will want to buy from you. It is also worth remembering that old blog posts don’t just die, they hang around and build an ‘image’ of your business.

  • Gary Smailes

    John, thanks for this reply. It is great to hear the problems from the horse’s mouth (so to speak).

    I think the problem you face it that no one seems to be taking the blog seriously. By this I don’t think the people involved are not doing the best job possible. But at a higher level the strategy of the company fails to see the importance of the blog. It represents a chance for the publisher to interact with readers on a personal level. Take this blog post – how else would I have been able to canvas the views of people behind the ‘closed doors’ of the publishing world.

    5th estate is a great blog though I suspect the answer to your problems is that you need a person whose job it is to maintain the blog full time. They need to be given the time, resources and power to move the blog in the correct direction. Difficult I know but not impossible.

    My comment regarding give aways was more to do with interacting with readers. Take the BubbleCow blog. I would not blog about fiction titles since they don’t fit into my vision for the blog. However, let us say that you published a book about writing I would gladly offer a review. The payment would be a free review copy. Since I have built trust with my readers I would like to think they would buy the book if I said it was good.

    The numbers thing is also difficult and this comes with a re-education at the highest level. All blogs need eyeballs but the correct eyeballs. At BubbleCow we provide services to writers, so I want writers reading the blog. Thousands of hits from non-writers are great for adding google juice but do little for improving the interactivity of the blog.

    wow – more later I think :-)

  • Gary Smailes

    John,

    My point about ‘taking seriously’ is that many directors see a blog (social media) as something they can ‘do’. What they fail to realise is that social media is a way of existence. The aim is to interact with potential customers and to add value to their lives beyond you basic products. However, we can all tell when a company is based around this ideals and only then will it really work.

    You are correct that conversation is king. Readers always want to talk about books and will do so even if the publisher has a blog/twitter/facebook to not. The choice for a publisher is whether they wish to initiate and take some part in this conversation. I wonder how many publishers have their book titles on the search facility on twitter and jump into any conversation that develops?

    The honest answer about Amazon? I don’t think we trust them. They have become too big and will all know writers that manipulate the reviews getting friends to write good reviews to counter the bad. I want to hear recommendations from people I trust. If you suggest a sci fi title then I am much more likely to read it that one I see recommend on amazon.

  • Gary Smailes

    Rob, I just wish more publishers were as forward thinking.