Discussion about this post

User's avatar
Kristine Campbell's avatar

As a former marketer, I LOVED and still fully endorse a portion of marketing budgets going toward 'test and learn' tactics. However, spending money on 'test and learn' assumes there is a budget big enough to allocate money in such a way AND the tactic falls within the overall brand marketing strategy. I'd love to understand what was the 'test' here...the 'who' non-booktok influencer, the 'where' cruise, the 'what' choose-your-own book pile, the 'why' this specific pile of books (minus the selected book) that CLEARLY don't need any more promo, and/or the 'how'/'how often' he was asked to talk about the book. I guess we'll need to see the sales to learn the true ROI, even if the unearned PR impressions the stunt is getting seem to be adding up to something...but what, exactly?

Expand full comment
Kristen Holt-Browning's avatar

I certainly don't begrudge publishers trying something new and different, but it does seem wild to spend this kind of money on something this...wacky? Especially when publishing-employee salaries are (mostly) not great, author advances are (often) pretty low, and authors are (sometimes) given very little in terms of marketing/publicity support from their publishing house because...the houses can't afford it?

Expand full comment
45 more comments...

No posts