Book Publishing & Politics
The media coverage of the 2024 election isn’t doing any favors for publishers.
Hello from somewhere on I-95 in Virginia. I have a few hours left in the car, so I thought I’d write a bit about why the media coverage of the 2024 election affects book publishing. I’ve worked through elections from 1996-2020 and have been the publicist for several political/politically adjacent figures who wrote books, including Ann Richards, Al Franken, Michael Cohen, Alan Dershowitz, Christine Pelosi, Dennis Kucinich, and RFK, Jr. I also did some political consulting in 2023/early 2024 and spent some time in DC in conservative circles (full disclosure: I am a registered Independent, but lean towards moderate Democrat). I’ve also worked with political media for quite some time.
Publishers will face two problems in the coming months. First, they must contend with wall-to-wall coverage of the 2024 election, making it hard to promote nonfiction that isn’t political. Second, media entities are shedding brand equity at an alarming pace in the name of clicks for stories about President Biden’s age and debate performance. The latter is what I want to focus on because publishers don’t pay as much attention to consumer sentiment as they should.
In case you missed it, President Biden’s debate performance was less than stellar. It was worrisome. However, how the media has behaved in the aftermath would make one think he croaked on stage. This is not a piece defending or trashing either candidate. Instead, it is to point out a problem: If The New York Times, CNN, Washington Post, MSNBC, and others continue to go hard with the “Biden Needs to Step Aside” narrative, they will lose subscribers and viewers rapidly. The consensus on Threads, which heavily leans Democratic, is that the media is doing a disservice by ignoring former President Donald Trump’s lies and misdeeds in favor of clicks about Biden’s age. In other words, consumers are tapping out, and with that comes fewer eyeballs on the little book coverage in mainstream media. If publishers aren’t paying attention to this, they have no one to blame but themselves.
The New York Times opinion section has been especially egregious regarding President Biden’s ability to run for office, and people are canceling their subscriptions because of it. CNN did not do a great job with the first debate between Biden and Trump, raising many viewers' ire. It is not that people only want to hear positive things about Biden; it is about the optics the media is pushing when they pile on negative stories about a sitting president during one of the most consequential elections of our time. This hurts the brand equity of media, which, in turn, makes it less effective to promote books there. Never mind the newsroom drama at The Washington Post and Daily Beast playing out publicly. There is a significant case of media fatigue, so publishers must consider certain media entities' effectiveness when reviews and interviews are at stake. Consumers don’t care enough about book coverage to keep paying for a subscription.
Publishing books during an election year is never easy, but this year could be the hardest yet. In the past, it was easy to blame an election for a lack of book coverage. The media landscape has diminished so much that wall-to-wall political coverage is condensed and, therefore, dominates. It is less about consumers not seeing book coverage (because they won’t see it in meaningful ways) and more about the discoverability of books and getting people to buy them. Sure, we could argue that books are a good distraction from politics, but that argument falters when so much is on the line (Supreme Court, anyone?). It is also the first election season since the fracture of social media, which adds complexity to marketing books.
In sports, when plays stop working, coaches try new ones. Imagine book publishing in game seven of the NBA Finals with one minute left to make the winning shot. That is where the industry is right now: it can win or lose based on its next play. During an election season, that play needs to be the most effective Team Publishing has ever designed. It has everything to do with relying on the media less and connecting directly with consumers more. Marketing books works if the winning play is fully executed, which sometimes requires change. My question to the industry is: If not now, when?
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Spot on! As an independent publisher, we choose not to schedule releases between mid-September to end of December during presidential election years. We made this decision after the 2016 elections. It's predicated on the same things you note above combined with the wisdom of GenX classic, "War Games." The only way to win is to not play the game! We can't execute at the level requried to break through the noise, so our resources are better allocated to how and when and where we CAN execute well.
We've found knowing our strengths and weaknesses helps us make smart(er) decisions about our marketing and PR strategies for each title instead of trying to mimic the Bigs.
A fascinating and timely analysis, Kathleen. I have a new nonfiction book coming out and the publisher and I discussed at length whether to come out ahead of the election or wait until it's all blown through. He opted to wait, so the book will be out in January 2025. Of course, who knows where the media coverage will be fixated then!