The Marketing department is responsible for getting a finished book to
the reader. There is a lot of planning: advertising campaigns need
to be carefully thought out and researched in order to have the
best impact. There is also the co-ordination and production
of promotional materials to accompany any new book: this may
involve liaising with outside companies and working within a
fixed budget in order to get the best prices. The Marketing
department will then have to gauge the success of any campaign
and react appropriately. Typical day-to-day activities may include
monitoring and analysing sales reports and then responding to
the results and attending meetings
particularly between the Publicity and Sales departments to
ensure that a campaign is effective and a positive awareness of
a book is reaching the most people.
A strong team approach and good people skills are always useful
in Marketing as roles involve liaising with a large number of both
internal and external people. There is a large amount of
planning various marketing strategies both before and after a
book is published so excellent organisational skills are very
important. It is also important to know how to balance a very
varied workload for the same reason. Knowledge of the
marketplace is invaluable as it will affect the way different books
are promoted.
I got my first job in publishing soon after graduating from university, and moved into Marketing a couple of years later. I was thrilled to see an ad in the Bookseller for a marketing manager position at Transworld because I knew that jobs at Transworld were as rare as hen’s teeth; it’s such a great and successful company that staff turnover is incredibly low. I’ve been in the marketing department ever since, working on campaigns for a huge variety of titles across both the adult Transworld list and the Random House Children Book’s list. A year ago, I took responsibility for new media marketing for the two companies and have recruited two people to work with me on developing our digital activities, primarily online and mobile. This is a very exciting area to work in as technology is moving fast and consumer behaviour is changing equally swiftly. My team handles all our digital marketing, which includes establishing and maintaining an online presence for many of our authors, running online ad campaigns, liaising with Publicity about digital PR initiatives, working with Sales to best promote our titles via the etailers, and managing content on our company sites. I also work closely with the staff of the Group digital division, as we are all striving to maintain the RH Group’s position as an industry leader of digital innovation, from electronic publishing and new format creation to marketing and D2C sales.
What I love about my job is what I love about the publishing industry-the mix of commerce and creativity. We are all incredibly commercially aware, aiming always to increase sales and raise authors’ profiles, and we’re proud to work for a market-leading company. At the same time, the books are at the heart of everything, and each one is a different creative work, demanding a different creative approach from us, and we have a lot of fun with this.
