Book publicity & author branding
Book publicity & author branding
The economic benefits of authoring a book in 2024 are downstream from the author’s “brand” or reputation. The preeminence of an author’s brand wasn’t always the case. Authors of more modest renown were once as attractive to major publishers — in their own way - as big name authors. But dating from the entry of Amazon into publishing and the changes in how the business worked that ensued, publishers have focused on the author’s brand and audience of likely purchasers to limit the downside risk of publishing an unsuccessful title.
The “numbers” for authors begins with the advance on future sales publishers pay them upon signing. Brand authors are better able to garner larger advances. But the upside economics of writing a book also extend to income streams that sometimes exist beyond the book. Depending on the scale of the author’s brand and following, these revenues can exceed, sometimes greatly, those directly related to exploiting the print and various ancillary rights connected to the title (e.g. audio, dramatic, foreign language). In such a case the new book and the publicity associated with its publication serve as a promotional effort for a separate vehicle through which the author is monetizing his brand.
Examples of potential revenue streams that exist beyond the book include speaking engagements, and book-related “movements” like Critica, developed by BMM Worldwide for scientist Sara Gorman based on her first book, Denying to the Grave.
Another example is the publishing venture BMM developed for UK journalist Melanie Phillips backed by investor Peter Thiel. Interested authors should reference our Brand Development Practice when reaching out.
Author brands can be grown and adjusted. BMM Worldwide president, Suzanne Balaban hails from Scribner Books where she looked after novelist Stephen King ✍️. Before Mr. King published Lisey’s Story, he was known as one of the most successful authors in the world who writes horror stories often adapted for film. But after publishing Lisey’s Story, King was more often spoken of as a literary novelist in the mold of James Joyce.
What changed? Steven King’s brand.
As if by magic, Janet Maslin opened her review of Lisey’s Story in the New York Times:
“This sentence is about to do the unthinkable: connect James Joyce and Stephen King.”
Janet Maslin’s words constituted a branding milestone for Mr. King. It represented the culmination of his move to Scribner and the literary branding genius of Suzanne Balaban.
Today, BMM Worldwide’s Brand Development practice works alongside our Publicity practice like a literary advertising agency 🚀.
While our Publicity practice 🗣 conducts campaigns to secure unpaid organic book endorsements, our Brand Development practice 🚀 assists authors with their: brands, markets, positioning, marketing platforms, networks, followings, and revenue opportunities. Depending upon the author’s objectives and financial resources, our methods include: brand work-ups, market segmentation, digital marketing, digital advertising, book launch events, book cover design, author playlists, book movements, and commercial ventures
Brand work-ups entail segmenting the author’s readership, developing positioning and key brand parameters, supporting the author in selecting branding vehicles that align with their goals and budget, and producing a creative brief for use in soliciting bids from vendors.
BMM Worldwide negotiates with, retains, transacts with, and oversees the work of the vendors and uses the finalized brand parameters to guide their work. The vendors express the brand parameters in physical form across the different branding vehicles, from headshot photography and TikTok teasers, to branded collateral for book launch events and Facebook advertisements. We work with the premier vendors in the world, leverage globalization and our platform in the cloud to coordinate their efforts, and secure advantages on costs.
The author branding projects below comprise a representative sample:
🎥 Trailer for Shira Nayman’s time travel novel River (Guernica Editions).
🎥 Trailer for In Sickness, Harvard University scientist Barrett Rollins’ shocking memoir (Post Hill).
🎥 Trailer for emBooks, the Peter Thiel-backed, new publishing company we launched to re-position UK opinion celebrity, Melanie Phillips. Following in the footsteps of the gatekeeper disintermediations of celebrity journalists Andrew Sullivan and Glenn Beck, emBooks garnered national headlines in the UK and published an international bestseller in its first month of operation - Islamophilia, by Douglas Murray. To assist Ms. Phillips in bringing her publishing company into the world, BMM contributed:
🌈 business concept development 🗄 legal and accounting 📈 financial projections 💵 entity capitalization 🫂 executive management 🎥 brand development ™️ trademark registration 📕 product development 🎉 launch event production 🗣 venture and book publicity 🎯 and marketing
🔬 Critica, a book movement to amplify the ideas introduced by Drs. Sara and Jack Gorman in Denying To The Grave, a New Yorker Magazine, Scientific American, and Atlantic featured book about the psychology of making health and security decisions published by Oxford University Press. Summing up their experience, the father-daughter scientists wrote:
“Suzanne and Elliot were a delight to work with in every way. They transformed out book into a real movement that’s opened up opportunities beyond what we ever thought possible. We thoroughly enjoyed working with them. We can’t thank them enough.
☁️ Social media for the Bill Clegg-agented novel The Likely World by Melanie Conroy Goldman.
🗣 Digital marketing for Harvard Prof. Ruth Wisse’s memoir, Free As A Jew (Wicked Son).
📕 Cover for When She Comes Back by Ronit Plank (Motina).
🗣 Social media for A Promise of Sweet Tea by Pinchas Blitt (Azrieli)
🎵 Playlist for Eric Metaxas’ memoir, Fish Out of Water (Regnery)