This month’s meeting was all about the annual awards and hot tips from those who have won.
The meeting was chaired by PPC chair Anna Frame who said that the Annual Awards are a great chance to shout about your work, get great coverage in the trade press, prizes are a £100 voucher and chance to be included in British Book Awards
The form is now online.
Sample form available on the awards page of the website so you can practise as you will not be able to save the Google Form part way through
Campaigns should show publicist has overcome challengers of gone above and beyond. Not always the biggest selling books. We are interested in how you achieved it as much as what you achieved.
- Anna Frame – PPC Chair & Communications Director at Canongate: an overview of the judging process
- Liz Scott – Freelance publicist: Best YA campaign win for HappyHead by Josh Silver
- Maria Garbutt-Lucero – Publicity Director at Sceptre/Hodder: Best generic campaign win for ESEA Lit Fest
- Naomi Mantin – Head of PR, 4th Estate: Best Hardback Fiction campaign win for The List by Yomi Adegoke
Maria Garbutt-Lucero
Won best generic campaign for her work on ESEA Lit Fest
Be very clear about your aims and statement refer back to it. Highlight setbacks and pivots. V. clear about budget, spare time, very effective in way she used her time.
With her campaign Maria wanted to signal a demand to the publishing industry that everyone wants to hear more of these kinds of stories and that they hadn’t been very well represented in the past. It was more compelling to show the community and have these celebrations than a load of stats. It was a way to drive book sales. Once the first lit fest at Foyles it turned out to be outsell Granta book festival. Maria wanted to make a statement by selling out quickly and have a solid platform to build on and deliver on financial targets – and pay all speakers as well as chairs and ensure long lasting change.
Top tips:
- Keep a log of the campaign as it is all going to help with filling out the frm.
- Shorten words to make the most of the word count!
- Show very clearly how you delivered in your aims.
- Having other people speak on your behalf and also projecting into the future – where is it going to go – a sense of optimism and growth.
- Be concise in how you cover the basis of the campaign.
- Sell your campaign. And show your enthusiasm. Also really handy for your CV!
Liz Scott, Freelancer children’s and YA publicist also the PPC Chair
Josh Silver’s HappyHead
The book is a YA LGBTQ+ thriller. Themes of the book are mental health and love story. Weight of expectations on teens. Was a debut and part of the LGBTQ+ community. Was an actor who retrained as a mental health nurse so he could talk authentically about the themes.
Split campaign into 4 main aims to maximise north west connections to embed in northern arts community with focus on launch event. To build author profile in YA community more widely – so she focused on panel events, festivals and conferences to build relationships. Ensure targeted exposure to reader with a regional focus on book awards to build librarian support as regional awards are administrated by regional libraries. Final aim was to be on the ground point of contact and support for the author who has additional needs and provide protection and advice when talking about personal themes and experiences. There were already high expectations when Liz started but was also a passion project and Liz identified way in which Liz could use Josh in the NW. As they started at the beginning of the campaign it became evident that Josh was a huge charismatic asset so Liz wanted to get him in front of audiences as much as possible.
What about the form caught the attention:
Think about the Structure of the form. Liz used campaign aims as bullet points to make it as easy as possible for the judges to see what the aims were. For the campaign statement, echoed those directly and went into detail on each in turn to make it as easy as possible for the success of the campaigns to be related to the aims. Another area of focus was how Liz delivered the aims on the campaign’s own terms – working with tiny budget and small publisher so she was never going to compete with Heartstopper for example. It can’t be everyone on TikTok but can show how the campaign delivered on the aims which Liz set out on the form so a real focus on the campaigns own aims rather than caught up in sales figures. Finally, Liz really wanted to look at what she had personally delivered and the tangible impact Liz had had as opposed to someone else so for Liz this was galvanising the regional book community and her personal contacts and really built that around publications and this might now have been such a big focus for the another publicist and a really tangible impacts.
Personally, she did identify that she might submit and so Liz has a document and folder for everything to refer back to. Any links or dates or features she keeps it in one place to make submission easier and just getting it all into shape.
Really highlight the multiple different audiences you are speaking to as a children’s publicist. Your main target might not be the reader, but the parent or teacher or librarian and highlight the variety that there has to be. The ingenuity that you need. Might not have reems of review coverage but lots of other successes.
Top tip
- Think about what your personal impact has been on a campaign and how your personally made a different and how that might have been different with another publicist.
- Being able to take the time to see it all in one place is hugely valuable and focusses your mind on what you have achieved.
Naomi Mantin
Best Hardback Fiction campaign win for The List by Yomi Adegoke
First top tip – check your criteria! Originally submitted as debut but she had written a different kind of thing before.
Page turning commercial literary crossover written by an author mostly known for her non-fiction work Saying Your Name.
Campaign aims were fourfold – generate high profile coverage with a long tail that drove pre orders, make the book the most talked about debut, develop profile away from journalists non-fiction and create an unmissable word of mouth campaign which goes beyond the book pages and sparks conversation.
When thinking of her aims especially making a bestseller which was driven by external forces and she knew if she was going to make this a success she would need to deliver on those. But the other aims were driven by what Naomi wanted and what she knew about the author’s work. Concrete outcomes she could create. Establishing Yomi as someone who is a cultural commentator. When writing the PPC forms to think retrospectively about what you actually achieved and whether you can talk about that in your aims. When doing the form she filled out the coverage firm and felt that focused her on what the scope of the campaign was. It also purely from a confidence point of view to take stock of what you achieved. Sucha helpful exercise.
When structuring campaign statement worked backwards form her aims to work out how each was reflected. Started with strategy and did a paragraph on that. She only got one highlight on the year ahead so realised that should wouldn’t; get something each month so her focus was on May as the big launch month. Rest of the form was divided into the pillars of the campaign which helped her achieve those goals – publications she wanted to target – like beauty and fashion places, cultural publications like Dazed. Paragraph on how to sensitively handle the themes in the book. Another section was about how she used her budget and how she used it for events, as they were key. Each event felt like a social media moment such as an influencer brunch.
Focus on showing the scope. Collecting as you go. Have a chunk of your workings so you can show as you go.
Top tip:
- Do read the categories! Think about the campaign statement like a Wishlist in reverse what did you want and how did you get it and relate everything back to the aims and if not, cut it.
A great exercise in self-worth. The lows can be low so celebrate the highs. Publicists are such a generous and supportive group of people and it’s great to celebrate them
Acknowledge where things haven’t been smooth.
Anna Frame
PPC Chair & Communications Director at Canongate
Seeing where something hasn’t gone right and the publicity has found an ew way through will have a huge impact on judging.
Do double check the category although the PPC do check and move where needed and let the publicist know. Please do if you were 2 years of fewer in the industry eligible for the newcomer award.
Don’t be afraid to show us the challenges. It’s a hard job