PPC Monthly Meeting, Trade Press – March 2024

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Emma Bradshaw, The Bookseller’s Association

Emma.bradshaw@booksellers.org.uk

  • The Bookseller’s Association advocates for booksellers so everything they do needs to be about the bookseller.
  • Membership is across both the UK and Ireland and includes 95& of all retailers including Waterstone’s WH Smiths and Blackwell’s as well as smaller indies.
  • Emma looks after Books are My Bag which connects publishers and booksellers.
  • They have 50k followers on X, 34k followers on Insta and 39k Followers on Facebook
  • #ChooseBookshops is the campaign hashtag, and they send a fortnightly newsletter. Do let Emma know if you currently don’t receive this and would like to be added.
  • The main places where publicists can work with the BA are campaigns such as Indie Book of the Month where publishers submit books for consideration, Summer, and Christmas books catalogues where publishers again can submit, and the Indie Bok Awards and Irish Book Week which celebrates all things books and bookshops in Ireland.
  • Independent Bookshop Week is a great one for publicists to think of
  • The week is a celebration of everything bookshops do with their local communities and takes place in mid-June around Father’s Day.
  • Publishers can be involved by offering signed stock to bookshops, and by outing on events with bookshops In fact any event happening at that time can be publicised by the BA it doesn’t have to be a special Indie Bookshop Week event. Just tag the BA and they will amplify across their social media. Another great idea of guest bookselling where an author turns bookseller for a day or a few hours and can make for a great photo opportunity.
  • Indie Twinning is where indie publishers and indie bookshops can partner with signed stock and events. For a week of bespoke activity. They can work with small budgets and do things such as playlists.
  • Final option is the Bulletin. This is £50 per item enclosed and goes out to 800 members, publishers tend to offer things like proofs or POS material. There is a debut author Bulletin which offers similar for £125.

Sian Bailey and Alice Kemp-Habib, The Bookseller

Alice.kemp-habib@thebookseller.com

Sian is being replaced by Alice after the Easter break. She covers the Morning News Briefing and the News Review pages. Their priority is online news rather than print.

They also cover announcements if someone has died, prizes and issues of the day in news.

It is helpful if rights deals can be with them by midday the day before you would like the deal announced. If it’s a really big deal and an exclusive they will try and work as quickly as possible and it’s also fine for deals to come in with a slightly longer lead time but not more than a day or so as things get lost as they get 20-40 rights deals come through to them each day

When sending through rights deals, please include the following information:

  • Who the editor is
  • who the book bought from i.e. via agent?
  • A high res colour image

The best outcomes are when you are able to be flexible, are selective in what you sent – don’t send them everything but let them know which are the huge deals for your organisation. Even if that is a smaller deal for a big publisher but a big deal for a smaller publisher and they will do their best to include it.

For print, press day is Wednesday and the further in advance they have things for this, the better.

Rights deals in print are v tricky however there are only 4 spots.

Bookseller Daily is the daily email bulleting from the bookseller during the books fairs

Send through details a week before the Book Fair. Sending an exclusive makes it more likely to be included.

Please do not send PDFs. But press released in Word or in the body of an email are fine.

In office 3 days per week

Flexible to meet with publishers which are useful for planning ahead

The news team do not commission interviews or features

They work 8.30am to 4.30pm. The 1st hour is v busy don’t call them then! But after 9.30/10 is between. If you want to be in the next days’ newsletter they need the PR before noon.

Nicholas Clee Bookbrunch

nick@bookbrunch.co.uk

  • Team is Neil Denny, Jo Henry, Lucy Nathan and Stephen Williams
  • If you email editor@bookbrunch.co.uk  you will reach all three of them: Nick ,Neil and Lucy.
  • They put pout a daily newsletter at 9/9.30 am every day. They also do a monthly interview on a Thursday with someone in the trade. Not an author! They do carry articles by authors, however.
  • Lucy writes a news feature once a month and authors Q&A
  • Please send everything by lunchtime the day before. Later and it is harder to include.
  • No PDFS please
  • They will cover as much as they can/ This includes rights deals, Prizes, personnel stories, news stories.

Alice O’Keefe, Bookseller,  Books Editor

alice.okeeffe@thebookseller.com

3 main routes to get into the Bookseller, Monthly Book Previews and Category Spotlights, Debuts of the Year and interviews

Monthly Book Previews

The Bookseller runs monthly previews in the print magazine and online for New Titles: Fiction, New Titles: Non-Fiction, Children’s Preview, Discover and the Paperback Preview. Send details straight to the editor

Category spotlights include:

  • Food & Drink
  • Audiobooks
  • Non-Book Products
  • Art, Architecture & Photography
  • Humour

In addition, the Country/Regional Focus and Market Focus areas include:

  • Ireland
  • Wales
  • Scotland
  • Northern Powerhouse
  • Travel
  • University Presses

The details of when these are is  shown on the Bookseller Calendar – and should be send to Katie Fraser katie.fraser@thebookseller.com

To be notified when it’s time to submit titles for our Country Focuses, Market Focuses, and Category Spotlights, you can sign up here.

Author profiles are commissioned by Alice. Only cover 1st format and need to be confirmed 3 months ahead of publication. Pitch 4 months ahead but not too early. She is current doing September 2024

Open to a range of genres but they are unlikely to interview an author who is mid-series

Say when proofs are available.

Key only reads hard copies. Name of author and title in the subject header of the email along with the month published. Attach the AI and PR. She prefers and AI though.

Debuts of the year

More flexible on timings can be all different months. But 3 months ahead so pitch 4 months ahead. She gets a lot of pitches but looks at the month as a whole and makes her decisions based on that and can’t come back until she knows which is why you might not hear form her immediately. She will try and come back to everyone.

Interviews 

She hates links. Attach to emails instead.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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