One of the first things I learned in all the publishing courses I took while doing my studies was that publishers could advertise in newspapers, magazines, the radio, the Internet, of course, on public transportation such as subway trains and buses, but that the one most expensive and elusive form of advertising was the television ad–big time corporations like Proctor and Gamble don’t think twice about revamping their newest campaigns for Glade or the latest windshield cleaner, but because television ads are traditionally so short, and so expensive to make, and the demographics are, while certainly obvious choices for certain types of books (i.e. advertising the new Nora Roberts book on the W Network or Slice; advertising the new Bobby Flay cookbook on the Food Network, etc), still difficult to get through to as with all other product advertising, because you’re never sure if there’s a direct measurement that you can obtain metrics from to demonstrate that a certain television ad for X’s new book led to a demonstrable increase in book sales.
Granted, there are certain books that will sell without the help of TV advertising, because the authors have huge fanbases, but the publisher will always try to get what I like to think of as the “reminder tag on” to a particular television special. Let’s say the broadcast television premiere of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part I is coming up, or let’s think of the documentary about J.K. Rowling that came out around the time that she was about to publish the last book in the Harry Potter series. The publisher would definitely have tried to put in an image or something to say “By the way, don’t forget that the seventh and last installment of the Harry Potter series will be available at your local bookshop on x date at midnight!” probably with the publisher’s logo and a screen capture of the cover image.
Certainly, companies that have a stake in the books they’ve come out with will advertise them on the bottom of the screen during regular programming (this is especially true of the WWE, who does this every time one of their wrestlers comes out with a new book). It makes sense to continue promoting the brand, even if the particular wrestler featured isn’t a regularly scheduled performer on the show any longer, i.e. the promotion they put behind Bret Hart’s book when it came out a few years ago.
In any case, I noticed an ad a week or so ago in which James Patterson plugs his new book, just like that. Something along the lines of “Hi, I’m James Patterson, and here’s my new Alex Cross book. If you don’t buy it, I’ll kill him off” or something along those lines, and then an image of the book cover (no mention of the publisher). It really jarred me, not so much because of why the ad was there (it’s James Patterson; his books sell by the boatload), but why the publisher, Little Brown, decided to go to the expense of putting this television ad together. Certainly it’s something within their budget, but it really did make me scratch my head. As is always the case with book promotions, the authors who need it most don’t seem to get the spotlight, but rather those juggernauts who really don’t need any help selling books (Patterson, Roberts, King, Meyer, etc) are the ones who keep getting it for obvious reasons–they sell boatloads of books. What’s even more interesting is that there’s a mention of Patterson’s website at the end of the video at the bottom, but no mention of the publisher or “available at bookstores now” or any other type of call to action except “buy my book or I’ll axe the main character.” Apparently, he’s been doing these types of televised ads for years, which I had no idea about.
I tried finding the ad, and it turns out that there was another one for “I, Alex Cross” that a YouTube user posted in 2009. Take a look:
admingwyn
