Thursday, January 31, 2008

Traditional Marketing is 40% Less Important

The editors at Publishing Trends have annouced the results of their recent online marketing survey which indicates that 40% of book publicists believe traditional marketing makes less of an impact than two years ago. The Publishing Trends survey reveals that nearly all book publicists (70.9%) claim to devote up to half their resources to online marketing, but that the New York Times and Publishers Weekly still make the most impact when it comes to publicizing new titles.

Publishing Trends emailed the survey early in January to publicists at publishers, independent publicity firms, and agencies, and sent a companion survey to members of the book-related media, both online and off. Though most publicists polled say they devote up to 50% of their resources to online marketing, 90% of the publicists working at publishing houses say they should be doing more.

While their publicity counterparts did not reach a consensus, media respondents consider online marketing a “must” for Technology, Travel, Business, Sci-fi, and Health titles. When asked to describe in their own words what the online book marketing world will look like in five years respondents predicted “smarter, more targeted practices,” “all authors MUST blog and have scheduled chats,” and “huge increase in digital content.”

What are the obstacles keeping publicists from doing more online marketing? Not having enough time to explore it (67.1%), cost (52.9%), lack of technology know-how (31.4%), and luddite bosses (5.7%) rank the highest.

For further information or a copy of the article, go to publishingtrends.com.

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