Earlier this week Bookswarm’s Simon Appleby presented to an audience of over 100 Scottish publishers on the subject of Effective Digital Marketing for Independent Publishers at the Publishing Scotland Conference, held in conjunction with the Bookseller’s Association. In a well-received 35-minute talk he showed a rapid-fire succession of affordable digital campaigning ideas using a range of available tools; he also looked at some of the features of successful author and publisher websites, and discussed the value of HTML 5 to presenting long-form content digitally, which should be of great interest to publishers.
Here are some highlights from the Twitter coverage:
“Things that were once hard are now easy; things that were once expensive are now cheap” Simon Appleby on #digital #marketing #ScotBookConf
— BrightRed Publishing (@_BrightRed) March 4, 2014
SA says go for infogr.am, Creativist, Vine and Reddit in the first instance #scotbookconf
— catrionamcox (@CatrionaMCox) March 4, 2014
Ensure responsiveness to ensure a happy user journey #scotbookconf
— P Ray Murray (@praymurray) March 4, 2014
Appleby has a crystal ball. This is what it says: think about – use – HTML5 and longform content #scotbookconf
— StirPublishing (@stirpublishing) March 4, 2014
SA impressed by #kissmefirst Facebook trailer. Indeed, I much enjoyed it last year, I entered comp for free copy immediately. #scotbookconf
— Laura Jones (@laurafjones) March 4, 2014
Appleby: important to create strong calls to action – use the website, but for what purpose? #scotbookconf
— StirPublishing (@stirpublishing) March 4, 2014
Bad news from Simon Appleby- “Viral content needs to be good.” #scotbookconf
— Robert Noorda (@RobertNoorda) March 4, 2014
Digital marketing of children’s books – focus on the buyer, not the reader. Advice from Bookswarm at #scotbookconf
— Georgia Walters (@georgiaewalters) March 4, 2014
Appleby: Whatever the digital platform, the content still has to be compelling and good if you want people to share and use it #scotbookconf
— PLS (@PLSlicensing) March 4, 2014
SA: ‘Be aware of internet memes.’ Couldn’t agree more. Only half the room has heard of Reddit though, slightly worrying. #scotbookconf
— Laura Jones (@laurafjones) March 4, 2014
Appleby: it can be an act of hubris to assume you can create community #scotbookconf #socialmediamyths
— StirPublishing (@stirpublishing) March 4, 2014
Appleby: Faber’s Flickr sets perfect for poetry nerds and perfect for typography nerds. Should suit #stirpublishing then! #scotbookconf
— StirPublishing (@stirpublishing) March 4, 2014
Simon Appleby suggests Vine rather than book trailers for book promo #scotbookconf
— Kate Nash (@katenashagent) March 4, 2014
Appleby: using the open source WordPress platform is crucial to Bookswarm’s business #scotbookconf Our #stirpublishing students all use it
— StirPublishing (@stirpublishing) March 4, 2014
You can download Simon’s presentation in PowerPoint format (.pptx) – but please note as it contains lots of images and some videos it’s 109MB and may take a little while to download.
The conference also featured keynotes from Jamie Byng and Stephen page, breakout sessions for publishers and booksellers, market data and analysis, a panel chaired by Bookseller editor Philip Jones and much more.
Photo credit: Sandy Young Photography