Marketing and Promotion
Marketing and promotion encompass several layers. We market and promote Harpeth Road, a brand in itself. Under the Harpeth Road brand, each author and the author’s book list has its own unique brand. Today, we’ll delve into some things we do within the large scale of branding and marketing.
Building our social calendar – off-season and on
It is a priority to ensure readers know what kind of books they’ll get when they read Harpeth Road authors. We share our larger company brand on social media and through our website. We create a social calendar to keep the company at the forefront of our readers. It’s pretty easy to do during our release seasons when new books are coming out. But we can’t slow down during the leaner months, so we create posts that continue to show off what we do and who we are.
Review new book pitches from current authors, meet with agents, etc.
We’re also constantly working to build our brand further. In doing so, we sift through tons of book pitches, looking for that diamond of a story that fits Harpeth Road’s overarching style. We read submissions (see our post on submissions), collaborate with authors who might be close, offer feedback, chat with agents about what we’re looking for, and read submissions from agents who think they might have a book that would work for us.
Reviews, ARCs
During the release seasons (usually a month in each of the following: Spring, Summer, Winter, and Fall), we’re busy sending out advanced review copies (ARCs) of our novels to reviewers who will be ready to spread the word once the book is released. At Harpeth Road, we have a First Look team of reviewers. We create, collect, and send out all the marketing information on our upcoming releases, build each book’s reviewer list, and send out ARC copies.
Metadata research & comp authors
On the back end of marketing our books, we do metadata research and create “comp author” collections (authors whose books would be on the same bookshelf as our authors in a bookstore). This research assists us with positioning the book in the correct places online to give it the best opportunity for success. Our research also helps to drive our SEO and ads for that novel.
Build marketing plan and set up blog tours
Harpeth Road builds a comprehensive marketing plan for every title, including keyword searches, categories, outreach, and other search engine information required to get the book in front of readers. Toward the middle to the end of our editing process, we also build a marketing plan and set up blog tours.
Build Sell Sheets, add novels to the catalog
We build a “sell sheet” for every novel that includes information about the book and the author, including any praise, chart positions, etc. We include this sell sheet in our Harpeth Road titles catalog, which we also share with publishing and media professionals.
Send new titles to foreign rights and TV and film agents
Once we have the sell sheet, we use it to share the book with our TV and film contacts, our foreign rights team, and other media outlets. Our agents at 2 Seas Agency have sold our books to over ten foreign publishers. That means select novels are translated into different languages and sold in foreign countries. We also pitch to film and TV agents. We signed a film and TV shopping agreement for one of our titles and continue to champion our books in the film market.
Work with our foreign rights team on current titles
We share sales data and updates with our foreign rights team to ensure they have the most current information to pitch our titles. We provide reports with data such as notable chart positions, national mentions, and number of units sold across all formats, to name a few. We update them with our sell sheets and new book covers.
While this isn’t an exhaustive list of what we’re doing behind the scenes in terms of marketing and promotion, we hope it has given you a glimpse into our passion for Harpeth Road’s novels and our authors.