Online Marketing for the Greater Goods

Who are publishers' websites really selling to?

The online book buying community does most of their shopping (and browsing) at Amazon. This is pretty common knowledge. Yet, most publishers’ websites are set up as a sort of market place, where books can be browsed and purchased. The question was posed in class as to why publishers seem to target book buyers with their websites as opposed to their other audiences (i.e. distributors, book sellers, potential authors, agents, and investors).

I think there are several reasons why publishers treat their websites as interactive catalogues, the most important of which, is that the books speak volumes. The backlist is a publisher’s foundation. A publishing house maintains a level of prestige (or not) based on the books it has published in the past. For this reason, it is important for a publisher to have their books readily searchable on their webpage. Also, when focusing on the front list, one must remember that publishing is a business, and that the book is the product. Book marketers and sellers may try all kinds of tactics and tricks to “sell you a lifestyle” or “sell the author” rather than the author’s work, but when it comes right down to it, the only way a publisher can make money is to sell a book. Hence, the “buy it now” buttons that appear under the image of the book cover on most publisher pages.

Amazon may have most of the book-buying traffic, but publishers have a few things in their favor, as well. Amazon can tell you a lot about a book, but it can only tell you what it has been told. From the book summaries to the blurbs to the recommendations, everything you read on Amazon has been generated by the author, the publisher, or the consumer. When you go to the publisher’s website you will probably find supplementary material about the book, perhaps the transcript of an author interview, a link to a blog about the book, or even videos and book trailers (if you’re into that sort of thing). The publisher benefits from having a real life relationship with the author. After all, the author is a handy tool for selling books.

As for potential authors, the major publishers do not accept submissions from Joe Nobody. The major houses accept manuscripts exclusively from agents; and besides, Joe’s agent doesn’t need to see the submission guidelines at Penguin Books to know what they publish.

Publishers’ websites are geared towards the consumer, but it may not actually be aiming to sell books. In my research for this blog, it could not help but wonder if the publishers were only pretending to market towards the end consumer. I have this theory that publishers set out to show book sellers the potential of their books. The websites, to me, say: “if you buy (and sell) our books, look how great they will look on the shelf.” I see the publishers’ sites as a sort of wildly interactive catalogue where a distributor can go to investigate the full line of goods.

And if it sells a few books in the process, well, that’s nice too.