Meanwhile, on the corporate side, the publishing industry is not pumping advertising dollars or sponsorship dollars into these deserving sites any more than they are supporting newspaper book review sections or even many of their own authors.

Why doesn’t the book biz take advertising and marketing seriously?

Advertising is not the enemy. Web sponsorship of sites like Readerville.com or the BookReporter.com is not a waste of money. Empowering authors is not a mistake.

Contrary to what most publishers think, advertising does not consist of putting an ad that consists of a book cover and quotes in the pages of the New York Times Book Review. Marketing does not begin and end with using co-op dollars to make sure a book is on a table in the chain stores for four weeks. It’s not creative thinking to see what book is already getting good word of mouth and running column ads in the New Yorker. And it’s not enough to buying an author a $750 website for a book and then just let the site sit there - waiting for people to come.

Good advertising and marketing takes proactive, creative thought. It involves serious planning and a unique approach. It takes a professional, dedicated team of trained creatives who work as hard on their media campaigns as authors do on their novels. It takes a strategy, a breakthrough idea, not just an art department putting together a glorified sell sheet.

Is there any other industry that ignores the benefits of advertising and marketing to the extent that the publishing industry does? Is there any other industry that professes – almost proudly – that 80% of their products do not earn back the amount of money that has been invested to bring that product to fruition?

The argument against advertising and sponsorship is that books are low-ticket items. Advertising is too expensive. Each book is unique, therefore you can't brand books, and therefore advertising doesn't work.

Once could go on and on with the negatives, but it's very easy to say something won't work. That way you never have to roll up your sleeves, open your wallet and try it.

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M.J. Rose is an author, journalist, and – yes – former creative director at an ad agency.

All Illustrations from www.corbis.com
Photomodified by Oates

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