Marketing

Having recently celebrated its 200th year, John Wiley & Sons Inc. is among the oldest independent publishers in the world. You don’t survive two centuries without an ability to change with the times. That, says Christine Dunn—the focus of this month’s Marketing Interview—is a core strength of Wiley’s. “Wiley hasn’t been around 200 years by not trying new things every now and then,” says Dunn, director of marketing for Wiley’s professional and trade division, home to such popular brands as “For Dummies,” “Frommers,” “CliffsNotes” and “Betty Crocker.” “… When you have the luxury of [working for] an organization that runs smoothly doing things it

HarperCollins Publishers has announced the creation of an in-house Internet broadcast studio. The studio, modeled on a newsroom environment, has been developed to create author videos for sales, marketing and promotional opportunities, says the publisher. Marisa Benedetto, formerly of the Wall Street Journal, has been named executive producer of the studio. HarperCollins plans to produce about 500 videos—which will be available on HarperCollins.com author and title pages—per year. The publisher’s publicity and marketing teams will use the content to promote authors on blogs and Web sites, as well as to the media and to bookstores. “The studio allows us to be a

Who is God? What is worth fighting or dying for? Can different religions coexist? These were just a few of the questions that French filmmakers Jules and Gédéon Naudet set out to answer in meeting with some of the world’s most revered spiritual leaders for their television documentary “In God’s Name,” which aired on CBS in December 2007. The Naudets garnered worldwide recognition in 2002 for their documentary “9/11”—recipient of that year’s Emmy for Best Documentary and a result of their own experiences in Lower Manhattan on Sept. 11, 2001. In the several years that followed Sept. 11., the Naudets began to question

Earlier this year, Richard Rhorer, marketing director at Henry Holt and Company, chose the online social-networking site MeetUp.com—on which visitors meet around a shared interest, first online and then in person—to help better connect the publisher with its readers. To help spread the word about an upcoming release, “What Was Lost,” he used the online tool to invite Web-savvy book lovers to come together at a Manhattan bar with the book’s author, Catherine O’Flynn. Attendees were mailed galleys of the book ahead of time, and about 50 people showed up for the event. “Getting 50 people to attend an event for an unknown author

If you look at “Tom Cruise: An Unauthorized Biography” as an equation—say, America’s most controversial A-lister + one of the world’s most titillating celebrity biographers + a secretive, litigious religion (+ as a bonus, a Writers Guild strike that has much of the entertainment biz on its heels)—you might guess that a publisher needs simply to sit back and let the money roll in. But that’s just never the case, is it? Yes, the book’s publisher, St. Martin’s Press, is reveling in the eye of what we’ll call a perfect storm of self-perpetuating buzz with the Andrew Morton-penned celeb-bio. Yes, prelaunch reports

Travel-guidebook publisher Frommer’s and Whatsonwhen, a leading provider of online travel products and services—both John Wiley and Sons imprints—have created the Borders Trip Recommender for Borders’ new Travel Kiosk. The kiosk has been installed in a Borders concept store in Ann Arbor, Mich., and will be rolled out nationwide over the next several months. The Borders Trip Recommender consists of several digital travel-information and -planning tools that will allow customers to plan a vacation that matches their interests and budget, and get recommendations on destinations around the world, as well as suggestions for guidebooks with more detailed information. The Trip Recommender prompts the

Marji Ross can find a winner. As president and publisher of Regnery Publishing, a publisher of politically conservative titles, she has developed a formula for what will sell. According to Ross, the company regularly sees a higher-than-average majority of its titles become best-sellers, and last year, Regnery landed four of its books on The New York Times Best-Seller List. Ross will join other publishing executives for the session “Today’s Book Launch: Surefire Strategies for Success” at the Publishing Business Conference and Expo, March 10-12, in New York City (www.PublishingBusiness.com). At the session, she will share the multimedia marketing strategies that have helped make

Simon & Schuster (S&S) Children’s Publishing and Ball State University (BSU) have partnered to bring S&S authors and illustrators into more than 30,000 schools across the country through live, interactive Web broadcasts. The new program, called “Electronic Author Visits” (EAV), will utilize BSU’s existing “Electronic Field Trips” program to allow students and teachers to interact directly with authors and illustrators through live video, discussion forums and downloadable learning activities. According to S&S, the program intends to feature authors targeted to all grade levels, from picture-book authors and illustrators to middle-grade and young-adult novelists. S&S has formed a three-year agreement with BSU, and plans

HarperCollins imprint HarperTeen has partnered with MySpace to launch MySpace/HarperTeen. This new, interactive, online community provides teen readers with an opportunity to connect with one another on message boards and forums, as well as to interact with authors via author blogs and live chats. A “Weekend Read” bulletin informs readers of new releases, and, every Friday, users receive a book recommendation. Those who read the recommended title can then discuss it on the message boards the following week. (http://www.MySpace.com/harperteen) “With millions of teens spending their time online every day, it makes perfect sense for us to partner with MySpace to build

Acup of tea and a book: It’s a dream date for many readers, and Random House Inc. has found a way to take advantage of that. The publishing giant has teamed up with tea company Celestial Seasonings to create a Web-based book club, open to anyone who drinks tea. And it seems most readers do. The book club, “Adventure at Every Turn” (www.CelestialSeasoningsBookClub.com), was created after a Celestial Seasonings survey showed that 70 percent of tea drinkers claimed that reading books is their favorite pastime. The tea company chose Random House as a partner for its club because it lends the program credibility, says