Today the Washington Post announce it is discontinuing Book World, the Sunday stand-alone book review. Major newspapers have been decreasing and hacking stand alone book reviews since before the LA Times lost its in 07. The reason behind it is lack of advertising dollars on the part of publishers.
As it happens, Book World never garnered much advertising from publishers, who generally spend very little on newspaper ads. Publishers now focus their marketing dollars on cooperative agreements with chain bookstores, which guarantee that certain books will receive prominent display at the front of stores. Source: Washington Post
Last week I learned that one of my favorite bookstore chains Waldenbooks closed tons of stores, including one here in Duluth, GA and one in North Carolina. I had clients booked to do instore events at both stores.
So my question is: if book review ad revenue is being lost to bookstore chains that are one day away from closing entirely, then was focusing your marketing efforts on stores a good business move?
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