Sharjah Book Authority and NYU Center for Publishing bring regional publishers up to speed

The way readers interact with a publisher’s content online and the massive marketing opportunities that publishers can capitalise on in the virtual space, especially while marketing their books in the Arab region where majority populace use mobile devises to make online purchases was discussed at a workshop titled ‘New Trends in Book Sales’ organised by the Sharjah Book Authority (SBA) today (Sunday) in collaboration with NYU School of Professional Studies (NYUSPS) Center for Publishing. 

In the lead up to the 36th Sharjah International Book Fair (SIBF 2017), which inaugurates this Wednesday, 1 November, at Expo Centre Sharjah, NYUSPS brought Lane Jantzen, VP Penguin Random House, to address a gathering of publishers from the Arab region and the world.  

Welcoming all attendees to the session, Salim Omar Salim, Director of Sales and Marketing at SBA said: “Staying true to tradition, the SBA is roping participating publishers into activities and discussions that will enhance your skills and expertise, will help you understand the target audience better, and be equipped with marketing mechanisms that will bolster your outreach and sales. The cycle of life, in many ways, begins and ends with books, and we are delighted to be able to offer a platform for learning and exchange to all of you who have dedicated their lives to creating and disseminating knowledge to our present and future generations.”

Keywords, data codes, metadata, search engine optimisation, algorithms, influencers and other online sales and marketing jargon were the main touchpoints in Jantzen’s presentation as he tried to build a comprehensive yet relatable narrative on how online retail has changed and continues to develop and diversify publisher strategy in their quest to reach out to readers with their products.

“As publishers, it is essential for us to define our target reader(s), that is, know exactly who it is who is looking to buy these books. Items like ‘classification’ and ‘category’ which are considered mundane are in fact key in bringing up your books on the top of search results if they are developed and optimised effectively with metadata,” he added.

An interactive exercise followed in which attendees reviewed three titles by three different publishers as they appeared on their online ‘detail page’ avatar, sharing their perceptions of and feedback about what they liked, what they disliked, what they would retain and what they would do differently.   

The latter part of the seminar threw light on identifying the audience, understanding consumer behaviour, title marketing, digital pricing strategies, and the role of sales reps in pushing book sales.

Sara El Nemr, Sales Manager, Random House ME, brought her sales and distribution expertise in the region to the plate, and noted that effective distribution channels are far from desirable here.

“The publishing methods and strategies in the Arab world are quite traditional and have a huge opportunity to benefit from online marketing, especially with Amazon coming into the Middle East soon. Many publishers don’t have their content digitised yet, many need to start working with metadata and other tools of digital publishing. Digitisation is one way of reaching out to readers. The more content we make available to our readers online, the more they will read,” she said noting that among the many genres of books Penguin Random House has a market for in the Middle East, Young Adult books are the most popular.