The Emma Press at Andersen Press: Week One

As part of the development of the Emma Press’ children’s publishing programme (funded by Arts Council England), Yen-Yen Lu will be undertaking a six-week work placement at Andersen Press to learn more about children’s publishing on a larger scale and writing a weekly blog on her findings! 

Andersen Press is based in the Penguin Random House building, though they are independent. I knew this before I arrived but I still had a few moments of panic as I waited in the reception, thinking “oh God I’m in the completely wrong place and now I’m going to be extremely late”. Luckily, this moment passed when Sarah, Head of Marketing, came down to meet me and we headed to the office. I met the rest of the team, including Paul and Alice in the Publicity department, who I’d be working with that day.

We spent the day preparing copies of a new book to send out to schools, libraries, bookshops, and literary organisations, along with a letter and info sheet, as part of their publicity campaign for the book. This was something that I’d had some experience with at the Emma Press when I emailed various places about whether they might like a review copy or if they’d be interested in stocking the book or having an event with the author at their school or library. However, at Andersen Press, I learned that they usually send copies of the book directly to people, rather than emailing first. Emma and I had recently been discussing this strategy so I asked a bit more about their process and how they decide which places to send the book to. I learned that they use different lists for different types of books, depending on what kind of book it was and who it might appeal to.

I found this interesting and thought it could definitely be something to take back to the Emma Press. We similarly put together a publicity plan for each book, but having curated lists ready seemed much more efficient and would be quite straightforward to put together as we already had lists of contacts. I particularly wondered if this could be something to do with Once Upon a Time in Birmingham and future titles about Birmingham, sending copies directly to schools, libraries, and stockists based in Birmingham.

Alice and I discussed some of the pros and cons to both emailing first and sending books directly. On one hand, people could be quite annoyed with getting books out of the blue and perhaps they would have a more positive response if they’d been contacted about the book beforehand. However, it seemed that having curated lists for specific types of books would make it more likely that the person receiving the book would be interested in buying copies of the book. 

It seemed to me that it would definitely be an advantage to sending books out directly. It was the best way to get a feel for the book compared to an email, and a lot more efficient in the long run. Next week, I’m hoping to find out more about how Andersen track the results of their campaign!