Mark Fenton-Jones has a good report in this weekend’s Australian Financial Review (pages 16 & 17) about Annette Sym and her Symply Too Good cookbooks. Annette has been a great supporter of newsagents, participating in store openings and other promotions. Newsagents give her books a prominent position in store. I like them because they fit well between cookbooks and health – to categories we have just brought together.
I am often contacted by independent publishers through this blog. They say I am against small titles because I want a certain level of return. What Annette and her team have done with her titles is create a respected brand which consumers seek out. While still a small publisher, her titles earn their place by selling. Her story is one which other small independent publishers ought to read.
Why is it that the importance of creating stong branding is so often forgotten?
Newsagents arent against small titles, they’re against titles that dont give a return.
Small publishers need to take more intuative approaches to gaining market share. They cant employ the same techniques as the majors and we all know and accept that. In this respect they are not so different to newsagents. Newsagents cant compete with certain aspects of our major competitors, so we find innovative ways of holding our share in the market. Independant publishers need to do the same.