The Brand Radar: Books, brands and Christmas best-sellers

The Booksellers Association have published their annual Christmas Books catalogue. The catalogue is distributed via independent bookshops and is intended to shine a light on books in the context of the Christmas shopping period. It forms part of The Booksellers Association’s ongoing and overarching campaign to support local independent bookshops, and booksellers in general.

Another part of their marketing campaign is the long-running Books Are My Bag campaign. As The Booksellers Association describes it, Books Are My Bag ‘exists to make connections between bookshops and people who value them; to champion the work booksellers do within their communities and to remind people of the joy and benefits of doing their book-shopping with their local bookshop.’

Books Are My Bag features ‘calendar moments’ like Independent Bookshop Week which runs in June and also the ongoing publication of Booktime magazine, which is published throughout the year. In the context of the campaign, The Booksellers Association is a great example of how a trade association can help create focus in their business sector and proactively support their membership.

The Christmas Books catalogue is a handy way of seeing what is going on in the publishing sector at the moment from a licensing perspective. Of course, licensing and publishing have been interlinked for many years with rights flowing each way. A number of high-profile licensed properties started their commercial life in the publishing category and publishers often use licensing as a way of bolstering their lists. This seems to be a relationship which is going from strength to strength.

The catalogue kicks off with a focus on Fiction, Crime and Thrillers, Romance and Saga, Fantasy and Myth. While there are no obvious licensing links here, it’s a reminder of how TV and film makers dip into the literary world for inspiration around new productions – and in turn how these tie ins can fire up a licensing programme. It’s also interesting to note how authors can become brands within book retailers, thinking of best-selling authors like Stephen King, Sebastian Faulks and Victoria Hislop. Authors of this calibre bring a loyal following and drive significant sales.

Food and Drink is also a category that features brands and personality brands. Here there is a cross over into the worlds of celebrity, restaurants and food brands. Examples include Tom Kerridge’s Pub Kitchen and Michel Roux at Home. Interestingly CAMRA’s Good Beer Guide also features. CAMRA –which is the Campaign for Real Ale – is a very influential name in the beer, ales and pub market. This annual guide has become a ‘must buy’ book in the category. This year it has the added kudos of a foreword being written by Iron Maiden’s Bruce Dickinson – a nod, I guess, to the official Iron Maiden beer.

An interesting inclusion in the History and Military category is The Rest is History book by Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook. The book is based on the authors’ chart-topping podcast of the same name. It’s a good example of how podcasts are becoming more significant in the media marketplace and will, I am sure, inspire more licensing programmes in the future.

Heritage brands are active players in the publishing market – an example being the National Trust who feature with their 60 Remarkable Buildings of the National Trust. In a similar vein, brands like the National Trust and the RHS feature prominently in the gardening category.

Other brands that feature in the catalogue include Disney. Dorling Kindersley have updated The Disney Book with 50 new pages for Disney’s 100th Anniversary. They have also developed Marvel Studios: The Marvel Cinematic Universe which follows the entire story of the MCU.

Elsewhere, Welbeck have published Bowie at the BBC which explores Bowie’s life in interviews and has been developed with the blessing of the Bowie estate. For the fan market, there are books like The Hobbit Encyclopaedia and The Worlds of Dune. There is also an official book of the hit BBC comedy series Ghosts.

A strong crossover area for licensing and publishing is in the young adult and children’s categories. Brands that feature include Isadora Moon, Dairy of a Wimpy Kid and Pippi Longstocking. This is also a category that sees ‘celebrity’ authors feature, including Tom Fletcher’s A Christmasaurus Carol and Dermot O’Leary’s Wings of Glory. This underpins the fact that publishers continue to see a value in supporting celebrity authors. Other authors in this bracket include Ben Miller and Matt Lucas.

This is an area of some controversy among other authors, with one view being that publishers over-rely on celebrity authors in the children’s category at the detriment of other authors. The counter argument is that authors like Tom Fletcher help drive interest in books and raise the overall profile of children’s books.

Another dynamic in this category is the publishing of deluxe or collector editions of classic books. For example, Oxford Children’s Books have published a 65th Anniversary Edition of Tom’s Midnight Garden. Anniversaries create an opportunity to re-kindle interest in back list titles and special edition books often see additions like new artwork commissioned or higher spec finishes.

In the children’s category, there is growing interest in a genre described as ‘Fantastic Adventures’ in the catalogue. Books in this category include the likes of the Percy Jackson series from Puffin and newer series like Impossible Creatures by Katherine Rundell. This series is published by Bloomsbury, the publishers of Harry Potter. Arguably JK Rowling’s series is the inspiration behind the growing success of this category of publishing. While most of the books in this category are novels, they also feature striking illustrated covers. Independent bookshops are generally very imaginative in how they display books in store and in their windows. This is where a well-designed book jacket can make a big impact and encourage consumers to pick up a new book.

Other licensed titles that featured in the catalogue included Minecraft and Bluey, while evergreen publishing brands such as Spot and Peter Rabbit also feature. The Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew also appear with their Christmas Pop Up Advent Calendar published by Big Picture Press. There was also a full-page advertisement from publisher Nosy Crow for their range of National Trust licensed titles.

Judging by the Christmas Books catalogue, the relationship between publishing and licensing is as strong as ever. It’s also good to see The Booksellers Association continuing to take such a proactive approach to supporting its members, giving them a platform to build a sales story upon.

It must be an incredibly challenging time to run an independent bookshop, but it’s a category that seems to be populated by retailers working hard to support their community, doing their best to succeed. Let’s hope the Christmas Books catalogue inspires people to #ChooseBookshops this Christmas.