Celebrate Young Adult with Headline

Headline are celebrating Young Adult books during the month of May with a fantastic campaign appropriately called ‘Which Book Next’ and with wonderful authors such as Tanya Byrne and Jennifer E. Smith, it is the perfect time to celebrate. To tell us a bit about Young Adult at Headline, I have a interview with Samantha Eades, Senior Publicity Manager.

1. Who am I and what do I do?
   I’m Sam from the Headline Publicity department. I’m a Senior Publicity Manager, which in a nutshell means my job is to tell you, yes YOU, how great our books are. And then the hard bit is to make YOU, yes YOU, tell your friends how great they are too. Easy right?

   In her #WeLoveYA post, my colleague Vero Norton is going to focus on traditional coverage whilst I’m going to talk about the online pr aspects of my job. Online is a huge part of my job now. Literally huge. Centuries ago when I started as a publicity assistant, days would go by where I wouldn’t even turn my computer on. Now I wake up with my iPad stuck to my face, with a Google search for “Tell me everyone who is talking about Tanya Byrne” imprinted on my forehead.

2. An average day
   A typical day in the life of a publicist (for me) goes something like this. When I get into the office the first thing I do is load up my Hootsuite, which has a number of searches set up for the YA books and authors I work on. This is a great way for me to keep track of coverage from international territories that has happened during the night/early hours of the morning. I can see reviews that people have shared, news articles that include mentions of my authors, and individual readers saying that they have started or finished a Headline book. The latter gives me that warm and fuzzy feeling inside, particularly when someone is telling their followers how amazing a book is!

   I will also scan online newspapers for interesting content to share, as well as breaking news stories where my authors might be able to give comment and share their expertise. As a publicist it is good to be on top of the news and social media makes it much easier to keep up! A news story such as Maureen Johnson’s CoverFlip campaign can break on twitter and then break out on to news sites such as The Huffington Post, and then all be over by the time you’ve put the kettle on.

   During the course of the day I will post the reviews and content I have found on our Which Book Next? facebook and pinterest boards, our new online home for YA fiction from Headline. We have only just launched and alongside our marketer a big part of my job will be to grow our fans over time. Rather than concentrating solely on our own titles, we want these areas to be a place where readers can share recommendations for YA books they are reading and be where conversations happen rather than us simply broadcasting messages about our own books.

   On this fictional average day, I might spend an hour brainstorming a social media campaign idea for a title we are working on with our hotshot marketing team. This might be coming up with a hashtag that can be used in all communications about the book – something that will resonate with readers and be easy to track. Or it might be dreaming up a clever social media campaign that we can run on publication that will raise awareness of the book and encourage people to think, I just might buy that! For example, on publication day for Tanya Byrne’s Follow Me Down which is set in a boarding school we ran a #SchoolSoundtrack competition on twitter where we asked people for suggestions for songs that reminded them of their schooldays which we added to a Spotify playlist. We picked our five favourite tracks, with the winners receiving a signed hardback.

   I get a limited amount of proof copies for forthcoming titles, and a big part of my job now is to identify online reviewers who will a) like the book and b) tell lots of people how much they like the book. I will send out proofs to people who contact me direct, approach contacts I have relationships with, and often tweet about proofs to see if there are any new bloggers that I haven’t come across before. Bloggers are very important to me, and I’m always on the lookout for new reviewers!

   And the day might end with my most favouritist of things, a launch party or book event! This is where I get to meet online people in real life, and chat about books they are reading, exciting new books we have coming out and occasionally other things too such as “Who is your favourite member of One Direction?” I will take pictures and tweet snippets from the event and share them on our social media. I guess it is a bit like being there, except you don’t get the free wine or crisps!

3. My favourite YA novel
   Well the last Headline YA title I have read is the amazing ‘Forgive Me Leonard Peacock’ which we are publishing in August. It is written by Matthew Quick who wrote ‘Silver Linings Playbook’, and is about a high school student who is writing to say goodbye and has four gifts he gives to people who have been important in his life. He is preparing to do something awful – and I’m not going to say anything more than that as I don’t want to give it away! After I read it I sat very quietly for a long time, and thought “this is such an important book, and everyone needs to know that.” And in the spirit of sharing the love of YA, I urge you all to read ‘The 5th Wave’ by Rick Yancey. I couldn’t turn the pages quickly enough!!! It has such a clever central concept, characters you take to instantly, and is very scary. And John Green loves it. So what are you waiting for? BUY IT!

To celebrate the Which Book Next campaign, Headline have thoughtfully given me a bag of their YA books to give away which will include the Crypt series and ‘The Body Finder’ series, plus new releases ‘Follow Me Down’ by Tanya Byrne and This is What Happy Looks Like by Jennifer E Smith. To be with a chance of winning this great book prize, simply tell us what your favourite YA book is in the comments below. Winner will be revealed on Thursday 30th May!

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