Tag Archives: Open Book Festival

Paperight Young Writers’ Anthology 2013: Launch and Promotion

Before the completion of the compilation, I assisted with reading the entries, selecting pieces for publication, shortlisting for category winners (judged externally) and overall proofreading of the Paperight Young Writer’s Anthology 2013 (hereafter referred to as the PYWA). I entered the project as an intern in April 2013, but took over the marketing elements of the project in July 2013 as part of my promotion to the role of Marketing Manager.

On Youth Day, the 16th of June, the PYWA was released. This fantastic publication necessitated my first batch of press releases sent on behalf of Paperight. I sent press releases to:

  • contributing schools to congratulate them on their students’ success and let them know where they could purchase copies
  • outlets close to these schools advising them to promote the PYWA in store and prepare themselves for students looking for copies
  • media contacts, both national and regional, to tell them about the project and the PYWA’s release. We also encouraged them to get back to us to interview Oscar, the Anthology’s editor, or to request a copy for review.

998756_494574667290081_1936338491_nAlong with these press releases, I wrote a Facebook conversation plan in order to give our Paperight fans a taste of what the compilation entries were like. We selected quotes from longer entries, entire poems and illustrations to make beautiful posts (designed by Nick) for Paperight fans and PYWA contributors to share. We also posted stories of our visits to schools in the Western Cape, to hand out certificates to contributors and prizes to category winners. These stories were posted on the Paperight blog, too.

This conversation plan was Paperight’s first ever predetermined conversation plan. It ran from the 31st of July to the 9th of September 2013 (the Monday after the Open Book Festival Launch, mentioned below). It was supposed to end with a call for submissions for the 2014 edition, however, due to a shortage of resources, the project has been indefinitely postponed.

1077233_494957547251793_48523986_oWe used the weekly newsletter to remind outlets to promote the anthology in store by putting up posters and ensuring their staff are prepared to handle queries. In addition, we included links to blog posts on news items about the PYWA to inspire enthusiasm for the title.

This initial push was then followed up in September 2013 with an official book launch at the Open Book Festival in Cape Town. Arthur hosted a panel discussion between Oscar, Nick Mhlongo (author), Hedley Twidle (UCT lecturer) and Sarah Rowan (poet) to discuss the necessity of encouraging writing among South Africa’s young people. Invitations were sent to media contacts asking them to attend the event and offering copies of the Anthology to be reviewed. Copy shop owners and staff in the Western Cape were also encouraged to join the festivities. The event was well attended and led to many sales of the PYWA (perfect bound copies printed by Mega Digital) through the Book Lounge.

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The Open Book Festival launch was filmed and edited into a punchy, short film by our film intern, Shaun Swingler. The film was then added to our YouTube channel where we have amassed our collection of Paperight related video content. It is definitely worth a watch!

One of the success stories to come out of the PYWA project is the fact that Eden College in Durban, the school with the most selected contributors, chose to use the PYWA as a prescribed English Literature set work for their Grade 10 students.

New experiments shipped

From September to November we’ve put together a number of new experiments in product mix and marketing.

It’ll be interesting and hopefully valuable to see what works.

We also got out of the office a bit:

We learned a lot of hard lessons about how and now not to describe Paperight to consumers. This and other feedback and experience in October led us to completely overhaul our messaging … and our marketing focus, shifting from pushing ‘Paperight’ to pushing our outlets and backgrounding Paperight.

  • 24 Sep 2012: Well-received panel discussion titled “The Future of the Book” at the excellent Open Book Festival in Cape Town
  • 11 Oct 2012: Our comms manager Nick was on national TV show ‘Hectic Nine 9’, and wrote it up on our blog. Here’s the video. It didn’t go as planned. We learned a lot of hard lessons about how and now not to describe Paperight to consumers. This and other feedback and experience in October led us to completely overhaul our messaging (from standard pitches to site UI) and our marketing focus, shifting from pushing ‘Paperight’ to pushing our outlets and backgrounding Paperight. (More on that in a separate post.)
  • 15 Oct 2012: Content manager Tarryn attended the Frankfurt Book Fair. Here’s her blog post about it.
  • 7 Nov 2012: We announced our Paperight Young Writers Anthology: a collection of writing and illustration by high-school learners to be published on Paperight in 2013
  • 20 Nov 2012: I spoke at the Owl Club, a most venerable institution. Here’s the text of my talk.

A number of people have been talking about us. Some highlights:

Time on the speaking circuit

I’ve enjoyed speaking at several events over the last nine months, mostly on Paperight, sometimes on broader innovative publishing issues (Foundation projects like Yoza and Live magazine often came up):

  • Open Book, Cape Town’s premier literary festival, panel discussion with Steve Vosloo and Ben Williams on digitisation in publishing.
  • Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedebad, India: ran half-day seminar on publishing technology for senior publishing execs on a five-day MBA-style program at India’s top management school. It was great to get to sit in on the course, too: some of the best business teaching I’ve ever seen.
  • ANFASA (Academic and Non-Fiction Authors Association of South Africa) AGM: presentation on Paperight to authors and publishers from around South Africa.
  • Publishers Association of South Africa, Higher-Education sector meeting: presentation on Paperight to the senior management of most South African higher-ed publishers.
  • British Council panel discussion event, ‘The Future of International Publishing’, at the London Book Fair 2012.
  • International New Publishers Network launch, London Book Fair 2012, pecha-kucha presentation on Paperight (see my slides-and-speech version).
  • Van Schaik Booksellers Ebook Conference (middle and senior management of several dozen trade and higher-ed publishing companies), presentation on how existing ebook infrastructure can be used to sell books to an offline audience using Paperight.
  • Franschhoek Literary Festival: Chaired panel discussion on fiction on mobile phones.
  • TED Talent Search, Soweto: talk on Paperight, as part of TED’s global auditions for their 2013 event (I was one of 19 South Africans selected for the event, huge honour to present alongside such incredible innovators).

  • International Publishers Association World Congress, Cape Town (11 June): Presenting on innovative business models in SA publishing (Yoza and similar, Paperight, and Siyavula).
  • Cape Town Book Fair, 14 June, Goethe Institute invitation programme, on trends in digital publishing.
  • TEDxCapeTown (21 July): talking about Paperight.

I’m taking every chance I can to get the word out.