Marketing Strategy of the Year
Marketing Strategy of the Year Winner and Shortlist
Proudly sponsored by the Nielsen BookData
In a flat and competitive retail landscape, marketing often made all the difference between hitting and missing the bestseller lists in 2024. These 12 campaigns span a wide range of genres and are notable for debuts and translated fiction as well as some big author brands. The shortlist includes four campaigns from the marketing powerhouse of Penguin Random House, alongside strategies compiled on small budgets and at speed.
Winner
Vicky Palmer, Alice Morley, Melissa Grierson
The Ministry of Time
Sceptre, Hodder & Stoughton
From a shortlist packed with highly creative and effective strategies, it is Sceptre’s campaign for Kaliane Bradley’s The Ministry of Time that edges this British Book Award. The Hodder trio of Vicky Palmer, Alice Morley and Melissa Grierson put together a strategy with the longest of tails – from building a buzz after acquisition through to driving end-of- year gifting. Perhaps their biggest trick was to leverage the complex themes of the novel into literary, romance, thriller and fantasy genres, maximising the readership for a book that could easily have slipped through the cracks.
Engagement with booksellers across the board was outstanding. As well as the usual tactics of proof drops, meet-the-author events and POS material, it produced imaginative extras like iron-on patches for giveaways at Waterstones and a sell-out special edition for independent bookshops. Excellent segmentation of audiences for Meta secured traction on social media. Next came fresh editions for autumn, pitched into different channels by smart use of review quotes and endorsements. It was all pulled together by bright, distinctive, holographic-style branding.
The result of the hard work was the TCM’s biggest hardback debut novel of 2024 and 120,000 copies sold across all editions. The judges said: “The word-building was fantastic and the ideas to help booksellers to handsell the book to customers were genius.”
The Shortlist
Alice Morley, Vicky Palmer, Melissa Grierson & Olivia French
You Are Here by David Nicholls
Sceptre
David Nicholls’ You Are Here was one of the year’s most eagerly awaited releases, but after a five-year gap since Nicholls’ last book, it needed careful positioning. Alice Morley and the Sceptre team ran brilliant pre-pub promotion, secured huge support from Waterstones and indies, and leveraged the concurrent Netflix adaptation of One Day. You Are Here was a UK number one on release and units soon hit six figures.
Liv Marsden and Rachel Quin
Butter by Asako Yuzuki
4th Estate
4th Estate’s Liv Marsden and freelance Rachel Quin ran a blockbuster campaign for Butter by Asako Yuzuki that made it the translated fiction hit of 2024. It began with influencer activity and proofs shaped like packs of butter, and made great use of the book’s iconic yellow cover in POS that helped retailers—notably Waterstones and Foyles—champion it in displays. Butter finished 2024 as the TCM’s 13th top book.
Claire Bush and Rebecca Ikin
The List of Suspicious Things by Jennie Godfrey
Hutchison Heinemann
The List of Suspicious Things by Jennie Godfrey was one of the smash literary debuts of 2024, thanks to a buzz-building strategy from Claire Bush and Rebecca Ikin. Big retail promos, proofs and book club targeting were among the tactics, all supported by the vivid blue cover. It spent two months in the Sunday Times lists on release. “I’ve never seen a campaign for a debut like it,” said one bookseller.
Felice McKeown
The Courage To Be Disliked by Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga
Atlantic Books
Felice McKeown’s campaign for The Courage To Be Disliked by Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga shows how marketing can transform old as well as new titles. The book had gone viral on TikTok, but with complex content and no author support, there was no guarantee of big sales. Superb collaboration with influencers and TikTok Shop and data-driven follow-up throughout 2024 made sure it did.
Genista Tate-Alexander
Want curated by Gillian Anderson
Bloomsbury
Bloomsbury’s campaign for the Gillian Anderson-curated Want, led by Genista Tate-Alexander, smashed all expectations. It carefully mixed irreverence with seriousness, incorporating brilliant creative content and novel features like a Want confessional booth. The numbers—including 50 million video views and 200,000 copies sold in all formats—were phenomenal.
Hannah Davies, Alice Ingall, Bea Carvalho and Eva Von Reuss
The Booker Library at Waterstones Piccadilly
The Booker Prize Foundation and Waterstones
The Booker Prize Foundation and Waterstones teams of Hannah Davies, Alice Ingall, Bea Carvalho and Eva Von Reuss are listed for The Booker Library at Waterstones Piccadilly. It was a fine installation of every in-print title honoured by the Booker, with extras like a guestbook, rare edition cabinet and audio content. The result was a win-win: a showcase of the prize’s rich history and thousands of sales.
Hannah Winter
Think Again by Jacqueline Wilson
Transworld
There are few bigger British author brands than Jacqueline Wilson, but repositioning her as an adult novelist for Think Again needed careful thought. Lead marketer Hannah Winter and the Transworld team reached the legions of adults who had grown up with Wilson’s books and stood Think Again out from the autumn crowd. Highlights included TikTok content from Wilson that quickly went viral.
Jess Kim, Mollie Stewart and Katie Hall
Intermezzo by Sally Rooney
Faber
Sally Rooney’s Intermezzo was always going to be a bestseller, but the Faber team of Jess Kim, Mollie Stewart and Katie Hall made it a real bookshop event. The campaign captured Rooney’s army of fans but also reached into new audience. It got sales off to a cracking start by working with dozens of bookshops on early openings on publication day, and TCM units totalled 162,000 by the end of 2024.
Lauren Floodgate
The Majorly Awkward BFF Dramas of Lottie Brooks by Katie Kirby
Puffin
Lauren Floodgate steered a campaign for The Majorly Awkward BFF Dramas of Lottie Brooks that took author and illustrator Katie Kirby to new heights. It made very good use of socials—especially TikTok and Meta advertising—and teamed up with clothes shop brand Monsoon on a promo. After drumming up pre-orders, the book went straight in at the top of the UK TCM—Kirby’s first number one slot.
Olivia Carson, Emily Sommerfeld, Sophie Porteous and Hannah O’Brien
The Reappearance of Rachel Price by Holly Jackson
Electric Monkey
Electric Monkey’s team of Olivia Carson, Emily Sommerfeld, Sophie Porteous and Hannah O’Brien are shortlisted for the strategy behind Holly Jackson’s The Reappearance of Rachel Price, which earned multiple number ones. It laid the ground with consumer research before an onslaught of TikTok content, Meta ads, bespoke retailer work, special editions, competitions and much more.
Vicky Palmer, Alice Morley and Melissa Grierson
The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley
Sceptre
The Sceptre team of Vicky Palmer, Alice Morley and Melissa Grierson made Kaliane Bradley’s The Ministry of Time the TCM’s biggest hardback debut of 2024. The campaign started a year out from release and courted Waterstones in particular. It was a tricky book to categorise, but the strategy hit multiple market segments and by the end of the year sales across all territories and formats had reached six figures.
Vintage Marketing
Patriot by Alexei Navalny
The Bodley Head
Alexei Navalny’s posthumous memoir Patriot got a sensitive campaign from the Vintage marketing team. It overcame complexities of security and embargoes, broadened the audience beyond those familiar with Navalny, and made careful use of his widow, Yulia, including at a London Literature Festival event. TCM sales were nearly 50,000, but Vintage knew that the book’s value went far beyond the numbers.
