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Hodder is backing the launch of a new fantasy trilogy by Laini Taylor with a marketing campaign that will use online social networks in order to create a die-hard fanbase that will last for all three books in the series.
The trilogy, which launches on 29th September with The Daughter of Smoke and Bone (£14.99, hb) follows the character of Karou, a young artist who lives in both the real world and a parallel one called Elsewhere.
The marketing campaign will target fantasy fans across film, art or literature. Hodder has recruited well-connected bloggers to act as advocates for Taylor and the books, sending them proofs so that they would spread the word to others on the internet. The first trailer they released has had 50,000 YouTube views, more than any other Hodder trailer has had before a book's release.
Head of fiction marketing Laurence Festal said the kind of emotional impact it wanted to make with the campaign could only be achieved online. She said: "The spread has been really gradual up to now . . . It will step up a gear once the book is released and then again when we release book two next year."
Festal said they will release a feed of information and book trailers to fans, continuing to release content after the first book is out in order to hold momentum between books. She said: "It [the campaign] needs money to set things up, but then it needs time and new ideas to keep it going."