Advertising Books

I come from London, so I'm used to seeing ads for books plastered all over the tube and the odd bus stop. Usually not books I particularly want to read, but still.

And Dennis Loy Johnson wrote a ten-part series documenting how Melville House Press publicised their runaway bestseller by a dead German, Every Man Dies Alone. The game plan included T-shirts, TV, tube (or whatever it's called in NY) and word of mouth.

I'm just trying to summon up the usual ways the Germans promote books, apart from well-publicised stunts like kissing angels. And there's not all that much of it going on, or not much I personally notice in everyday life (bear in mind I'm a tad visually impaired, though). Basically there's your print ads in newspapers and magazines, your reviews in newspapers and magazines, your reviews on the TV and radio, and your reviews on blogs. Although German publishers, I'm told, are often a bit cagey about sending review copies to bloggers. Which might perhaps explain why there aren't really any longstanding literature blogs that write reviews - they all go bust.

But this morning I heard my first radio ad for a book - Lucy Fricke's Ich habe Freunde mitgebracht. I wasn't actually fully conscious at the time, but it made me sit up in bed and think: I must buy this book! How exciting...