In what looks like a breakout marketing campaign, Wattpad, an online writing and reading community focused on delivering content to mobile devices, is teaming up with emerging YA author Amanda Havard to launch a transmedia promotional campaign around her new novel The Survivors. The campaign will feature appearances by Havard at BEA next week as well as syndication and placement of excerpts from her book on Wattpad.com and through its mobile applications, original music and video releases, social media events and even a fashion campaign with on and offline components.
Havard is the author of The Survivors, the first book in a series of supernatural YA novels about Sadie Matthau, a descendant of one of 14 children who survived the Salem witch trials of 1692, and who has lived in isolation with her mysterious family. The book was published in March by Chafie Press, a new publishing house based in Dallas, Texas.
Wattpad is a popular online writing community that attracts millions of users, including emerging writers who post their novels, short stories and other content and receive feedback on their writing from the community. The site attracts a large mobile device community and focuses on readers who use smartphones and other mobile devices for reading.
Havard said she was “excited to announce The Survivors’ arrival on Wattpad. There is nothing I want more than to connect readers to the story and world of The Survivors. Forging this partnership with Wattpad is the perfect way to do that.”
In addition to appearing at BEA, Havard has organized a transmedia campaign that features original music for each book in her series (vocalist Chris Mann has recorded two singles that will be released through iTunes); and social media (her characters--@SadiesTravels, @Corrinarina, @SurvivorsSeries, @BlondeLouboutin, @TheGrnEyedMnstr--have been tweeting for over a year). In addition she has teamed with fashion designers to highlight the look of characters in the book and to create online and offline cross promotional events .
Nina Lassam, who directs marketing and publisher relations for Wattpad, said the Wattpad community offers a platform to connect to new readers in the mobile reading space. “For new titles, discoverability can be a challenge, especially in the mobile space. We’re extremely excited to host The Survivors on our popular eReading apps and Web site and introduce readers to the series. By syndicating the novel on Wattpad millions of readers will enter the Transmedia story world Amanda has created through the story itself.”
