U.S. teens controlled an estimated $169 billion in disposable income last year—or $91 per week per teen—according to a study by Teenage Research Unlimited. But publishers trying to grab a share of that cash face stiff challenges. "Teens are very savvy and they have a cynical radar. Marketers have to get around that with marketing that doesn't seem like marketing," says Boston College sociology professor Juliet Schor, author of Born to Buy: The Commercialized Culture and the New Consumerism (Scribner).
Still, there's reason to think teens could be enticed to buy a lot more books, says Hollywood-based youth culture expert Sharon Lee, co-president and co-founder of market research firm Look-Look Inc. The firm did a recent study in which teens cited writing as one of their main creative outlets. They also said their "ideal" activity is reading a book, followed by exercising and shopping. That's the "ideal." In reality, according to the study, teens are much more likely to spend their free time surfing the Internet, watching TV and listening to music. "I look at as a huge opportunity," Lee says. "The desire to read, the desire to write, the desire to engage with words is there."
Seeking to translate that desire into sales, publishers are using a variety of strategies, ranging from the tech-heavy to traditional-with-a-twist—all tailored to reach those wary but free-spending 14-to-19-year-old consumers.
Cell Phones
Hoping that teens who walk around with cell phones pressed to their ears could be persuaded to sit down with their noses in a book, HarperCollins is running a text-messaging promotion starting next week for Meg Cabot, of Princess Diaries fame. Teen readers can get news on the mobile about the release of her new novel, Ready or Not: An All-American Girl Novel (July), and about her monthly online chats. There's also a cell phone screensaver promoting Cabot's books, as well as a ring tone with her voice (for which they can sign up at HarperTeen.com).
Harper is not the first to try a dial-up campaign. In January Random House used text messaging to promote the paperback edition of the third book in Ann Brashares's Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series, Girls in Pants (Delacorte, Jan.), and encourage teens to click on the www.sisterhoodcentral.com Web site. "The biggest shift in marketing is how important online marketing has become," says Random House Children's Books v-p of marketing Daisy Kline. "We think of driving traffic to our site as hanging onto a reader a little bit longer and having an opportunity of introducing a reader to another author." Random credits the cell phone promotion, coupled with advance movie trailers for the film, with sending traffic to the Sisterhood Web site soaring 400% higher in the first quarter of the year than during the previous three months.
Playing the Net
After years of experimenting, publishers and authors have become more sophisticated about using the Internet to reach readers. "A few years ago, it was all about developing a presence," says Kira Glass, associate director of Internet marketing for Harcourt. "Now you are budgeting for advertising on the Internet and keyword searches."
For authors, the Web provides a way to connect directly with fans. When asked what prompted her to market her books via her LaurenMyracle.com Web site, the author responded with a question of her own, "Am I marketing? I'd never want to be an Amway salesman for my own books. My job is to tell the best stories I can and to let people know that writers are just people." Myracle plans to IM (instant message) with her teen fans this fall to promote ttfn (Ta-ta for Now) (Abrams).
Thirty thousand teens have signed up to receive information on Cabot's books through HarperCollins's Author Tracker e-mail program. In addition, Cabot receives as many as 200 e-mails a day when one of her books is first released, and young people avidly read her blog at MegCabot.com. "I was very resistant at first to keep a blog," says Cabot. "I thought it would take too much time from my 'real' writing. After I found out how much it increased traffic to my site, I was like 'Um, okay.'" Cabot even started her own online book club—with 8,500 members—and many selections are her own titles.
Phyllis Reynolds Naylor, author of the Alice McKinley series, uses her www.SimonSays.com/alice to post e-mails from young people who look to her as an Ann Landers for teens. "E-mails come to the FriendsofAlice@ aol.com, which is me, and I read them every day," says Naylor, 72, who spends about an hour a day answering teen queries. "They tell me that they feel they can ask me anything. They're terrified of doctors and pelvic exams. They say, 'Even though I love my mother I'm too embarrassed to ask…' "
Giving CDs a Spin
CDs are hardly cutting-edge technology, but publishers are still finding new ways to use them to reach teen consumers. This spring Harper produced 60,000 CD samplers, with 10 authors reading selections from upcoming titles. The CDs, which were tucked inside booklets about the Harper list and branded with www.HarperTeen.com, were mailed to book and audio buyers and to consumers who ordered from the Alloy catalogue. Harper is also starting to introduce bonus CDs packaged with books. For example, bestselling novelist Louise Rennison's May release, Then He Ate My Boy Entrancers, contains a "tell-all" CD on which Rennison answers fan questions.
Where the Teens Are
Offline, marketers are following this simple rule: take your message to where the teens are. Tara Lewis, v-p, global marketing for Disney Global Children's Books has seen a jump in sales from viral marketing, such as providing tee-shirts, stickers and posters to Ned Vizzini to promote the hardcover edition of his book Be More Chill(Miramax/Hyperion, paperback Sept.) at rock concerts. This fall, she's working on finding a way to ensure that Bat Mitzvah attendees who use the Ladies Room find postcards for Fiona Rosenbloom's You Are SO Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah! (Hyperion, Sept.).
Last spring Abrams staffers distributed copies of two April releases from its year-old Amulet paperback YA line, Lauren Myracle's ttyl (Talk to You Later) and William Sleator's The Boy Who Couldn't Die, to teens gathered outside MTV's Total Request Live in Times Square. That's not to say that tried-and-true book promotions don't work. Amulet's Jason Wells believes that the 700 book displays for two of Myracle's titles helped push ttyl onto bestseller lists.
Scholastic reaches out to young people via marketing partnerships with teen catalogue companies like dELiA*s and Alloy, as well as through clothing and jewelry stores. "If you have the right property you can get into new accounts like Urban Outfitters or Hot Topic," says Scholastic's Jennifer Pasanen, who has placed Jim Benton's It's Happy Bunny books in both. Red Wheel/Weiser/Conari has also found a teen audience at those stores for its humorous, edgy books originally conceived for adults. President Michael Kerber attributes 30% of the sales for Voltaire's What Is Goth? (Weiser) to Hot Topic and Urban Outfitters, which have taken strong positions on this fall's follow-up, Paint It Black: A Guide to Gothic Homemaking (Weiser, Oct.).
Bookstore Events
It's true—teen turnout for bookstore events tends to be so sparse that many retailers don't even bother. But don't count bookstores out as a way to reach teens, who will come out for the right event. Brazos Bookstore in Houston brought Laura Mechling and former Houstonian Laura Moser in for a reading and sold 350 copies of their book, The Rise and Fall of a 10th-Grade Social Climber(Houghton/Graphia, May). "I learned early on that when there's a good book by a local author with supportive parents, the usual expectations don't apply," says owner Karl Kilian. In this case Moser's parents, former owners of the now-defunct children's bookstore Stop, Look and Learn, which was located a few blocks from Brazos, supplied their own personal mailing list.
Barring those kinds of connections, group readings show promise. "It's always hard to get an audience," says Barnes & Noble children's buyer Joe Monti, who used to do book readings with three or four authors. This spring he discovered that by increasing the number of writers to 11 he could attract a bigger crowd. "The more the merrier," says Monti. "It gives the reading more the feeling of a party."
"We're very selective about who we put on tour," adds Elizabeth Eulberg, director of publicity for Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, "which is why we work with bookstores that work with schools." One Little, Brown author who will be hitting the traditional tour circuit at Halloween is Cirque Du Freak writer Darren Shan, whose new YA series, Demonata, launches in October with Lord Loss. For lesser-known authors on the list, Eulberg is talking with other publishers about arranging joint tours with authors who have compatible books.
Some predict that iPod broadcasting could be next. In the meantime, Little, Brown may have found the best use for MP3 players: as a monthly giveaway on its www.e-kissandtell.com Web site to promote its chick-lit titles. From the bookseller perspective, that's still not enough. "I don't think publishers' marketing has caught up to the hunger of the audience," says B&N's Monti.
Just how hungry that audience really is will probably become a lot clearer later this summer when the most anticipated YA book in history is released, Christopher Paolini's Eldest (Knopf).
