Essex has learned how to work with the media and exploit opportunities for publicity since it established its annual book festival six years ago. Audience sizes are increasing, and it has a national profile, says June Turner.
The Essex Book Festival is an annual festival managed by Essex County Council Libraries in partnership with district councils across Essex and Thurrock Council. In six years it has established itself as the largest festival in the Eastern region, with a very high profile with local and regional media and a growing national profile. This media coverage has helped develop the festival, increasing its audience and bringing it to the notice of publishers. It has also generated positive publicity for Essex County Council and the library service.
The 2006 festival involves more than 60 writers, from established names such as Germaine Greer, Irvine Welsh, Graham Swift and Helen Dunmore, to Diane Evans, winner of the Orange Prize for new writers.
Key aims of the festival are to involve the widest possible adult audience and to encourage readers to widen their reading choices. Events are held in local communities right across the county, usually in the local library. There are also events in residential homes, prisons and adult community colleges and events targeted at different audiences – for example, Quick Reads events for emergent readers and an event delivered in sign language in partnership with the Royal Association for Deaf People.
In the early years our relationship with the media was reactive rather than proactive. The focus was on working out how to develop and run such a complex festival and we were grateful for any media coverage we received. The festival, however, provides a wealth of news and feature stories for the ever-hungry media – and for the county council numerous ‘feel good’ stories. Over the years we have learnt how to exploit this opportunity.
Press releases to active partnerships
The Essex Book Festival 2005 was launched with a three-and-a-half-hour live broadcast by BBC Essex from Chelmsford Library. The launch was also covered by BBC London and BBC Look East television, Essex FM radio and all the local Essex papers and by much of the regional press.
Last year’s festival was also the first time that all major newspaper groups across Essex joined in as formal partners of the festival, with their logos on the publicity. The result was extensive feature coverage from January to March and a huge pile of press cuttings.
Some benefits
Attracting new audiences
Each year, audience sizes have increased. In 2005, 45.4 per cent attended for their first time – and with a satisfaction rate of 97.2 per cent ‘excellent or good’ we expect those readers to come back.
Financial
The festival has a very limited budget, with no money for advertising. The value of the coverage delivered through the media partnerships is in the tens of thousands of pounds.
Changing the image of libraries
The live broadcast served as a very long advert for libraries as they really are, rather than how many think they are. Chelmsford Library was buzzing with people and the broadcast projected a very lively, modern and inclusive picture of libraries.
Raising the profile within the council
The festival itself is a huge good news story that provides regular positive coverage of the county council. It also contributes significantly to one of the corporate objectives of changing the image of Essex. ‘If you seek an indication of what a dynamic county can provide, look at the line-up for the Essex Book Festival’ (the Independent).
The success of the festival in attracting positive coverage ensures continuing commitment to the event from the corporate media team.
The official launch within the live BBC Essex broadcast resulted in a higher attendance from county councillors than the more traditional launches of previous years. Councillors saw a modern library buzzing with people and heard a fantastic celebration of libraries, books and reading. They were impressed.
What have we learnt?
Know your media
Working closely with the corporate media team is a good way to start to understand the different media and their audiences. BBC Essex, for example, has an excellent website and the festival can provide content for both the website and broadcasting output. It is also important to be aware of and to use specialist press, such as Talking Newspapers and disabilities newsletters, to reach different audiences.
The fact that the festival was run by the county council and was countywide was a potential barrier for local papers. In Essex there is no one county-wide media group, rather a number of media groups covering different geographical areas. For example, the Harlow Star, right on the edge of Essex, has a defined readership within the Harlow area and little interest in the county council. A tailored approach was needed: we highlighted specific events in Harlow, brought Harlow District Council in as a partner and directly approached the features editor. The Harlow Star has now been a partner for two years and the features editor has been actively involved in chairing specific events.
Give them what they want
Important to all the Essex media are the big-name authors coming to their part of the county, together with any local writers featured in the festival. Fortunately this matches the festival objective of providing a high-quality festival right across the county and supporting Essex writers.
All media are looking for the human interest story and/or the local angle. Reading groups are a perfect way of providing this. Papers wanted to know which events local reading groups were looking forward to or what it was like chairing a festival event, also responding eagerly to reports of actual events.
During the 2005 festival there was a weekly slot on BBC Essex when reading group members went into the studio to talk about a festival event they had been to or festival-featured books. It was great advocacy for the festival and made really good radio. It was so successful that a monthly slot with a bookseller has been replaced by a library reading group discussing their latest reads. This in itself makes a good local story.
Recently the Colchester Evening Gazette ran a double-page spread on reading groups, centred on the group that had been featured on BBC Essex. Reading groups are big supporters of the festival and during the period January-March 2006 each of the groups featuring on BBC Essex will be talking about festival-featured books.
Reading groups have also been a big national story. Essex has frequently been mentioned in the national media because of the high number of reading groups in the county (currently 330 supported by libraries), We have used liberally the Observer quote of ‘Essex is the book club capital of Britain and the reading group business is booming’ to raise local media interest.
The media are always looking for ways to interact with their audiences. BBC Essex, for example, has regular prize competitions where listeners phone in answers. A regular festival feature on BBC Essex is now a week-long competition, with prizes of tickets to different big-name events every day.
Make it easy
To make it easy for the media to run features with festival writers, we provide a list of contact details for all the authors or their publicists, and the media team has a bank of images. We also highlight the local writers.
Keep the message simple
The first festival in 2000 was called Made in Britain. By 2001 we had developed the brand of the Essex Book Festival but complicated it with a theme. From 2004 it has simply been the Essex Book Festival. And, of course, if you can create a message that the media can easily understand, chances are your audience will.
Plan
Working with the media needs to be included in any project planning if you want to achieve significant coverage. Timescales for feature writers are often very specific and you need to be able to sell the idea in advance.
The live broadcast with BBC Essex was agreed six months beforehand. Delivering the programme required detailed planning, as it was a long event which had to work both for the library audience and those listening on the radio.
Thinking about media opportunities in advance can also help to shape your activity. Our event with the Royal Association for Deaf People delivered in sign language is taking place on 18 March, the anniversary of the introduction of British Sign Language. That provides the opportunity to target the general and specialist press with a good story to highlight the anniversary.
Develop partnerships
In 2004 we developed formal partnerships with BBC Essex and the Essex Chronicle. Both had been strong supporters of the festival and, by putting their logos on the publicity, we were acknowledging that support and looking to take it to a new level. The partnership arrangement was very successful and triggered demand from other media groups to become partners of the 2005 festival.
A formal partnership will not always be appropriate but the relationships developed through the festival open doors. For example, the Essex Chronicle is now a partner in a successful bid for cultural tourism money for a series of events throughout the year. A recent campaign to increase awareness of large print worked closely with the media but without formal partnerships. BBC Essex ran a week-long promotion of large print, while the Harlow Star had a competition and an article in large print.
Keep up momentum
The media coverage of the festival has grown each year. The Essex Book Festival is now clearly established as an annual event and the media expect it to generate a certain amount of news.
Make good use of the corporate media team
All councils will have professional media or press teams. Be clear about how you are going to work together. They are in direct contact with the media and can handle ongoing enquiries but you should feed them content, identify news stories. Help them see what a great story they have to sell.
Remember council’s own media
Essex County Council produces a quarterly newsletter, Essex Matters, which is delivered to every home (circulation 600,000). The council also produces a staff newsletter which is a great way of promoting the festival to council employees. We also use the intranet, including a competition for staff.
Use partners’ press, marketing outlets
The festival works with a wide range of partners. District councils are key ones, each with their own press teams and newsletters. Penguin is a longstanding partner and has launched a Penguin Readers website, Penguin Orange Reading Group Prize and in 2006 a new imprint, Fig Tree. A Penguin press release circulated through its national distribution network is very valuable.
‘We chose to launch the prize in Essex because of its excellent library service and Book Festival where many of our authors are taking part this year... and last but by no means least Essex has the largest number of reading groups of any county in England’ (Joanna Prior, Marketing Director, Penguin).
Be proactive
Seize the initiative and have confidence. Having sold BBC Essex the idea of the first three-hour broadcast on the Big Read, I had to work hard to convince the producer that you could build a whole programme on libraries, books and reading without distractions such as cookery demonstrations and craft activities. The resulting broadcast featuring lots of readers and the whole range of the community was a big success and has been the basis of subsequent broadcasts.
The Big Read opened the door to a sustained way of working with BBC Essex. The BBC’s RaW (Read and Write) project provides another huge opportunity for libraries.
‘Why don’t you do more...?’
We are continuing the partnerships with all the media groupings and also repeating the live broadcast with BBC Essex, this time with a RaW and Quick Reads focus.
We know we have made real progress in working with the media but we are not complacent. ‘I really enjoyed my first Essex Book Festival but only found out about it by accident. Why don’t you do more to promote it?’ was one of the comments from last year’s audience feedback. We also want to achieve more national coverage – and that is a huge challenge.
June Turner is Reader Development Manager, Essex County Council Libraries (mailto:june.turner@essexcc.gov.uk). The Essex Book Festival runs throughout March (www.essexbookfestival.org.uk).
Updated: 20 February 2006