March 2008 Best Practices: Listening in BookExpo America podcasts extend reach to five times more bibliophiles than three-day event By Cathy Chatfield-Taylor
When BookExpo America (BEA, www.bookexpoamerica.com) Event Director Lance Fensterman proposed podcasting as a way to build relationships with book lovers worldwide, he was both ahead of the trend in publishing and behind the eight ball in technology. At the time, in 2006, no one was podcasting from the annual gathering of publishers, booksellers, librarians and rights professionals; and Reed Exhibitions (www.reedexpo.com) had no internal resources available to produce and distribute digital audio recordings from the event.
Fensterman forged a partnership with Rob Simon of Denverbased Burst Marketing (www.burstmarketing.com). Together they created the Official Podcast of BookExpo America, BookExpo Cast (www.bookexpocast.com), an all-new distribution channel for author readings, interviews and storytelling — and in the process grew the BEA audience by 500 percent.
“We ended up with about 150,000 listeners,” Fensterman says. “That’s five times the number of people who attend BookExpo America.”
Reed Exhibitions has organized BEA for 12 years, but the historic show is in its 108th edition this year, May 29 – June 1 in Los Angeles. With attendance averaging about 30,000 and exhibiting companies totaling 2,000, the event has experienced robust performance, “meeting or exceeding financial goals,” according to Fensterman. Extending the show’s reach beyond the threeday event added value for publishers who could leverage the brand to help sell more books year-round.
BookExpo Cast debuted in 2006 and tripled its audience in 2007, thanks to aggressive marketing through e-mail blasts, print communications and a featured podcast rotation on iTunes. Listeners could download the MP3 files or stream audio from BookExpoCast.com, or subscribe to the podcasts via an RSS feed, e-mail newsletter or iTunes. “The beauty of podcasting is it gives you content on demand,” Fensterman says. “Listeners can experience the show how they want, when they want and where they want.”
At BEA 2007, June 1-3 in New York, Burst Marketing deployed a team of three people to cover educational sessions and special events, as well as record “Upfront & Unscripted” interviews with industry luminaries. Each audio recording was released as a new podcast episode on BookExpo Cast, one episode per day for about two months after the show. Sponsorship announcements at the introduction and conclusion of each episode helped underwrite the costs, which totaled about $60,000. Podcast sponsorships sold for $5,000-$10,000.
In addition to the more than 40 BEA audio recordings, the team produced BookExpo Cast’s “Authors Studio,” featuring more than 99 three- to five-minute interviews with new and notable authors. Participating authors paid $149-$249 for the privilege and, in turn, received an MP3 file and HTML scripting for an audio player that they could embed in e-mail messages and on their websites and blogs.
“It was both production and distribution, so they could push out the content to subscribers,” Fensterman says. “It helped the smaller authors become viral marketers.”
The third channel on the podcast site is admittedly a “shameless rip-off” of Dave Isay’s StoryCorp project. The BEA Story Project booth on site invited attendees to record their stories about brushes with fame, embarrassing moments and budding romances at BEA. Post-show, fans could call in their stories to an 800 number. Though only about 600 people participated, Fensterman says a media partner will breathe new life into the program at the 2008 show, where professional reporters will do the interviews.
The partnership with Burst Marketing also continues into 2008, when they will add videocasting to the mix. The revenueand- expense-split deal is expected to continue to yield modest profits for both parties. “It’s a money maker,” Fensterman says. “We wouldn’t do it specifically to make money, but it’s great branding and it reached our target audience.”
Cathy Chatfield- Taylor is a San Francisco Bay-area freelance writer/editor. E-mail cathy@ cc-tunlimited.com. BookExpo America's Strategy Goal: Become a “convention without walls.” Objective: Extend reach beyond three-day event. Strategy: Make conference content available through multiple online channels. Tactics: Produce audio recordings of conference sessions, special events, author readings and interviews with industry luminaries; distribute as podcasts available by subscription through iTunes, RSS feed and e-mail, as well as streaming audio online at www.bookexpocast.com. Results: Podcasts reached 150,000 listeners, five times the number of BEA attendees.
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