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| Ray Hawkey's unforgettable advertising for Deighton's fifth novel |
In the current marketing man (or woman)'s tool box, digital is everything - targeted pop up ads, viral videos, gifs, animations, banner advertising are all now essential to raising reader awareness of a new title and turning that awareness into revenue.
I often think that, as a result, we have lost something in the world of books - physical ephemera and well designed advertising that, when seen, I suspect had much greater impact. Certainly, as a collector, I'm glad that the authors I collect - and of course, especially Len Deighton - wrote in a pre-digital age that, like paper fossils, left behind so much ephemera and other traces of their books to be found by the dedicated fossil hunter.
That's why I was struck by some examples from archive editions of The Bookseller - the trade publication for book shops in the UK - from the 'sixties and 'seventies of just how straightforward and one-dimensional the marketing of Len Deighton's books was - in the sense of being physical, and limited to advertising and 'point of sale' - and, as a result, how creative the book companies had to be to come up with new ways of ensuring the booksellers themselves did their part, and displayed and sold the books in a way that would maximise revenue for all parties.
When you have the likes of designer Raymond Hawkey in your corner, or the marketing minds of the Penguin Group to draw upon, then an author like Len Deighton was already in a position of some advantage.
The fifties, and in particular the sixties, was a time of great change in book selling, as new printing techniques and marketing methods - came into prominence as the UK economy shifted from post-war austerity to a period of economic growth and expansions. Book selling evidently became more expansive, prone to trends, energised by competition from new publishing houses, and the growing influence of mass media - particularly magazines, radio and TV - as a new source to influence consumer behaviours.
