Penguin Easel Promotes Indie E-book Sales

To promote indie bookstores and their ability to sell e-books, Penguin is creating customized easels for stores selling Google eBooks™ via their IndieCommerce websites. The easel says, “Did you know? You can buy ebooks from this independent bookstore.” Each easel will include the store name and logo, along with a QR code linking to the store site.

Maureen Donnelly, Penguin vice president, director of publicity, said the promotion “continues Penguin’s mission to bring the reader to the writer in every format available.”

The promotion grew out of discussions among Penguin staff about “what we could do to help brick-and mortar-stores, especially the independents, keep their market share,” said Trish Weyenberg,vice president, director of paperback field sales. John Fagan, vice president, director of marketing at Penguin, came up with the idea for the easels after visiting indie stores and noting that their ability to sell Google eBooks™ wasn’t visibly promoted.

Using IndieBound.org to find a list of stores selling Google eBooks, Penguin visited their sites to make sure they were ready to go with e-book sales on their homepage, “and then the Penguin  marketing department started churning out the easels,” said Weyenberg.

In addition to the QR code, each 6" x 12" easel says, “[Store Name] has partnered with Google to bring you the most flexible way to buy books” and “Penguin supports independent thinking. It’s not how you read, but what you read.”

Weyenberg said this latest marketing idea is part of Penguin’s ongoing effort to work with indies and promote them.“At BEA, we had many meetings with our indie customers, where we asked them what they were doing with e-book sales,”said Weyenberg.“How are they educating their customers?  What can we do to help?  The independent bookstores are very important to us. We need to work together to make things happen!”

Easels are in the process of being created and sent to participating bookstores. Booksellers with questions can contact Trish Weyenberg.