MAIN NEWS HEADLINES
Aug 20 – 27, 2009 Edition S&S Launches World Campaign for Philippa Gregory Novel
NEW YORK, August 17In advance of the August 18th global publication of Philippa Gregorys THE WHITE QUEEN by Touchstone in the US and Simon & Schusters publishing companies in Canada, the United Kingdom and Australia, Simon & Schuster has launched an unprecedented worldwide marketing campaign for all formats of the book, including the print edition, e-book, audio book, and e-audio. Exclusive online content including video, audio, and other robust bonus materials will engage Gregorys millions of fans and garner new readers for the first of Gregorys new series set during the Cousins War, now known as the War of the Roses.
Gregory fans and new readers will be able to get a taste of whats in store for them with the release of THE WHITE QUEEN widget, containing at least three separate videos, including one of Gregory in conversation with British journalist Christopher Cook, links to reading group guides for Gregorys books, author q&as, with links back to a special, newly designed dedicated website (http://promo.simonandschuster.com/WhiteQueen/), and links to Philippa Gregorys official site. The widget is both dynamic, so that it can be updated over time, and enabled so that fans can embed it on their own sites and blogs. It will be widely distributed online to fan sites, social networking communities, online reading groups, and large, third-party portals.
THE WHITE QUEEN will have an extensive and integrated viral presence, with both content distribution and targeted social web advertising campaigns beginning August 4, which will include:
Facebook: a dedicated WHITE QUEEN fan page with multimedia content, and highly targeted advertising based on Facebook user preferences. Living Social: Fans will be driven to a special landing page on the site, where they can view content, add books to their Visual Bookshelf and enter a sweepstakes to win a free trip for two to London. Living Socials truly viral platform allows and incentivizes fans to share their WHITE QUEEN experience with their trusted community of friends, both on Living Social and Facebook. Twitter: S&S will create a channel in the voice of one of the main characters in the book as well as a general channel for THE WHITE QUEEN. At publication, it will facilitate a live Twitter Q&A between Gregory and her fans. An official WHITE QUEEN Twitter channel will feature a continuous stream of updates and specific promotions based on the Twitter platform. Simonandschuster.com: a dedicated WHITE QUEEN custom landing page, includes all content created for the campaign, a Family Tree explaining the books characters and their relationships, a map detailing the geography of the book, and an excerpt from THE RED QUEEN, the next book in the series.
At publication, fans will be able to enter to win an online sweepstakes offering a 3 night trip to London for two including round trip airfare, a dinner cruise on the Thames, and guided tours of numerous historical sites. The sweepstakes will be powered through Living Social and will be promoted wherever a WHITE QUEEN promotional vehicle exists online, including SimonandSchuster.com, social web outreach, through partner sites, and in online advertising.
Additionally, each international market will premiere an exclusive Philippa Gregory video greeting her fans in that country, available at both the international S&S sites and through retail and other marketing partners. This special video will be delivered alongside a bundle of content for the international rollout of The White Queen. Gregory will tour to the U.S., Canada, and the United Kingdom.
Through her books, Philippa Gregory has generated a large and fantastically dedicated following around the world, said Carolyn Reidy, President and CEO of Simon & Schuster, Inc. For our first opportunity to publish Philippa globally, we were determined to satisfy the well-documented hunger from her current fan base for an enhanced reading experience, and to allow new readers to share in the excitement, in a way that would be at once scalable and flexible enough so that it could be relevant to readers in each of our international markets. To accomplish that weve created a campaign that is in step with the latest trends on the social web, engages fans with fantastic content offerings, and utilizes our most sophisticated, and integrated marketing vehicles, while allowing each of our global publishing divisions maximum opportunity to work with their retail customer and consumer base. Were looking forward to a great publication for THE WHITE QUEEN and continued successes with the forthcoming books in the series.
#1 New York Times bestselling novelist Philippa Gregory became a renowned chronicler of British history with her Tudor period novels. After 48 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list for The Boleyn Inheritance and over 7 million copies of her books in print, Philippa Gregory was crowned the queen of rollicking royal fiction (USA Today) by media and fans nationwide. Cited by Time Magazine as the reason for the current Tudor period obsession, Gregorys beloved novel The Other Boleyn Girl was released in 2008 as a major motion picture starring Natalie Portman, Scarlett Johansson, and Eric Bana.
In THE WHITE QUEEN, Gregory now ushers readers into a new era with the publication of the first novel in her new The Cousins War series on the Plantagenet period.
