This is where I'll be posting my presentation for the final task, I hope you all enjoy it!

Hello there, I'm Gav from the Digital Spy Apprentice, and welcome to my final presentation, which I have been very ably assisted with by Amroussi & Naruto! I'll begin by explaining my publishing house, and how the name emerged, before taking you through what we do, the plan for a launch of our book and a launch event!

We started off as Blue Sky Books, a symbol of relentless positivity and energy, but as the material we gravitated towards got darker, so did our name, and SkyRed was born. When the sky is red at night, it’s indicative of good weather in the coming days, a subtle nod to the positivity our publisher was born out of yet reflective of how our subject matter is sometimes dark. Our logo reflects perfectly, we hope, the simplicity of our name and concept, and we feel it would look fantastic on the spine of our books.

http://tinypic.com/vie.php?pic=20zbktd&s=6

The type of books SkyRed will exclusively publish is the graphic novel. The graphic novel is similar in style to a traditional comic book, however; they can be either fictional or non-fictional, they’re usually either much longer, or consist of multiple short stories collected into anthologies, bound in a similar manner to a traditional book. The market for graphic books is an expanding one, having only found popularity from the 1970s onwards; the form is currently garnering more and more acceptance on the literary scene, and is notable for its contingent of dedicated and loyal fans. The graphic novel also is an incredibly versatile medium – the fusion of illustration and writing allows meaning to be conveyed on multiple levels to powerful effect, and encourages an individualistic, creative approach to books, making for a form that pushes the boundaries and invites experimentation. The current climate, whereby films based upon the Marvel comics are breaking box office records and successful works of fiction are being adapted to graphic form really emphasise the potential for a publishing house based solely around original, exciting and ground-breaking graphic novels to attain success, both on a creative and financial front.

Examples of existing works that would slot in to the SkyRed catalogue include

- Maus, by Art Spiegelman. Art Speigelman is the master of the graphic novel, incorporating difficult, and exceptionally powerful themes into his work. Maus tells the personal experiences of Spiegelman’s father within the Holocaust, and the subsequent challenges of suriving the Holocaust in a thought provoking and extremely emotion-led manner, made all the more poignant through the use of animal imagery. Maus was a game changer in a literary sense for the graphic novel, gaining widespread mainstream acclaim, even picking up the Pulitzer Prize following it’s release.

- From Hell, by Alan Moore & Eddie Campbell. From Hell is a graphic novel considered to be a masterpiece in its genre, crime noir, utilising the historical figure of Jack the Ripper and the gruesome murders, blurring the lines between fact and fiction.

- Ghost World, by Daniel Clowes. Ghost World is a dark comedy telling the tales of two extremely sarcastic teenage girls, living in suburbia. The novel explores themes of relationships and friendships, firmly grounded in realism, but with elements of fantasy and idealism mixed in.

Whilst not being in any way ‘anti’ e-books, SkyRed Books will focus entirely on paper books. The brand of high concept graphic novels SkyRed will publish tends to lend itself more to print form – with the illustrations really having their most powerful effect on paper. We view a large proportion of our target audience to be ‘collectors’, largely interested in having physical copies of the books they enjoy, housing larger collections of paper comics and books as opposed to electronic ones. We intend for our works to be interesting in terms of the way the books are put together – intricate cover art, carefully selected paper and bindings encouraging more of a physical reading ‘experience’ that wouldn’t translate, at least in it’s intended form, brilliantly to an e-book format, although there is scope for investigation and development in how to translate our works to e-book format in the future.

In order to put the marketing plan into context, we’ve opted to give the book we’re launching a bit of a context in order for the plan to make sense. The book is titled ‘Laura Smith’ and is a semi-biographical, semi-fictionalised account of the life of our author, Laura Smith, a former policewoman and avid music fan. As well as functioning on a simple ‘crime story’ level, the graphic novel will have a philosophical element to it, discussing politics, religion, relationships and gender.

Throughout the entirety of the campaign, print adverts will be running in Dazed & Confused Magazine, NME and a small poster campaign will be running nationally.

Week One
14/09 Twitter, Tumblr and Facebook pages ‘go live’.
A large proportion of the campaign for our book will take place online, as we believe our target audience will have an active social media presence, and a strong showing online will increase the likelihood of our novel being noticed by, and catching the interest of said audience in a cost effective manner. The social network feeds will be manned by both employees of the publishing house itself, as well as Laura Smith, and will provide information, as well as offering competitions and Q&A sessions with the author.

Website goes live.
An intricately designed website goes live at this point, detailing the background to the book, the author, details of events and pre-order links.

15/09 Introduction event at Comica London Expo
Conferences and Conventions are integral events to those interested in comics and graphic novels and a successful appearance at an Expo will create waves on the comic scene. Comica is one of the UK’s largest comic book expos, and Laura Smith’s appearance here will largely be about introducing the book to the audience, discussing the illustration behind the book as well as the character itself in front of both fans and members of the press.

17/09 University tour begins at Goldsmiths, London.
A substantial number of our target audience are students, and Laura Smith will embark upon a short tour of some of the universities within the UK in order to deliver guest lectures on the art of writing, as well as to meet and greet students and fans, explaining the book itself and the wider themes brought up within the book.

19/09 Official unveiling of cover artwork and character illustrations exclusively through both the book’s official web page and also through Love Magazine’s website, where a short interview will be released with the author.

20/09 Feature in Neon Magazine Winter Edition
Neon is one of the UK’s largest literary magazines, available in both print and online formats. Laura Smith will appear in a two page feature within Neon Magazine discussing the future of the graphic novel, its merits and scope for ‘serious’ writing and recognition. She will also discuss female writing, especially within the context of the male-dominated world of graphic novels.

Week Two

21/09 Budleigh Salton Literary Festival
It’s important for the novel to be marketed dually to both literary audiences as well as comic-friendly audiences, so Laura Smith will appear at conventional literary festivals, discussing her life and her book, including a Q&A session and short lecture on dark comedy.

23/09 Exeter Comic Expo
Laura Smith will appear at Exeter Comic Expo, to discuss her book, the boundaries between comics and graphic novels and the notion of a female-fronted graphic novel.

24/09 U Stream
A brief U-stream event, where the author will exclusively reveal an excerpt of her novel online, talk with fans and answer any questions.

25/09 University tour – Cardiff.

26/09 Short interview Empire Magazine.
Laura Smith will be interviewed on the art of illustration and animation, discussing the graphic novel and it’s scope for adaptation as part of a larger feature on graphic novels and the cinema within Empire Magazine, introducing the novel to a wider audience interested in cinema.

27/09 University tour – Birmingham University

Week three

28/09 Wigtown Book Festival
Wigtown is one of Scotland’s premier book festivals, and an appearance at the festival will increase credibility, and give Laura Smith an opportunity to meet fans, attempting to further the notion of her book as a serious work of art, as opposed to a comic.

30/09 Treasure Hunt event – Glasgow
Cryptic messages will be left on the book’s twitter account, if the riddles are solved they will lead to the location of books hidden in various locations around Glasgow, in a ‘scavanger hunt’ style search.

01/10 University tour – Edinburgh

02/10 Feature in Dazed & Confused Magazine
Utilising Laura Smith’s experience as a police woman in an issue focusing around the idea of the police state, government and surveillance – discussion of ‘vigilante’ justice as well as female superhero characters. Brief review of the book in the magazine’s book section.

03/10 Brief profile on Laura Smith on SkyArts.

Print Interview on Digital Spy
Digital Spy has an active Comic news section, as well as an expansive section of the forums dedicated to comic books and graphic novels.

04/10 Treasure Hunt event – London.
A similar event to the Glasgow treasure hunt, however located in London.

Week Four

05/10 Appearance on Newsnight Review Show
Laura Smith will appear on the panel of Newsnight’s Review Show alongside other respected figures from the world of art, discussing the book amongst other forms of art.

06/10 Inteview appears on House of Heroes.
A written interview is released on House of Heroes, one of the premier UK based comic websites & forums.

07/10 Reviews of ‘Laura Smith’ are published in both The Guardian & The Independent Art Sections.


08/10 Twitter Marketing Event
Similar to the Snickers twitter event, three celebrities – Edith Bowman, Jonathan Ross & Stephen Fry – all of whom hold an interest in the arts, and in particular comics & graphic novels post ‘unusual’ tweets about Superheroes, before revealing themselves to be part of the campaign.

Video interview appears on Comicvine - another one of the largest comic book websites from a UK perspective.

University Tour - Manchester

09/10 Review Appears in Nov/Dec editions of i-D & Wonderland Magazines.
Both magazines are widely read, lending the novel some credibility, as well as exposing it to an art conscious audience.

Interview on Lauren Laverne’s show on Radio 6, discussing the link between comics and musics, the importance of music to her lead character and revealing her favourite tracks.

10/10 Laura Smith is interviewed on Radio 4’s Women’s Hour, discussing the novel’s wider themes, in particular relation to gender issues.

11/10 University Tour – Newcastle

12/10 Launch event.

In order to expand the budget for our launch event, an idea we decided to opt for was to host a joint event with Jack Daniels, in effect having the brand ‘sponsor’ the book and event. Jack Daniels as a brand reflect the values we feel our core audience would appreciate, and have shown themselves to be dedicated patrons of the arts – promoting themselves through literary, cinematic and musical events in the past. Through this sponsorship, the budget for the event would be largely increased, the guest list would be more impressive and the event more spectacular, garnering more publicity for the event, which is ultimately the goal of the launch party.

Hosted by Edith Bowman, the launch will be attended by a mixture of competition winners, having won tickets through twitter, facebook and official website competitions, specially invited celebrity guests with a genuine interest in comics, literature and gender issues who would appeal to our core audience, as well as members of the press and film industries.

The launch event will include a dramatic ‘superhero’ entrance by the novel’s author, a screening of a short animation of the book’s opening chapters as well as an exclusive reading of the novel, aided by projections of the images by the novel’s author. Following this will be a small live performance by Twin Atlantic, who have strong links with the Jack Daniels brand, as well as an exclusive DJ set by The Cribs, who again have links with Jack Daniels.

We feel our party will express the correct message, of SkyRed as an ‘alternative but modern’ company, fashionable but with substance behind it, and will achieve the ultimate aim of the event – to reveal the arrival of ‘Laura Smith’ to the world, with as much noise, all be it tasteful noise, as possible.

Evaluation

SkyRed is a publishing house which functions on a number of levels, especially focusing upon a niche market – that of graphic novels, but attempting to add more widespread, mainstream appeal to it. Every aspect of both the publishing house, and the marketing campaign that follows is designed to appeal to a core fan base, who are notably dedicated and loyal to the genre, as well as to be potentially quite interesting to those who don’t usually read graphic novels or have little knowledge of the genre itself.

Our marketing campaign is largely two-pronged, attempting to market the book both as a traditional comic book/graphic novel, as well as a serious piece of literature, in an effort to create a book that has a reputation equivalent to those books we have selected as being part of our back catalogue. The campaign covers online activities, personal appearances, literary festivals, print adverts, magazine appearances and brief TV profiles, all delivered at a realistic cost appropriate for a small publishing house to afford in the run up to a release of a book.

Similarly, realisim is a major issue for us, and we are aware of the limitations in the scope of a smaller publishing house such as SkyRed, hence corporate sponsorship is a big part of our plans, as demonstrated by the launch party, which we hope to further links with heading forward. Sponsorship is a mutually beneficial arrangement, and we really do feel that when a brand matches another so well, credibility is left intact, and the product can reach a wider audience, which is something SkyRed, in theory, would continue to do in the future.

Thank you for reading my presentation, and if you have any questions please don't hesitate to ask!

Apparently the logo is gone, this link *should* work though.

http://oi47.tinypic.com/20zbktd.jpg