Random House Explains What Publishers Do

[stonetools]

Random House seems to be embarking on a consumer-facing branding campaign for itself and a source familiar with the matter at the company told me that there were conversations about that underway internally. A spokesperson for the company said that the branding campaign was exclusively aimed at authors.

“It’s a fresh continuation of our priority for communications with and about our authors — who are the primary brand(ing)s for RH,” wrote Random House executive vice president for communication Stuart Applebaum in an email. He added in a later email that Random House would be creating more videos giving viewers an inside look at how the publishing company operates.

If it’s not already, Random House and other publishers may soon find it very advantageous to develop strong consumer brands. In May, at the PaidContent conference in New York, Pottermore CEO Charlie Redmayne told an audience of media executives and investors that other book publishers could do what Pottermore did — set the terms of its engagement with the major e-booksellers and sell directly to consumers to great benefit — but only if they had a strong, consumer facing brand. Not to mention other potential advantages.

The wave of the future, IMO.