Bello is Pan Macmillan’s digital only imprint, established in 2011 to revive classic and out of print titles as ebooks and in Print on Demand. The imprint works with literary agents, authors and literary estates to offer a new kind of deal. Its list includes Gerald Durrell, Vita Sackville-West, Francis Durbridge and D J Taylor.
A key focus for the list was rediscovering lost classics of the British crime genre. Classic crime writers Paul Winterton, David Williams and Josephine Bell are just some of the authors who have been made available in ebook and print on demand formats.
We worked with Pan Macmillan to engage the crime community, building relationships with key influencers and blogging communities, managing and nurturing the social media platforms on behalf of Bello and engaging with other online reading communities.
To tie in with the Harrogate Crime Writing Festival, a print Bello Omnibus was published to present to guests at the Ann Cleeves dinner. The event was also supported by a social media push using the Harrogate hashtag and creating #BelloBOBC #BelloAuthors, and engaging with key bloggers and tweeters during the festival with competitions for Bello books. This campaign helped build Bello’s Twitter following by capitalising on Harrogate activity with relevant comment and content.
As part of the campaign we also researched reviews, obituaries and other information relating to Bello Crime writers and plotted this content into an historical Facebook Timeline going back to 1897.
The activity was underpinned by ensuring best practice SEO and by working with the Pan Macmillan sales team to ensure that activity was focused around known sales-driving promotions such as Kindle Daily Deals.