Of all the efforts made by the Los Angeles Times, flagship of the ailing Tribune Publishing Co. empire, to boost its presence on its home turf, none might be as important as the paper’s Festival of Books, which will run April 9 and 10 at USC’s South L.A. campus.
The event, which draws more than 150,000 visitors each year, provides the paper an opportunity to directly engage with its audience by having Times journalists moderate author talks and its marketing teams hand out promotional materials – while also collecting email addresses for follow-up marketing opportunities.
The festival is the largest of the more than 90 live events the paper holds each year, and such public-facing opportunities are seen as a crucial part of its effort to try and reverse declining readership. Daily print circulation has dropped to around 690,000, according to the latest figures from the Alliance for Audited Media, from 852,000 a decade ago.
It also provides an opportunity to engage a demographic not otherwise likely to pick up a newspaper. The median age of Times subscribers is 47, and the paper is keen to cultivate younger readership, especially among millennials – 18- to 34-year-olds – and the festival plays a part in that.
When John Green, author of popular young adult novels such as “The Fault in Our Stars” and “Paper Towns,” spoke at the festival two years ago, more than 3,000 people crowded in to hear him.
“They were all in their teens and twenties,” said Scott Davallo, director of events and strategic alliances for the Times, who added that the paper generally signs up 1,000 subscribers at festival each year.
“In a way, (the festival) brings the pages of the L.A. Times to life for a couple of days,” said Davan Maharaj, the paper’s editor and publisher.
Unique opportunity
According to festival marketing materials, visitors spend an average of eight hours at the event, offering a unique opportunity to have readers and potential readers engage with its brand.
“This kind of experiential marketing is a big part of the mix for us,” added Davallo, who said the paper’s marketing spend on the event is around $40,000.
This year’s event is slated to include appearances by Arianna Huffington, Buzz Aldrin, and James Patterson.
Since it was founded in 1996, the paper’s book festival had featured only free events – until last year, when a new revenue stream was introduced called the Ideas Exchange. This saw leading authors interviewed by Times reporters on stage for an audience paying from $35 to $100 for a ticket (the higher-price ticket buys a meeting with the author and signed copy of their book). All 1,200 tickets for the inaugural event, featuring Malcolm Gladwell, were sold last year.
“It seemed like a natural evolution of the festival and part of our overall expansion into the live journalism space,” said Suzy Jack, vice president of special projects at the Times.
Indeed, as the paper looks to new revenue streams, the Ideas Exchange is set to roll out as an ongoing event outside of the Festival of Books. There are not yet plans to monetize other festival offerings.
The effort comes as parent Tribune Publishing cut 10 percent of the paper’s newsroom staff in the fall in a bid to trim $10 million in companywide expenses.
Live events such as the book festival are used strategically to increase customer numbers. The paper says it collects an estimated 30,000 emails for its ticketed indoor conversation events and then tries to sign up those people for a trial subscription. It sends 20 marketing staff to the event to hand out free copies of the paper and promotional gifts.
Booking talent
The Times is not alone in seeing money-making and audience-increasing opportunities in the book world.
The Library Foundation of Los Angeles, a nonprofit that seeks to champion local libraries, annually hosts 50 ticketed events with authors as part of its Aloud series. The majority are free but some charge ticket prices as high as $50.
“It’s a balancing act to bring something for free to the public, and support the authors and publishers,” said Louise Steinman, founder and creative director of the series. “We think of it as the hearth of the city where we get to meet visionaries in all different disciplines.”
A purely commercial enterprise is Live Talks Los Angeles, which hosts 50 ticketed interviews with celebrity authors each year, mostly in Santa Monica, and has drawn big names such as Kevin Costner, Tina Fey, Steve Martin, and Cameron Diaz. Tickets cost between $25 and $95 for the talks, which are followed by book signings.
“When I started this in 2010 people thought I was crazy. They didn’t think there was enough interest,” said founder Ted Habte-Gabr. He added that those people were wrong as videos of the talks have been viewed in 156 countries.
