No Life For A Lady
A publishing first - a customised edition of Hannah Dolby’s No Life For A Lady created for the Tandem Readalong.
Our community loves historical fiction for the feeling of complete immersion in a world that’s otherwise inaccessible to us. When we were asked to come up with a creative way to spread the word about Hannah Dolby’s historical fiction debut, No Life For A Lady, we knew this was the perfect opportunity to create something truly memorable. The idea was to take the immersive experience of the Readalong - its book club feel, the exclusive behind the scenes content, the creative challenges and discussion questions - and integrate it with the physical book itself.
The creators absolutely loved the immersiveness of it, and the uniqueness of having their own, limited edition copy. Here is an article in the Bookseller about this publishing first, if you'd like to read more about it!
We worked with our designer on interior files provided by the publisher to tailor the proof designs to include QR codes designed in a 'Victorian' style, to fit the setting of the book, and to create a unique, branded cover. The publisher then printed 100 copies, we printed associated bookmarks and sent this out 3 months before the book's release.
The QR codes linked to, among other things:
- a playlist with songs written during the era the book is set
- videos from the author shared on our Youtube channel, explaining her inspiration behind specific scenes (example here)
- immersive, in-plot elements and puzzle challenges, such as a this missing persons notice which we wrote for one of the characters, with a coded word to decipher (the first 10 people who sent in the solution won a signed bookplate)
- a Google map "path" which the main character walked in the book, with photos of old shop signs that still exist, which appear in the book
- interesting facts that shed light on some of the historical aspects (blogs about fashion in the 1800s, women's roles in society at the time, etc)
- We had a dedicated Discord server for the Readalong, which was joined by the author for a live chat, and participants loved this element.
- We also involved the creators in contributing to Tandem's channels with “pass the book” videos, mystery book recommendations, etc.
There are a lot of ways we could play around with enhancing this special experience, and we found that the way creators felt at being singled out for such a special campaign made them extra willing to create additional content, share across platforms, etc.
We shared on our platforms throughout the whole campaign (example here). Additionally, this was one of our Pairing Pages campaigns (participants were sent a bottle of wine by a partnership winery, and the author was interviewed by a wine journalist to pair specific wines to various events in the book).
And finally, we also replicated this same campaign structure with a slightly smaller group (20 participants), in the US, which was hugely well received by creators, who continue to this day to chat together in the DM group we created for the occasion, sharing book recommendations! It was simply a question of printing an additional 20 copies, and sending them via the publisher's US distributor.
The entire campaign overall had a lovely average engagement rate which was triple the Instagram average, 400 pieces of content (not including Stories, of which there were 1000+), and over 2000 saves, with a total overall follower count of all those participating of over 300K. The feedback from creators was overwhelmingly positive, this one really stood out to them!