Lost Telegram Press is now being advertised across the CBC Network. This includes CBC Gem (its streaming site), as well as CBC Listen and the CBC home site. This decision to advertise with the CBC is an exciting step but came with some interesting roadblocks, not with the CBC, but with the changing world of advertising in general.
Over the years I have purchased ads for various businesses and been involved with the news industry for over 20 years, where ads helped keep me employed. But advertising was always based on the product. Certain media and locations were better to advertise in than others. For me, today, it is the opposite. Let me explain.
For starters, there is almost nowhere to advertise, especially places that suit the market that reads books. I know you are probably saying that you are inundated by ads every day; on your phone, tablet, desktop… but realistically, all those ads come from one place: Google. This is not a good use for anyone’s dollar to advertise with Google, if you want to target where your market is at least, let alone other ethical concerns spending money with Google raises.
I thought that websites for art galleries was a great place to start. As well as museums and cultural centres. Well none of these places, well none of the dozens that I researched had any system to accept advertising. I am not sure why. You would think it would be easier money for them than donations. But they can chose the way they want to do business.
I don’t think I need to mention the reason why Facebook or Instagram advertising is out of the question either.
Municipal advertising in small news centres can get very costly with little results. Even large news centres have issues with their conversions from print to digital. Entertainment magazines that started out in print now offer digital ads but oddly at the same price. So you have to buy a quarter page ad or eight of a page ad at several hundred dollars and you get a digital ad for free. I am not sure how this equation ever added up in those marketing departments. The many magazines I looked into did not have any sections to buy only a digital ad for their website.
I want to be in front of national markets.
The first places I thought of in Canada were places where I read about writers and books over the years were the CBC, The Globe and Mail, The Toronto Star and The Montreal Gazette. I learned a few days ago that even advertising with The Globe and Mail can have certain pluses and minuses since it is Globe Media. Globe Media is The Globe and Mail, CNN, The Washington Post, ABC News, The Guardian, ESPN, Esquire, Country Living, Forbes, The Atlantic, Reuters, The Times of India, Cosmopolitan, Bazaar, Women’s Day, Runner’s World and dozens of other popular magazines and news outlets. It is not only irresponsible to advertise with a media group where you do not know where the ad is going to end up but it is a huge waste of money.
It is a different world out there… I say this to writers all the time. Most are shocked to learn that when you go into a bookstore in North America that is not independent, the majority of the books on the shelf (if not all) come from Amazon in some way. Most of the places to buy e-books and audio books are owned by Amazon, like Audible and BookBub. These are things you know you are up against as an indie publisher… but I never would have thought that I would have trouble buying advertising! Ha. Ha.
