Marketing Innovation in Book Publishing: Lessons from Steve Hamilton

In 2019, I wrote a column about well-known crime writer Steve Hamilton and how, in partnership with an innovative company called The Story Factory, he was “turning conventional business practices in the publishing industry on their head.” Essentially, publishers devoted fewer resources to marketing support for most new books, forcing authors to seek other mechanisms to get their books noticed or turn to publishers that engage in such practices. A recent survey of more than 5,699 authors conducted by the Author’s Guild found that the median gross annual income for an author from a book was just $2,000, while authors’ total income from writing was just $5,000. The lack of marketing support has added even more pressure to a profession where the median income is below the poverty line.

Five years later, it makes sense to revisit both the author and the extremely competitive industry he still works in. The timing is particularly good because when I spoke to Hamilton in 2019, he happened to have just released the second book in his Chicago-set Nick Mason series (Exit strategy), followed by the eleventh book in the Alex McKnight series set in Northern Michigan (Dead man running). Covid struck in 2020, and while it didn’t completely shut down business, it did change the way books were published and promoted. Steve collaborated with mega-bestselling author Janet Evanovich on a book that year called The Bountybut neither author was able to make a single public appearance. The author’s book tour, which has been a staple of book marketing for over a century (back to Mark Twain), was suddenly impossible.

“The closest thing to a traditional book event,” Hamilton told me, “was a split-screen Zoom call hosted by a bookstore. The store owners were there, alone, with absolutely no customers allowed through the doors, and Janet and I were both sitting at home talking into our laptops.”

Hamilton, a graduate of the University of Michigan, worked on another collaboration in 2023 – Stay sane in a crazy world, how to control the controllable and thrive – a motivational book co-written with Greg Harden, the Wolverines’ former assistant athletic director of sports consulting who is best known for his work with seven-time Super Bowl winner Tom Brady, Heisman Trophy winners Desmond Howard and Charles Woodson, and 23-time Olympic gold medalist Michael Phelps. Although the book was very well received, fans of Hamilton’s two book series had to wait a little longer for new material.

So we are finally in 2024 and Hamilton’s first solo release in six years: An honorable assassin (out August 27th from Blackstone), the long-awaited third book in the Nick Mason series. This will be his sixteenth book tour since he launched his first book in 1998 (the Edgar Award-winning A cold day in paradise), and I caught up with him as he was about to board a plane to Arizona.

“Publishing has changed,” says Hamilton. “This is my first headline. It honestly feels different to me now, even in the last couple of years since we last talked about it.”

The most significant change of all as bookstores reopened in a post-Covid world was an unprecedented decline in major publishers. In 2022, a federal judge blocked the merger of Penguin Random House and Simon & Schuster, a takeover that would have effectively reduced the number of major publishers from five to four.

Even without such a drastic reduction in the remaining major players in the market, the industry has seen acquisitions and layoffs—the largest likely to occur at Penguin Random House in 2023 and Little, Brown & Company in 2024.

“There is no continuity in the collaboration anymore,” says Hamilton. “I spoke to an author whose book went into production just a few months ago. From then until now, every person who was involved in any capacity with that book is no longer employed by the publisher. Literally every single person who had anything to do with the book, gone“For an author, it’s a helpless feeling.”

Further complicating the lives of many writers was when the Writers Guild of America went on strike in May 2023, quickly joined by members of SAG-AFTRA. It was the largest film and television industry work stoppage in history. While it didn’t directly affect traditional book publishing, the overlap with an author like Hamilton — who has done some work in film and television — was troubling. Even now, months after both strikes ended, the impact of the walkouts is still severely dampening the number of projects currently in development across all studios.

The massive changes in the industry continue with the emergence of AI as an existential threat to the livelihoods of working writers everywhere. (Would anyone have even imagined this development, looking back just five years, when I wrote my first column?) It’s no wonder so many writers—especially those still trying to establish themselves in the marketplace—are having such a tough time.

“We’ve talked about ‘disrupting’ the market before,” says Hamilton, “but it seems publishing is disrupting itself well without help. I’m afraid at the moment it feels more like a question of pure survival.”

Hamilton is glad that his publishing company, The Story Factory, still represents him and several other authors and is finding new ways to maintain stability in an unstable business. It is a production company and literary agency for novelists founded by screenwriter, producer and director Shane Salerno (with numerous writing credits of his own, including Avatar: The Way of Waterthe highest-grossing film of 2022, as well as the documentary Salinger and the bestselling companion book). Hamilton was The Story Factory’s second client (after Don Winslow) and joined in 2013. In 2015, his first book was published by the company, The second life of Nick Masonbecame his first New York Times Bestseller.

When I first wrote about The Story Factory in 2019, the company was just preparing for commercialization The chain by Adrian McKinty – an author who until then drove Uber to earn extra money and not lose his house. When the book was published on New York Times Bestseller list, it was the 19th.^th Book by The Story Factory. Five years later, despite all the turbulence in the industry, the company is celebrating its 32nd anniversary.^and Bestsellers with Worst-case scenario by TJ Newman.

“We all work as a team,” says Hamilton, “and we celebrate our successes together. Shane has more energy than anyone I know, and he is always find new ways to market books.”

A big part of that marketing strategy is creating a “storm” of cross-media advertising in the weeks leading up to a book’s release. For the 2023 release of first-time author Greg Harden’s book, Salerno knew the key was to get him as much TV time as possible. While 60 minutes had already profiled Harden once before, back in 2014. Now that he had collaborated with Steve Hamilton to put his inspirational message into a book, he needed to be properly introduced to the book-buying public again.

In the run-up to the release of Stay sane in a crazy worldThe Story Factory was able to book Harden for several television shows, including Good morning America, CBS MorningAnd The Rich Eisen ShowUntil 14 August 2023, the day before the book was published, it was number 1 in the all Books on Amazon.

“Not everyone can do that, of course,” Hamilton told me, “because few people can captivate you through the television screen like Greg Harden can. But it’s a prime example of how you have to think about marketing a book today. You just put it out there and hope it’s good enough and that people find it… If that approach ever worked, it doesn’t work now.”

Of course, social media remains another important channel for book marketing. Don Winslow, Hamilton’s stablemate at The Story Factory, currently has nearly a million followers on X (formerly Twitter). It’s the perfect platform for “book trailers,” another of The Story Factory’s specialties, which are short videos created to promote new books and held to the same high production standards as movie trailers.

No matter the platform or method, an author like Steve Hamilton shows time and time again that innovative thinking in marketing offers a way to keep moving forward, even in the most volatile markets. Hamilton’s resilience in such a harsh environment is admirable, and he deserves to enjoy his upcoming reading journey.