šŸ³ļøā€šŸŒˆPridešŸ³ļøā€āš§ļø is … ā€“ thoughts on LGBTQ+ Pride month 2021

#Pride is a protestā€¦Itā€™s many other things, a celebration, festivals, marches a chance increasingly for many corporations and orgs to try and leverage their inclusive credentials or commercialise them to make us *feel* like they support us. Itā€™s often cynical and performative

We as one global #LGBTQ+ community have to remember that our hard fought rights and improved safety are germinative, in many countries we are still actively oppressed and demonised.

Here in šŸ‡¬šŸ‡§, while significantly more fortunate the tone and actions of our govt are worryingly hostile.

Whatever your personal politics, the fact our so-called ā€œEqualities Ministerā€ .@trussliz has sided with bigots who harm #LGBTQ community repeatedly over listening or delivering – refusing to #banconversiontherapy now vilifying our respected charities such as @stonewalluk is scary.

Protests are a spark, a defiant flicker of hope for something else.

Change, progress.

Small flames are delicate they need to be refuelled to last. We have come a long way with #LGBTQ#Pride but there is so much more to do ā€œNo Pride for some of us without liberation for all of usā€.

The biggest protest about #pride is refusing to accept the shame and prejudices forced upon us. By politicians, religions, families and others – we in the #LGBTQ community are a kaleidoscope of powerful, creative and beautiful souls and people.

Do not apologise for who you are.

#Pride is a Protest #PrideMonth2021

#ColourTheMagic

On Thursday 1st September, I commissioned and led a unique interactive colouring event #ColourTheMagic to celebrate the Harry Potter film series and the bestselling Harry Potter Colouring Book series, which is published in the UK by Studio Books (one of the five imprints I work across at Kings Road Publishing).

After coming up with this brainwave, selecting the creative agency partner to finesse its execution and many weeks of meticulous planning three free standing canvases were set up with carefully drawn images depicting iconic images from the films which feature in the colouring book series.

The campaign was enormously successful with over five thousand members of the public taking part in colouring the magic and sharing their messages of love for all things Potter, we also had an unprecedented social media reach of 6.1 million impressions on our hashtag #ColourTheMagic on 1st September.

Here’s a trailer showing some of the results on the day…

And below is a gallery showing our three finalised colouring designs ā€“ thanks to the dedication of thousands of Harry Potter fans for helping us #ColourTheMagic.

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This project is a personal highlight of my year ā€“ it was wonderful to conceive, plan and deliver something so magical with a brilliant team!

Mischief Managed!

 

Interview with the Innovation Enterprise

I’m due to speak as an industry leader at The Innovation Enterprise‘s Digital Publishing summit #DigiPub #LDN 19thā€“20th October, taking place at London’s ExCel Centre.

Ahead of the event I sat down with Stuart Found to talk all things digital publishing, from recent trends to future opportunities. Here’s a copy of the interview, which originally appeared on the IE’s website here.

SF: How have you seen the digital publishing industry change over the last year?

Kings Road Publishing is recognised in the book industry as a leader in digital innovation. Our approach has always been iterative ā€“ and while weā€™re continuing to grow and consolidate our digital comms strategies, our approach remains experimental. My goal is to take readersā€™ experience beyond the words on a page and as content consumption is always changing, itā€™s important to keep an open mind.

SF: What could the industry be doing to better meet consumer expectations?

Clear communication to consumers is always key, even more so in the fluid digital space. Industry brands need to react more quickly with the right level of information, particularly when there is an issue damaging consumer experience.

SF: How much of a place – if any – do you think personalisation has in digital publishing?

Thereā€™s been some very interesting work in bespoke personalisation of content by book publishers, but a lot of these donā€™t seem to have quite hit the mark in consumer expectations. I think this will grow into an important niche of the industry but it is harder to execute it well.

SF: What are in your experience the most common mistakes made my digital publishers?

Personally, I think that a reliance on broadcast messaging and ‘the known’ strategies can dilute brand potential. We have to be bold and do things differently in order to outsmart the competition.

SF: How can digital publishers best respond to the overwhelming shift toward video content?

My view is that book publishers should continue to invest and innovate in this area, but that there has to be a narrative worth filming and compelling reason for consumers to watch it to create any kind of ROI.

SF: Where do you see digital publishing going next?

The enormous popularity of PokĆ©monGO has been a surprise for some, whereas at Kings Road Publishing weā€™ve been waiting for a gaming leap with geotagging and AR for a while. Niantic has really broken the mould first with Ingress and now PokĆ©monGO, I think that digital publishers will attempt to move into GPS experiences more in the future as there is so much potential for tailored content delivery.

You can hear more from me, along with other digital publishing industry leaders, at the Digital Publishing Innovation Summit in London this October 19th-20th. To see the full schedule, click here.

From the vaults: #CivilisedSaturday Publishing beyond parody

This article was originally published in an opinion piece on TheBookseller in November 2015.

“Christmas is coming.

We all know this, weā€™ve spent months finalising our plans for the festivities, picking our favourite gifts (books obviously!) and packaging them perfectly so that we get the kind of warm fuzzy feeling associated with sales at ā€œthe most wonderful time of the yearā€ and thatā€™s just the commercial side of Christmas.

But since Black Fridayā€™s ever-growing popularity and presence across large retailers grows each year, this is apparently the week where consumers will kick-start or complete their Christmas shopping.

As The Bookseller reported earlier in the year Tim Walker, president of the Booksellers Association, issued a rallying cry to independent bookshops to fight back with the ā€œantidoteā€ to Black Friday ā€“ #CivilisedSaturday.

On Civilised Saturday bookshops around the country will be serving everything from mulled wine to champagne and serving up dignified discounts and recommendations to their patrons.

Now the question is, are we in 2015 or extras in a “Downton Abbey” Christmas special?

My initial reaction at reading this news was to cringe, eye-roll and choke back a laugh (a great look if you’re after one) ā€“ not because I donā€™t see the need for independents and smaller retailers to emphasise the virtues of hand-selling and make an event of it, but because of that awfully cultured name for it.

This industry has its problems, they are many and the struggle for smaller bookshops and other businesses to compete with large players (particularly the online ones able to price and promote aggressively) is very real.

But, for an industry increasingly notorious for its cosseted cultural snobbery, is Civilised Saturday a wise branding exercise?

The name implies that only uncivilised people partake in or appreciate the bargains associated with Black Friday. (Don’t tell the unenlightened shopping at John Lewis this Friday.)

We know we need more diverse books, we need more diversity in book awards and staffing. We also need more diverse book-buyers as books are competing with every other form of entertainment in the world.

For that reason, I dislike the air of smugness emanating from the Civilised Saturday campaign. It feels as though the book trade is determined to focus itself on isolating many consumers to favour its preferred, more refined audience.

This poorly named campaign risks alienating the masses and those slightly mythical creatures, the reluctant readers.

After all, I’m sure that even Dowager Countess Violet Crawley herself would agree that itā€™s rather common to tell everyone how civilised you are.

From,
A civilised gentleman.

Nick Coveney is Head of Digital and Social Media at Kings Road Publishing.”

CloudSpotter

In 2013, I led the project management, UAT and publicity on the CloudSpotter app for The Cloud Appreciation Society, an innovative app which enables users to learn more about the skies and huge plethora of weather effects which surround them.

This led to a unique collaboration with NASA sharing data on weather patterns for its CERES system.

This app received widespread acclaim and was covered by the BBC, BBC Breakfast, VICE Motherboard, DigitalSpy, the Wall Street Journal and TED.

There’s also a great video explaining the app and its functionality here.

All content Ā© The Cloud Appreciation Society.

Let’s get started

I’m starting this site as a platform for me to share my experience, thoughts and insights on digital storytelling.

Since I joined the exciting world of digital product development I’ve had the enormous pleasure of working with some leading brands and content creators to generate internationally bestselling products.

Excuse the slightly spurious wisdom of the fortune cookie above but one of the things I firmly believe in is that passion and drive are an integral part of creating stand-out digital success.

I will be adding sections to this site over time so please let me know what you think using the contact form.

N