The Book Fairies, in the UK and overseas, work with publishers and other partners to help promote the titles they are most excited about! If you’re a publisher looking for a unique way to create a buzz on social media, then maybe some book fairies could help 🙂
How does it work?
The publisher chooses the title(s) they would like “book-fairy-ed” and gets in touch to arrange the perfect day for a campaign with the book fairies. From there, we can have a chat face to face, over the phone or over email to decide on quantities, where in the world you want the books hidden, and also if there will be a theme (for example, Chris Packham’s memoirs were left in nature sanctuaries and animal hospitals! Feel free to ask for more examples). You can see many blog entries of campaigns here. For other partners who are not book publishers, we tailor our activity to include sourcing the right books to include – and we can put bookmarks or postcards inside the book to tie the campaign together.
The book fairies then give you a list of addresses for you to arrange book delivery, and we start preparing the books with our stickers and often bookmarks and ribbon too – often we even match the ribbon to the colour of the book cover!
"The Book Fairies were a very capable company to work with, and the drop-offs and Instagram takeover were a fun addition to our creative book campaign. A fun, social media focused escapade with a brightening end result."
"Thank you so much for your imaginative approach to this campaign, you've exceeded expectations in terms of how you picked up individual themes and lines from the plays and books to hide them in iconic and ingenious places, the little details have added to the magic of this campaign. Thank you fairies, you've not only inspired some team members to become fairies, helped us reach new audiences but also delivered sales as a secondary consequence too from the coverage."
"The Book Fairies are creative, adaptable and full of ideas. They are a pleasure to work with and it's always exciting to see what they get up to on the day."
"Thank you SO much to all the fairies who took part in the campaign. Our Instagram was completely full of hidden Nancy Moons everywhere, and the author was absolutely overwhelmed with joy. It can make such a difference to a debut author’s first publication day, and she certainly felt the love! I was thrilled with this campaign - 10/10!"
“The Book Fairies campaign exceeded all my expectations. Social media has been flooded with wonderful images of the book being left in all sorts of fab and interesting locations, the length and breadth of the UK. There’s been great engagement with the posts, and a real sense of buzz. This is a team of highly dedicated book-loving fairies who really go the extra mile - with pride, and with love. You’re all awesome - thank you!”
"Working with The Book Fairies on The Maidens was an absolute dream. They were incredibly helpful, enthusiastic and nothing was ever too much trouble. You really got a sense that you were working with book lovers and they had so many creative ideas to help us captivate the good people of Cambridge. I can't wait to work with them again!"
"The Book Fairies are an extremely magical and dedicated group! The team was very helpful in setting up our campaign and the process was super easy. It was fantastic to see all of the photos of our book in such creative places!"
"It was an absolute delight to launch my debut novel The Last Library with The Book Fairies. We had such a fun morning hiding copies around central London, and the buzz created by the photos and videos posted on social media was brilliant. For a story about kindness, community and the power of books, it really was the perfect way to introduce it to new readers. A huge thanks to all the Book Fairies who took part."
"We were thrilled with the Book Fairies campaign for The High House and it was delightful to see so many copies pop up in creative locations all around the UK in support of Jessie Greengrass's powerful novel on paperback publication."
Loved the pic of "How to Fart at Work" on the statue. Love these campaigns. They always raise a smile - and awareness of course!
"We were very happy to see the thousands of likes and social media engagement following our campaign for A Curse So Dark and Lonely by Brigid Kemmerer!"
"I approached The Book Fairies for a project with a really quick turnaround and got back to me in a day. We then were able to organise the project by the end of the week which brilliant results and placement of our books. Thank you for all of your help!"
"So easy to pull together such a wonderful project! There were Book Fairies in ever location we needed, and the photos which came out of the day were absolutely brilliant. Can't wait to work with them on another project!"
Book Fairies is an engaging and fun way to promote and share books across the world. It's easy to arrange, and creates a lot of enthusiasm. The team are friendly and flexible, and best of all - passionate about books!
"It was a joy to see all the Book Fairy activity online! It was particularly brilliant to see Mahmood, the main character in The Fortune Men, return to Tiger Bay in Cardiff! We had a very happy author and really enjoyed this campaign."
"A brilliant campaign, the fairies went out of their way to choose locations that really represented the core themes of the book and it was beautiful to see the book being shared across the country!"
"We loved working with The Book Fairies for our marketing campaign. The process was efficient, easy, and seeing the book out in the world on so many adventures was a great joy. Such a fun and dynamic way to bring awareness to a new book over social."
I was really impressed with our Book Fairies campaign - Cordelia was so helpful and it really helped us make a splash across social media on publication day. Thank you so much!
"The Book Fairies found the perfect spots to hide copies of Max Einstein: The Genius Experiment to target families around half term. It was so great to see the book at a spread of locations across the UK and I hope people were really excited to find their copies!"
"The Book Fairies were delightful to work with and so helpful throughout the process. The campaign looked fantastic and we were so pleased with the result. Very much looking forward to many more campaigns in the future!"
"The Book Fairies helped us launch A Song of Gladness into the wild, travelling far and wide to share beautiful photos of the picture book by Sir Michael Morpurgo and Emily Gravett released for lucky people to discover. It helped mark a joyful publication week with style."
"Brilliant campaign! The Book Fairies were such a pleasure to work with and drummed up great engagement and interest in Daughters of Nri. Can't wait to work on future campaigns with them!"
"It was lovely to see photos of pets with our books The Cat and The Dog. There seemed to be a real enthusiasm for these books that really translated through Instagram. We're really glad we booked in with the Book Fairies to spread the word about these crafty books!"
"We were thrilled with The Book Fairies campaign for bestselling author Ryan Holiday's 'Courage is Calling'. A great way to extend Ryan's call to bravery across London."
"It was really moving to see the posts from Book Fairies around the UK, who were so creative and thoughtful in the pictures they shared of Migrations and the locations where books were hidden - they really engaged with the book's themes of nature, the environment and climate change. I was thrilled and I know Charlotte will be too."
"The Book Fairies did an incredible job of promoting my book, flying all over the country and leaving it in special places for people to find and read. Their passion, enthusiasm and care was extraordinary, as well as their personal commitment to doing the best job they possibly could. I couldn’t be more grateful for their support and will never forget the magic of this day. My thanks to each and every book fairy for making this author very happy!"
Every campaign is different
It’s true, we’re not just saying that. We encourage publishers and authors to give us themes or ideas, and we will do our very best to make the campaign really stand out for them! If it’s a children’s book, we will find places where families hang out, if it’s a book set in a particular location, we will try to go there to take pictures and hide the books! The amount of personalisation we can do is almost endless so don’t hold back if you have a wild idea about how we could promote your title!
Other types of partnerships we’ve had include theatres, drama schools, restaurant chains, insurance firms, event organisers, The National Trust, museums and more!
Looking for something extra?
#shareyourfirstpage
A couple of years ago, we started using #shareyourfirstpage on social media. Now with over 3,000 posts on instagram, it’s grown into a bit of a trend! These posts generally are the most likely to receive comments like “I’m going to order this book!” as we get them into the very start of the story. Publishers can add this to their campaign, and it will feature on our worldwide accounts as well as local ones.
Unboxing Video
We can also do unboxing videos when the boxes arrive at the fairy door! We will let you know which fairy will be doing the video, so you have a chance to add some fun extras inside.
“Book Fairy for a Day”
Book fairies LOVE meeting authors. If you work with an author who would like a chance at getting involved as a book fairy, hiding their own books, then we will help to make this happen!
One example is from London, where book fairies met with Becky Albertalli and Adam Silvera to hide copies of their book, What If It’s Us? This is what Olivia from Simon & Schuster had to say about the experience:
“I was really happy with the book fairy for a day campaign, we were met by Cordelia and Zarina who were great at explaining the process to the authors, getting them involved and even giving them a little tour of the Southbank as we dropped books. It was a really positive experience and I think the photos and boomerangs etc. were a great addition.”