Deadline author defends Dan Brown/WHS deal

Deadline author defends Dan Brown/WHS deal

28.07.09 Graeme Neill

Deadline author Simon Kernick has defended a W H Smith offer offer his new book alongside Corgi stablemate Dan Brown, after accusations that it promoted his book as being written by The Da Vinci Code author. W H Smith is giving Deadline free to customers if they pre-order Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol, which is due out on 15th September. However, the promotional version of Deadline had Brown's name displayed prominently on the cover.

Writing in Marketing Week, Ruth Mortimer said: "Careless shoppers, like me, could quite easily buy it thinking it was Brown’s own work and only realise their mistake when they’d parted with their cash." Some bloggers also objected; Pace J Miller (who took the jacket image displayed above) claimed it was "the most disgraceful book cover ever". He said: "It’s designed to mislead and deceive the careless book buyer, or at the very least cause what is commonly referred to as ‘initial interest confusion’."

However, others defended it. Author Jason Pinter, writing on Sarah Weinman's blog, said: "When I saw this promotion in the UK a month a go, my first thought was, "Wow, good for Simon." The bottom line is that this will sell boatloads of Kernick books and elevate his status and recognition. So from a bottom line marketing standpoint, it's one of the most effective promotions I've ever seen."

Kernick also defended the campaign on the same blog. He said: "I sincerely hope that no one feels duped in any way . . . [but] to be honest, I'm still not a hundred percent sure what all the fuss is about. This was always a one-off promotion to promote my books by giving away Deadline with pre-orders of the new Dan Brown book in WH Smith.

"The book with the new cover is not, never was, and never will be for sale, and Deadline's still in print with its original cover and available in Smiths and elsewhere. I also knew about the whole thing from the start, and it seems to have worked because my backsales have gone up very substantially in the weeks since it begun, and both Transworld and Smiths are very pleased. I guess, in conclusion, I'm fairly relaxed about the whole thing since anyone who got the book as part of the promotion, got it free and should have been told that it wasn't by Dan Brown but my me."

Seliina Walker, Kernick's longtime editor at Transworld, is also quoted on the blog: "As far as we're concerned at Transworld, this was a WHSmith initiative aimed at driving pre-orders for The Lost Symbol while giving a high profile front-of-store promotion to Simon who is, as you know, one of the UK's most popular thriller writers. All parties, including both authors, are fully briefed and gave approval for the promotion, which was always perceived as a short-term one.