The Brief
Midas was appointed to deliver a high-profile, impactful media campaign for Julie Owen Moylan’s second novel 73 Dove Street, published by Penguin Michael Joseph on 20 July 2023.
Our objectives were to deliver a variety of national, regional, social media coverage and events – encompassing reviews, interviews, written pieces, and features – that generated excitement ahead of publication and built Julie’s author profile, exploring the themes within 73 Dove Street, and to work collaboratively with Michael Joseph to drive book sales.
The Work
Over the course of our campaign, Midas secured a wide breadth of national and regional publicity for 73 Dove Street across national newspaper, magazine, regional and digital media, as well as impactful events.
At the outset, following an initial call with Julie and the Penguin Michael Joseph team, we finalised a PR Plan with agreed key messaging, overall strategy, interview/feature angles, and target media. We worked closely with Julie to develop our media hooks throughout the campaign, drawing on her personal experience, the inspiration for and themes within the novel, and topical news that we could look to issue-jump.
From the outset we harnessed Julie’s impressive social media presence to build early buzz and reviewer engagement by gradually offering review copies to influential bloggers and readers on Twitter and Instagram, capturing the attention of national reviewers. Through a two-week blog tour and a partnership with SquadPod, the noise around 73 Dove Street ran through to publication and beyond, amplified by Julie’s Twitter and Midas’s own social channels.
Our key target for the publicity campaign was to secure reviews in the broadsheet newspapers – something Julie didn’t receive for That Green Eyed Girl. We are thrilled to have achieved this with positive reviews from both the Sunday Times and The Times as well as reviews in Sunday Express, Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday, the i and a syndicated review across regional newspapers through PA Media. The key lifestyle and women’s magazines also gave glowing reviews. We capitalised on early support from Good Housekeeping and secured an impressive double-page written feature by Julie on her love of Bruce Springsteen.
We worked closely with the Penguin Michael Joseph team to ensure widespread bookseller support for 73 Dove Street through a series of events in both independent bookshops and Waterstones. By partnering Julie with other authors writing in a similar genre – Alex Hays, Emma Flint, Kate Sawyer and Rebecca F. John – we have been able to cement Julie’s place as a must-read author and a supporter of other writers.
The Results
Midas secured 9 national newspaper reviews for 73 Dove Street in Sunday Times, The Times, Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday, Sunday Express, i, the Independent, Daily Record and the Scottish Daily Mail. A syndicated review in the PA led to reviews in Plymouth Herald, Evening Express, Huddersfield Daily Examiner, Coventry Telegraph, South Wales Evening Post, Birmingham Evening Mail, The Press & Journal, The Courier and Cambridge News among others.
In terms of magazines and digital media, we secured a spread of incredible reviews, including in Red, Good Housekeeping, Woman & Home, Woman’s Weekly, Woman’s Way, Woman, Best and Historia, and the coveted July Editor’s Choice in The Bookseller. Julie was interviewed on BBC Radio Wales, BBC Radio Newcastle and BBC Radio Hereford & Worcester, and also interviewed for the podcasts Novel Experience, The Merry Menopause Book Club and The Bestseller Experiment.
Julie’s events, which took place in July and throughout September, include Waterstones Manchester, Liverpool, Bath and Swansea and Cardiff’s Bert’s Books and Max Minerva’s.
