It is interesting to see the contrast between the marketing of two different British beer books published this year.
One follows the old way of doing things, sending out review copies to some old chums writing in media wholly dependent of dead trees.
The other uses the social media, creates a buzz as the book is in the making, sets up a Facebook group, sends review copies to bloggers and tells us all about promotional activities in bookstores, in the media and at beer festivals on twitter.
Roger Protz is an old hand at beer writing. The subtitle of his book, Memoirs from a Life in Beer, is a bit misleading, I’d call it Snapshots from a Life in Beer. It gives us glimpses from his travels over 3 decades. The book, A Life on the Hop, is published by CAMRA, heavily promoted through CAMRA channels, but the coverage outside the ranks of the converted seems to be slim. Sure, there is a very positive review in the Westmoreland Gazette, bless them, but the google results for the title is mostly listings in online bookshops.
Pete Brown has two beer books under his belt, but he has been a very profiled beer writer for several years with articles turning up all over the place. He used his blog and his Facebook community around the project to promote his project about travelling halfway around the world with a barrel of beer. Investing some of his time in the social media has then made it possible to use this network for promoting the book, Hops and Glory, when finished.
Both the books are well written and have a similarity in showing the clear voice of the author, giving personal views without masquerading them as facts. I think A Life at the Hop could have benefited from an editor outside CAMRA headquarters with a little more critical distance. Some more general political remarks an asides on vegetarian menu options could, for example, have been weeded out, as they don’t add much to the tale. I expected more on the history of British beer culture over the last 30 years, too, but I suspect that is another book in the making.
But don’t think of that as a major objection. Both the books on my desk should appeal to roughly the same audience if you subtract the packaging and marketing.
I assume both of these books will have some shelf life, and perhaps beer books are more suited for fireside reading when the nights grow longer. But the sales numbers so far are quite brutal if you look outside CAMRA at the more general market. Pete Brown is at #5 in amazon.co.uk sales ranking of beer books, while Roger Protz is at #73.
If you look at the beer blogs, you’d find a similar ranking. As printed beer magazines are few and far between those days, there are dozens of high quality beer blogs. That is the main scene today for discussing beer and anything beery.
Pete Browns publishers evidently sent out a fair number of review copies to beer bloggers around the world. And guess what – they (we) wrote about it. That’s what beer bloggers do. All with their own unique perspective.
And it’s not as if CAMRA books are not selling outside their own ranks. Ironically, the Good Beer Guide, edited by none other than Roger Protz is number two in the ranking.
I politely asked for review copies of both books. No prize for guessing which one I got. The other publisher didn’t even bother to answer my e-mail…
This is not rocket science. A similar way of building a core of online followers is done by BrewDog, beermerchants and others. They have video blogs, online competitions, twittering accounts and so on. And they, on occation, send out a box of beer to a friendly blogger. We are easy to please.
Though I never heard again from the guy who offered to send me some bottles of the new watered down version of Stella in hope of a review. Maybe he, after the initial approach, scrolled a bit further down my blog than the contact details. Come to think of it, I haven’t seen it praised on any other blogs either.
Thanks Knut!
In the British Guild of Beer Writers we’re still having a bit of debate as to whether blogging is ‘proper’ writing. There are valid points on either side of the argument. From a commercial perspective, of course, you don’t make any money from it. But with regard to the points you make here, it was my ex-editor who first recommended I blog and Facebook. He claimed it would do more for me in publicity and sales than the modest budgets of off-line marketing ever could.
I didn’t believe him at first – I didn’t see how anyone would ever find my blog, or link to it, or care. Of course they did, and I have a following on my blog now who came to it for its own merits and aren’t even that aware of me as a writer of books.
Offline print media is going down the tubes. Newspapers have slashed their review sections and their staff, and are increasingly just vehicles for warmed-over corporate press releases. As my profile as a writer grows with each book, the amount of offline reviews I get decreases. Anyone wanting to promote a book – or any business really – has to engage with this medium. The proof is in the sales (you caught my Amazon ranking on a bad day – it’s usually higher).
I’m proud of my online marketing strategy. It was very time-consuming, but I’m painfully aware of the dearth of offline reviews this book has received, and yet every time I meet someone at a beer event they tell me it’s “everywhere” and has been “phenomenally well-received”. It’s likely this book would have been a commercial failure without it.
Thanks for the comment, your inside perspective sort of fills in the blanks here!
Good Lord. I am trying to figure out if the British Guild of Beer Writers bears a relationship to proper writing. Far too much of the Guild and not enough of the writing. Like much business writing, the examples I have seen are larded with relationships far too close to the brewers, lack perspective on the culture of beer, repeat error-ridden accounts of beer history and automatically defend beer against serious issues such health and drunk driving – not to mention generally missing its part within the pop side of society. As for the commercial perspective, as far as I can tell all but a handful of beer writers are supported by other sources of income including very patient spouses.
But do let us know when they make up their minds. I see the bloggy beer world waiting nervously for the approval of the kings of the dying media.
Hi Alan,
That is a tad harsh on the Guild – given that I’m – at 41 – one of the youngest members shows that they’re just guys who have been writing for years and are now getting on a bit, and therefore unsurprisingly have a little trouble adjusting to whole new paradigm shifts. But they’re getting there – most young new membership is coming from the blogosphere, and some of the older guys are tentatively going on line.
Re the commercial perspective – I think your comment is true of most authors. Last I heard the average salary of a writer is £16,000 – and remember that average incluces the likes of JK Rowling and Dan Brown
We’d better try to keep our day jobs as long as we can, Alan!
Well, it may be a bit harsh in relation to individual members socially but not the quality of the business reporting as their output nor the seeming acceptability of practices which look a lot like US sports reporting from, say, before the 1970s when the journalists drank with the team manager after the game. Heck, there is a point of view going around still that it is improper to suggest a value perspective when discussing good beer – how is that of any assistance to the beer drinking public? Not to mention that some writers also have side gigs as consultants to trade and presenters to fan fests. Not all revenue generating marriages include spouses.
There are wonderful exceptions to be sure but some days I do think if Michael Jackson didn’t send the whole thing in the wrong direction by focusing so singularly on the wonderfulness of it all. Richard Boston’s earlier 70s beer writing seems to have had less of the fan boy about it. A mature writing area needs more of a critical detachment than that. I think many are now exploring that critical eye now who hadn’t before web based beer writing.
To be fair, it may be that beer is simply too convivial to generally foster that detachment. That would be fine if true. But then don’t toss around words like guild or journalist so freely. The latter is an especially rare bird – though most welcome when encountered. Otherwise, that sort of beer writing is about promotion or advocacy, which is fine but a different thing. There are other sorts of writing like Unger’s beer histories by someone like Unger or the great travel / regional guides which are also not imbued with that difficulty of figuring out degrees of detachment – unless, of course, every craft brewer in the state seems to be fantastic.
Knut, I long ago dumped the idea of aspiring to professional beer writing and not just because of the money… or at least that bit that ends up in the writer’s pockets. There was nothing more irritating than waiting months for an editor’s small cheque when I gladly took in far more in ad payments by paypal in the interim – and without being told by some wizard that I couldn’t write things like craft brewers are on the wrong track about the internet. Wouldn’t want to upset the ad revenue stream, would we. No, the immediacy of the digital world (even with all its excesses such as social software) is now beating most accepted authority in far too many ways to plan to leap over to the sinking boat. That being said, no one knows whether the digital world is going either. Best to keep the day job and keep the better half happy.
Alan, perhaps you should link to this from your blog, an interesting discussion, and maybe others would like to join in?
I will do that tonight Indiana time. All this holidaying is too busy this morning.
Well, I think it’s horses for courses. I write about beer because it’s enjoyable and I’m not sure there’d be an audience for too much negativity.
Blogs, books and paid for old-school journalism each require a different approach and writing style. Blogs are great for spontaneity and opinion, journalism is more critical and neutral, books are more about crafting the words and deeper themes. There’s nothing wrong with preferring one over the others but I can’t see that one is intrinsically better or worse than the others. Some people do all three, others just do one. I don’t see the need for a ruck over the whole thing.
But as someone who does do paid consultancy to brewers and paid-for talks and tastings, I’d be offended if you were saying this compromised my integrity when I’m doing journalism.
I am not saying it compromises your integrity but it does make you not an independent journalist or, frankly, just someone who is not involved in the trade. You can write from your very experienced perspective which includes (and as your books indicate) influences both your point of view as well as your interests. It is a strength not a weakness in some respects.
But not all. You wouldn’t expect your political journalism to be coming from card carriers with cheques from the party without mentioning it, would you? Taking offense at this sort of obvious observation ought to make you think about things a bit more than just your integrity… like why is it in beer writing you could actually propose that this might be a matter to take offense over. What other facet of professional writing at all works on such a basis without the need to disclose and accept? In my line, the legal profession, to not do so would be the whopper for the most junior practitioner.
And, yes, I do not have much interest in saying one sort of beer writing is better than another but recall above it is the guilded ones who you say are suggesting that is the case. Handsome is as handsome does.
“In the British Guild of Beer Writers we’re still having a bit of debate as to whether blogging is ‘proper’ writing. There are valid points on either side of the argument.”
I’m curious about the arguments for and against blogging being ‘proper writing’. What precisely are they, or is it an undefined feeling about it? I reckon if it’s worth reading, and it’s well written, then it’s proper writing regardless of the medium. Of course I am speaking as someone who blogs beer stuff for enjoyment, so I’m definitely asking from the perspective of a curious amateur!
I have been paid for my contributions to several books and magazines (on more boring topics). Does that make me a professional writer by default? It doesn’t feel like it! I think of a professional writer as someone whose sole, or t least main income is from writing. Anyone else is doing it for the love of their subject matter.
It just happens that in the blogging medium, there’s a mass of people like that, and it’s true that as there’s no quality control or editorial processes, there’s going to be a huge range in quality. But I have to say, apart from your books (and then only recently) and books about brewing, all my beer reading is on-line. I think that’s true for the majority of people interested in beer these days, and as people are aware of the spread of quality in the blogosphere, they can make up their own mind about what they are reading. With that in mind, I wouldn’t label blogging as not being proper writing, as there are certainly well researched, proper journalistic values-based blogs out there. Maybe just not about beer! 🙂
(…and no, I’m not a barrel. Well, maybe a little…)
I’ve been a bit out of pocket in recent times so excuse the late response here but to Pete’s point, I don’t think it much of a stretch to suggest that if a writer counts as part of their income any funds from consulting on behalf of the trade that he or she covers, that indeed that does at a minimum raise a pretty substantial conflict of interest (whether that qualifies as a compromising of one’s integrity, I’ll leave that to the individuals involved).
That’s just pretty much basic journalistic ethics. Now whether someone considers themselves a journalist versus a guy in PR who also dabbles in writing is another matter entirely. The resulting product may be entertaining (and it certainly is in Pete’s case) but I’d hesitate to call it journalism.
Best,
Andy
Thanks for all the comments, guys.
If not anything else, it shows how the new media gives a possibility for intelligent interaction – also within the beer writing world.
I have made a longer and more rambling reaction of sorts which gives (I hope) my position that I think the word “journalist” has become if not a red herring then at least a red flag as it is fundamental to my respect for Pete Brown as a writer and a thinker about beer that he has that interest formed and informed by branding consultancy.
I’m having trouble following you (and your link) here. Are we in agreement that Pete is not a journalist? I’m sure we agree that he is a writer and a thinker about beer but I’m not sure he ever suggested he was a journalist.
I think we are partly splitting hairs here.
Pete can certainly speak for himself, but at least he calls it “doing journalism”.
I see his line now. I think the disagreement comes over whether someone can switch between doing journalism/being a journalist and making money from helping covered subjects market their products. If the person advises construction corporations how to make better widgets, I don’t see a conflict. When it’s what the person writes about, the conflict is pretty clear and at base should be disclosed (preferably avoided altogether).
Best,
Andy
It may be the fact that lawyers are involved as well as cultural ethics but the difference between a journalist and a writer carries many potential serious implications.
Andy, I was working with the statement “I’d be offended if you were saying this compromised my integrity when I’m doing journalism” for the suggestion that he was saying he was a journalist. Now, be clear – as I say in the other bit at my place – I really don’t care in his case as I do think of his (as you do) as a thinker and a writer. Having (horrors!) journalists in the family, I can confirm I consider that I am placing him on the higher road.
That all being said in the very much third person (another cultural point in this case conveying a rudeness which I would ask forgiveness for) I hope Pete adds another comment and gives us a proper reaming out for objectifying him.
Link: http://beerblog.genx40.com/archive/2009/august/sowhoreally
Blimey, this has all got a bit weird. I need to think more carefully about what I say in future. The idea that I might be in any kind of influential position through my writing has kind of crept up on me, and part of me thinks this whole thing is still ‘just for fun’ – I’ve kind of walked into a debate about the ethics of beer writing with my eyes closed. So here are a few observations that don’t in any way resolve the issue but do hopefully clarify my personal position.
If I’m honest – and I try not to say this out loud because I think it makes me sound like an arrogant prick – I do agree with Alan that being a ‘writer’ is in some way a higher calling than being a journalist. I often get introduced to people as a journalist and in truth, it makes my hackles rise and I feel the urge to correct people. Why? Because journalism is writing to order. I’ve wanted to be a writer since I was ten years old. It’s the way I express myself best (this thread excepted). I can be cool, funny, poetic, moving, interesting, perceptive, authoritative and generally likeable in my writing in ways that I struggle to be in person. The writing in my books is stuff I care passionately about. I’m trying to go deeper into things I think are important, and touch people with the stories I tell. You can’t really say that about a feature on developments in branded glassware, or the dos and donts of viral marketing. I write books because if I try to imagine a life where I don’t, I can’t imagine any reason to get out of bed. I do journalism for one of two reasons: either to help promote my books, or because people ask me to, and offer me money for it.
So how about my partiality of interest? It’s justifiable to question this. But it is such a grey area, because beer writing covers more territory than many people think. Hops and Glory couldn’t have been written without the active involvement of Coors. I disclosed this involvement, and hopefully no one thinks of the book as compromised by their involvement.
I only got into writing about beer in the first place because I was a beer marketer. I’m grateful to beer for getting me out of that particular career. But it’s the freelance consultancy I still do that pays for the trips that become the books. So I have to do it.
In terms of full disclosure: I’m not retained on an ongoing basis by any brewer or their agent. I work purely on a project basis. I have never taken money from a brewer and in return written favourably about that brewery or its beers as a result. I agree that that would be totally wrong. On two occasions I’ve done corporate writing for breweries, but this has not gone out into the public domain with my name attached, so I’m not using my position to create undue influence.
Generally, the places I make money from and the things I prefer to write about have very little overlap. I’ve helped several different ad agencies pitch for business from the likes of Heineken and A-B. But Three Sheets had to be legal-checked very carefully because of what I said about A-B and Bud, and my comments would probably never have made it into print if I attempted to do it today. I’ve hardly ever written anything about Heineken. I made my name on Stella, but check out my blog posts on Stella and you’ll see why I’m no longer on their Christmas card list. I write mainly about craft beer, small breweries, and they tend not to be able to afford my consultancy rates. I write the annual Cask Ale Report on behalf of various breweries and industry bodies. But that’s a writing job rather than a consultancy job, and there’s full disclosure of who’s behind it so hopefully no chance of deceiving the reader.
I do receive a great deal of free beer and hospitality from breweries, and this is a dubious area. I know that Reuters staff, for example, would never be allowed to accept the beer. My personal standard in this – which you may or may not find acceptable – is that if I genuinely like the beer and the brewery, I’ll write favourably about it. If I don’t like beer that someone has sent me, I don’t write hostile copy – I simply don’t wrote about it. This happens a lot. I’ve received loads of stuff from Guinness this year about their 250th birthday, but haven’t written about it because I don’t think I have yet thought of anything interesting to say about it.
This is a wonderful, sociable industry and that’s why I write about it – it really is. And while I can see where things are clearly not acceptable, it is difficult to call things closer to the line between what is and isn’t. Breweries regularly invite the Guild of Beer Writers to their breweries. We get a tour, we maybe get a meal, we get a beer tasting. We get hospitality and as a rule we write favourably about the brewery afterwards. But we only go on the tours because we were interested in the brewery beforehand. We get enough free beer without traipsing across the country just to get some. And the public can go on these tours too. How else do we learn about them and their beers? If it’s not acceptable as a freebie, would it become acceptable if we paid? By the same token, if I send someone a free copy of Hops and Glory and they write a positive review, is that review valid? I’m afraid we’d get no reviews in old media at all if we didn’t send out free copies. See the problem?
Regarding the blogging vs journalism/professional vs amateur thing, we’ve had a centuries-old paradigm overturned in the last five years or so. The longer people have been writing, the more difficult it is for them to get their heads round that. In old media, you have to reach a certain standard before you get into print. You have to prove yourself as a writer. And there are quality control checks between you finishing your piece and it appearing in print. Whereas you can create a blog and write whatever you want in minutes. So you can understand why some old school writers might look down on blogging as a medium. Though personally, I don’t.
The pro-am thing has always been around – which is why CAMRA is always very nervous about the local magazines its branches put together with no working knowledge of libel legislation. But they’re very parochial, whereas blogging is global. When a guy with three beer reviews on his blog writes to the Guild and says he’s a beer writer, and can he join, what’s the right answer? What if his reviews are terrible? What if he can’t write? What if he’s being offensive, or taking the piss? Are we in a position to even make those decisions or by doing so do we falsely set ourselves up as superiors? There is some wonderful writing on blogs and some terrible stuff. And I don’t personally feel like I have the right to say this one is in, that one is out. We don’t have an answer. We’re still trying to figure it out. For the record, we generally let in anyone who asks. Compare this to the British Guild of Travel Writers, who invited me to join and then decided I wouldn’t even make the interview stage – yep, they have an interview stage – because the book I travelled 45,000 miles to write, which has sold 10,000 copies through the ‘Travel Writing’ sections in bookshops, and won an award for travel writing, and the new book I wrote where I did an 18,000 mile sea journey, are insufficient to qualify me as a ‘proper’ travel writer. I immediately felt like a twat for wanting to join in the first place. I can see that maybe some bloggers perceive there to be an ‘establishment’, an old boy’s club in the industry from which they are excluded. All I ask is that if you do, you actually try to join it before saying you’re excluded from it. I used to believe beer writing was a closed clique when I was launching Man Walks into a Pub. I very quickly found out that it wasn’t.
Anyway – I’ve obviously gone on far too long. If I haven’t ruined my reputation, I’d now like to go back to trying to come up with a better joke than the one about the boozing English in India being caught between arak and a hard place.
TBH, I don’t think the quality control argument holds up. When beer does appear in the mainstream media it is far more likely to contain errors that an editor didn’t spot or deliberately inserted, than a blog. And with a blog, there’s generally a comments section where folks what know better can point out mistake and the author can debate them and even correct the original article. I get a lot more pissed off with mainstream journalists writing badly about beer than beer bloggers, and that’s with mainstream journalists hardly ever writing/broadcasting about beer.
But as you say: this is a paradigm which has shifted very recently and it’ll take a while to percolate through. And I understand the Guild’s particular problem here.
As for the arak pun: forget about it — it can’t be done.
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For what it’s worth, Pete, you have my greatest respect as a writer, as your love of the topic shines through and your most recent book has kept me up reading later than I should for he past week! And if you can use your connections to make your books possible — you were very clear on that in H&G, and in many ways your inside track gives perspectives others may not be able to explore, as in Three Sheets — then it’s definitely an asset rather than a liability. I don’t see any real conflicts of interest.
On the pro-am thing, thanks for the perspective and insight. I wonder if there’ll be a rush to join the Guild after your comments above! That may force the question of how to judge levels of quality, if that is what the Guild is to represent.
I second that. I hope that using you, Pete, as an object for illustration purposes in all this is a sign of great respect and warmth. You got that, right?
Indeed with Alan on this one and appreciate Pete’s thoughtful and long-winded response (as someone who does the same)…
Cheers,
Andy
Nothing very constructive to add here. Just wanted to agree with Beer Nut who said: “TBH, I don’t think the quality control argument holds up. When beer does appear in the mainstream media it is far more likely to contain errors that an editor didn’t spot or deliberately inserted, than a blog.”