Authors whose work is involved in the Tandem Collective Thomas & Mercer promotion for Amazon Publishing are, clockwise from upper left, Claire McGowan; TM Payne; Ryan Carter and Dreda Say Mitchell; John Marrs (image: R. Gershinson); and Sue Watson
By Porter Anderson, Editor-in-Chief | @Porter_Anderson
Devesh Kumer: ‘Reimagining How Readers Discover’
Many of our readers will recall our coverage of the seven-year-old digital marketing agency called Tandem Collective.
Announced today (January 23), the company has an agreement to produce a “Thrills & Chills Book Club” for the Amazon Publishing imprint Thomas & Mercer, which of course is focused on mystery, thrillers, and true crime. Activities in this new effort have begun this month. The UK readership’s abiding interest in mystery and crime, of course, makes the market fertile ground for such an approach.
Tandem Collective UK is to identify 20 so-called “sleuths” for the program—in Tandem’s more general terminology, “ambassadors”—all of whom in this program’s case are avid thriller readers from across Instagram and BookTok. Francesca Pavis, a UK-based thriller content creator and a known member of the thriller community online, has been brought in to support the initiative and to produce exclusive content.
Each month, these 20 “sleuths” plus an additional 20 influencers will read a new title. The book club is expected to bring authors and creators together to drive engagement and build a community for some of Thomas & Mercer’s titles for 2025.
Tandem Collective was formed in the United Kingdom in 2016 by Naomi Bacon and Rob Cox and gained quite quick attention from large publishers, with an inflection point in its visibility when HarperCollins‘ Chantal Restivo-Alessi, HarperCollins’ chief digital officer and international foreign language CEO, engaged Tandem for the roll-out of Don Winslow’s City on Fire.
Naomi Bacon
The focus, then as now, has been on utilizing social-media influencers. In many cases, new influencers are actually created by assigning strong digital operators to multiple book promotions. The projects are built out essentially by deputizing readers as advocates for a title. Bacon has come to call what Tandem Collective has developed “community building,” and has said that the development of the company in that direction was unexpected.
Flying to Taiwan in 2023, Bacon spoke about her work at the 31st Taipei International Book Exhibition as part of Frankfurter Buchmesse‘s ongoing program of international publisher training and support, led by Claudia Kaiser and Katherina Rapp.
“I never set out to create a company focused entirely on community-building,” Bacon said to the Taipei program’s professional programming for publishers. “Originally, we were a traditional marketing agency. Our business focus was a response to community demand and client needs rather than our own intellectual foresight.” She called it a “fortuitous accident” that four years ago, Tandem was approached by a publisher wanting a four-hour ‘read-along’ campaign for a paperback–on Instagram.”
Tandem’s Work for Thomas & Mercer: Read-Alongs
By August of last year, Bacon was introducing a new platform with partner Antina van der Veen called ChallyPop. But that “read-along” concept—anchored in social media channels—turns out to be the basis of what Tandem is doing for Thomas & Mercer in its new book club, which, we’re told, “will promote the latest titles from Thomas & Mercer’s bestselling authors as well as titles by up-and-coming writers.”
Titles are to include The First Girl by Claire McGowan; You Killed Me First by John Marrs; Play With Fire by TM Payne; Gone by Dreda Say Mitchell and Ryan Carter; and His First Wife by Sue Watson.
In May, Tandem is to produce Amazon Publishing’s first community-facing online showcase of the company’s key titles for 2025.
This is to include the Thrills & Chills Book Club titles, with contributions from the creators who have participated in the read-alongs, plus previews of new releases scheduled for later in the year.
Lex Brookman
In a comment on today’s announcement, Lex Brookman, a project manager at Tandem, is quoted, saying that the new book club “will last for six months, with five titles, and pieces of content across multiple social channels and platforms.
“It’s a first for us to secure long-term ambassadors for a crime-thriller readership,” she says.
Each of the titles supported by the plan for Thomas & Mercer is to have a “case file” featuring items concocted to be pertinent to the world of the book, representing such things as court summons, homicide reports, and DNA tests .
Devesh Kumar
Devesh Kumar, head of pricing with Amazon Books Europe, says the company’s partnership with Tandem Collective represents “our commitment to reimagining how readers discover and engage with our Thomas & Mercer titles.”
Kumar highlights “the ‘sleuth’ ambassador program, which will help us forge deeper connections between our authors and their readers.”
Rebecca Hills, Amazon Publishing’s senior author-branding manager, talks of “taking the traditional book club model and leveraging the power of social media to create an inclusive community of readers.”
Rebecca Hills
Hills speaks of the value of what she calls the new program’s “potential to amplify diverse voices and introduce readers to authors they might not have discovered otherwise.”
She speaks of looking forward “to seeing the engaging discussions and creative content” that may result “as readers share their experiences of discovering each new book.”
A Ticking Clock for TikTok
Tandem Collective today uses not only “read-alongs” but also “watch-alongs” and “listen-alongs.” The company has worked with clients in the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the United States, South Africa, and India.
Promotions planned for this month’s JC Jattès’ launch in Paris of Paul Richardot’s Fragrancia are being devised to feature events in which audience members are drawn to their memories through the release of various fragrances, publisher Véronique Cardi tells Publishing Perspectives, as event marketing becomes a greater part of many books’ introductions.
Can some adaptation of “smell-alongs” be far behind in the work of marketers like Tandem Collective?
Tandem today utilizes a wide swath of various social media to build its bookish communities. In terms of how world political and financial movements can tend to impact something like digitally devised community marketing, however, it’s interesting to remember that Tandem Collective originally was best known for leveraging TikTok and BookTok users for a book.
As many of our international readers will know, the availablity of TikTok as a viable option in at least one major world market may be changing, as the United States’ government tests that platform with its new law requiring Beijing to either divest its connections to the company—because of its alleged data and surveillance interests—or see TikTok go dark in the States.
The US ban on TikTok, a Joe Biden-era law, was set to close the system’s operation in the States on Sunday (January 19).
After a brief shutdown self-activated by the platform to avoid penalty, TikTok has been restored to operation during a 75-day suspension of the ban while Donald Trump tries to resolve the challenged stance of the company’s ownership. To that end, Trump has signed one of his many executive orders to delay the ban, telling reporters that the States “should be entitled to get half of TikTok” in a sale, should one be accomplished.
At The New York Times today, David McCabe has updated his story on Trump’s delay of the federal ban on TikTok.
As McCabe writes, “The order could immediately face legal challenges, including over whether a president has the power to halt enforcement of a federal law. Companies subject to the law, which forbids providing services to Chinese-owned TikTok, may determine that the order does not provide a shield from legal liability.”
However ByteDance’s TikTok may fare in the United States, Tanddm Collective’s international campaigns are proving adaptible to many social media and in many markets where those platforms’ users look exactly like book readers to publishers.
More from Publishing Perspectives on book marketing is here, more on Amazon Publishing is here, and more on Tandem Collective is here.
About the Author
