Pan Mac launch online book chat show

31.01.14 | Sarah Shaffi - The Bookseller

Pan Macmillan is to launch a new monthly YouTube-based books programme called Book Break next week.

The 30-minute show, which will initially be filmed “as live” and hosted by Alexandra Heminsley, author of Running Like a Girl (Windmill Books), will include author interviews, features like Q&As and “general chit chat”, said Pan Macmillan fiction publisher Jeremy Trevathan at a party last night (30th January) celebrating the publisher’s women’s fiction list.
Book Break will be broadcast on the first Friday of every month at 12.30pm on YouTube, with the first show on 7th February.

A trailer for the programme will go live on Monday, with users able to subscribe to be notified when it is released on Pan Macmillan’s YouTube channel.
The publisher is also “building buzz” with a social media teaser campaign.

The first programme will feature Pan Macmillan authors Naomi Wood, author of Mrs. Hemingway (Picador), a re-imagining of the lives of Ernest Hemingway’s four wives; Karen Swan, author of Christmas at Claridge’s (Pan) and forthcoming The Summer Without You (Pan); and Louise Johncox, whose The Baker’s Daughter – Timeless Recipes from Four Generations of Bakers (Macmillan) will be published on 14th March.

It will also include latest news from the book world, a Pan Macmillan staff Top 10 and a VT of an interview with crime fiction novelist, Peter James.

Pan Macmillan said it hopes to start broadcasting the shows live “six months down the line” with viewers tweeting in their questions and interacting with Heminsley and her guests.
Anthony Forbes Watson, m.d. of Pan Macmillan, said: "Book Break is author promotion via direct reader engagement, through the media which we know works best.

“This new web based TV show will talk about books and authors in a way which is relevant to today's consumer, starting with the author and their experiences, and will provide a dynamic and innovative realisation of how life can be best served up in a good read. We are delighted that Alex Heminsley will be fronting the show and look forward to the direct interactions with readers which will set this show apart."Future plans for the site include licensing content to a range of partners, brands and other websites, creating additional content for e-book bundles and using footage within the industry, at book fairs and for foreign rights’ sales, said Pan Macmillan.   
Book Break has been produced in partnership with broadcast consultancy markettiers4DC.