Durham-based Written Word Media, a marketing platform for authors and publishers, has announced a strategic partnership with the UK-based publishing platform Hello Books that includes Written Word Media taking a minority equity stake. Hello Books will focus on gaining global readers, while Written Word Media will take over operations for Hello Books, including sending out their newsletter.
Ricci Wolman, the CEO and Co-Founder of Written Word Media, said Hello Books will now be able to focus on audience building without getting bogged down by day-to-day operations. Written Word Media’s technology will allow Hello Books to generate more revenue, Wolman said.
“What we’ll be doing is taking over all of the backend operations for Hello Books,” she added.
Wolman has previously been featured on GrepBeat as a guest on both the Friday Nooner and the For Starters podcast, as a Download Q&A subject, and was also a panelist at both editions of Grep-a-palooza.
With this new deal, Written Word Media is one step closer to becoming the one-stop, go-to marketing platform for authors, Wolman said. This will allow writers to promote their books more effectively and efficiently all in one place, saving them time, effort and money. The deal has been in the works since December, but was just finalized last week.
Hello Books boasts a thriving international subscriber base, while Written Word Media’s current promotional sites focus on the U.S. market. This partnership will create a platform that will enable authors to reach a worldwide audience.
Authors pay an upfront fee for an advertising service with Written Word Media. About 30,000 authors—most of them independent or “indie” authors not backed by a large publisher—have used Written Word Media’s services.
The partnership will introduce promo-stacks, or bundling, for authors in the future, meaning Hello Book’s and Written Word Media’s promotions will be combined and authors can stay on one platform—which will be operated by Written Word Media—to promote their work.
Written Word Media is adding at least one new operational employee as a team member due to this venture, and has five different newsletters along with full-service Facebook and Amazon ads to advertise books to readers.
Both Written Word Media and Hello Books’ teams are fully committed to empowering authors, Wolman said.
“Advocating for the indie author, that’s been part of our DNA since Day One,” Wolman said. “And so finding partners who have that as one of their core values—the core value—is really exciting for us, and I think a reason why this partnership has worked and is going to work into the future.”
