Upmarket Magazine is always interested in books that help support our readers. Now and then, we run 1-4 week book features that promote the content of specific books that we feel are particularly valuable to our audience. We do this by devoting space to those books in our sponsor space, running excerpts from those books, and developing series content that aligns with the book’s content.
Each of our book features runs much like a sponsored content marketing campaign, except for one thing: We aren’t paid for these book promotions, and as of right now, we don’t want to be — we want our readers to be able to trust beyond a shadow of a doubt that we provide that content because we believe in it, not because we made a few bucks from it.
Though it’s possible we’ll find a fully resonant way to accept compensation for this kind of promotion in the future, this is only acceptable to us if it can be done in a way that prioritizes the usefulness of the content to our readers and our belief in the value of that content — NOT the money it contributes to Upmarket’s bottom line. If you have suggestions or feedback for us on this count, please email MEM and let her know what you think!
If you are working with a book you think will be helpful to us and our readers, we’d like to know about it. For more information, take a look at our feature guidelines below.
Upmarket Guidelines for Book Features
Here’s what we need in order to run one of our book feature campaigns.
- A note about the scheduling of book feature campaigns: We prefer to run our book features around the same time a book is initially launched, because it gives us more leverage in spreading the word about something that matters to us. We also are happy to consider books for feature campaigns if the launch date is passed.
- Book: At least 8 weeks before the campaign, send us the book and express your interest in having it featured on Upmarket. If the final manuscript isn’t available yet, a preliminary manuscript (so we can decide if this is a book we’d like to feature) and a final copy of the book as soon as it’s available (for photos and excerpts) will work just fine. If you can, send us both a digital and a physical copy so that we can review it that much faster. Digital copies (in .mobi if possible) should go to [email protected], as well as address inquiries if you’d like to send us a physical proof, galley, or final published copy of the book.
- Content: At least 6 weeks before the campaign, let MEM know if you have suggestions for subject material related to your book. If you and your team are interested in providing article content or being interviewed for the site, get in touch with [email protected]. If we choose to run a series of articles related to your book, we will ask our contributors for material along similar lines.
- Excerpts: At least 3 weeks before the campaign, we need one of two things from you. Please either a) grant us free rein to post excerpts from the book at our discretion, usually between 1-5 excerpts per week of the campaign, or b) provide us with a list of 3-8 specific excerpts pre-approved for use on the magazine, preferably between 500-1000 words long if possible.
- Excerpt Illustrations: At least 3 weeks before the campaign, tell us if we may have our illustrator create one-off illustrations to help promote those excerpts. If you like, you can provide us with images for excerpts if you send them at the same time as your excerpt list. Here’s an example of the illustrations we’ve used to promote book-related content.
- Cover Art: At least 3 weeks before the campaign, send high resolution original cover artwork to [email protected]. We will use this to help direct traffic to the book from our site.
- Sponsor Graphics: At least 3 weeks before the campaign, please give us one of the following: Either a) provide a link & graphic at 300 x 250 pixels, 468 x 60 pixels, and/or 959 pixels wide that will be subject to our approval for use, or b) let us know that we can create an ad using your cover artwork, and suggest a link for it. If you choose b), we’ll create it and send it to you for your approval, and we ask that you respond to us within 48 hours so that we can keep everything moving. (If you provide us with ads at multiple sizes, we may run those graphics at multiple spots on the site throughout the campaign.)
- One last important note: We choose books to feature at our discretion, based on what we believe will be most resonant to and most helpful for our readers. We do not accept fees for book features, but if you would like to support Upmarket Magazine and help us keep the lights on, you can learn more about supporting us here.
We produce Upmarket Magazine as a service to our audience and fit it into the time we have available. If any of these items is incomplete or running late, there is a possibility we will choose not to feature that book in the preferred timeslot. If this happens, please feel free to connect with us to coordinate on a later feature; it won’t mean we’re not interested, just that we are keeping ourselves sane. :}
Below, you’ll find links to book features we’ve run in the past:
