Rachel Van Riel, Opening the Book

1. © Opening the Book Ltd
Rachel Van Riel
www.openingthebook.com
Inviting viewers in -
a new approach to
audience
development

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Traditional model of audience development

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Traditional model of literature funding

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Reader development model
Is the best
way of
supporting
writers
to find
them an
audience?

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Reader development is active intervention to:
• Increase people’s confidence and enjoyment of
what they read
• Open up reading choices
• Offer opportunities to share reading experiences
• Raise the status of reading as a creative activity

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Viewer development is active intervention to:
• Increase people’s confidence and enjoyment of
what they watch
• Open up film choices
• Offer opportunities to share viewing experiences
• Raise the status of watching film as a creative
activity

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Example: Give me a break
• National promotion devised with libraries across Wales
• Current paperbacks in Welsh and English offering
different kinds of break
• Targeted to 20-30s - how does reading fit in their lives?
• Book displays in libraries plus a website
• Funded by Arts Council Wales

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The reading experience
• The reader-centred approach sells the reading
experience and what it can do for you, rather than selling
individual books or writers.
• This builds the audience for literature by moving readers
beyond brand loyalty to individual writers, developing
confidence and interest in trying something new.
• Could this work for film?

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• Free spirit

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Make audiences visible
• Collect comments, opinions, recommendations
• Use real people and their own words
• Show different types of people who watch
• Show different types of films people watch
• Example: guess who’s watching what

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Using real readers to promote to other
readers

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Short comments instead of long reviews

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Display on posters, cards, websites

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Readers’ noticeboard – physical and
virtual

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Recommended by a reader at this library

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Reader-centred promotion in Danish libraries –
what do men read? Could it be watch?

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Reader-centred booklists – would this work for
film?

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15,000 reading groups in UK libraries – could
we have viewing groups too?
•Reading groups start from the reading experience not the
text
•Each participant is expert in their own reading experience.
This gives equality across different preferences, knowledge
and appetites
•It’s a social event and not a study class

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Resources to help group dynamics

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Ideas to get going
• Where do you watch films?
• What do you watch when you’re ill?
• Display 10 DVD covers – which appeal to you
and which don’t?
• Choose a treat, a challenge and a film you
wouldn’t watch even if you were paid to
• Which character in a film did you first fall in love
with?
• … and lots more

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Reader-centred websites

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Social media ideas – what image best
represents the reading experience

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New project: bookdating.eu

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Opening up reading choices – whichbook.net
• Search engines and catalogues reinforce choosing of
known names
• Commercial marketing invests in a few big authors
• How can we promote the new, the less well-known,
books on the edge?

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whichbook model
• Starts from the reader and what you want from the
reading experience
• Combines smart technology with individual readers to
deliver depth and quality
• Averages 90,000 visits per month
• WelkBoek in Netherlands now live, Ønskebok in Norway
ran for 5 years
• Unique – it does things Amazon can’t do

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Big questions
• The reader-centred approach has changed book
promotion in the UK and beyond
• Can it offer a model for audience development for
cinema?
• How can new technology help this process?
• whichfilm would be a great project!

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Writing about film
• Go for the experience as well as the content or
story:
- does your comment tell me how this film feels
to watch?
- is your comment useful to help people as they
start on the viewing journey?
• Is the voice personal?
• Write as you speak – use everyday language
• Are you judging quality or describing flavour?

48. © Opening the Book Ltd
Rachel Van Riel
www.openingthebook.com
Inviting viewers in -
a new approach to
audience
development

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