The cover painting of the album "The Little Prince" adopts this art-level printing method, while the illustrations on the other pages of the work are still printed in CMYK, which is relatively low-cost.
Finally, they are bound together.
“It would be great if all the illustrations could be individually color calibrated and printed.”
Anna is still a little bit unsatisfied.
"My little girl, just printing the cover like this is too much. If everything is printed like this, do you hope that the final price of the work will be more than 50 pounds?"
Osborne laughed dumbly.
All over the world, the cost of art albums is high.
In Dongxia, where book printing and labor costs are the lowest, a thin and exquisite picture album with dozens of pages is often sold for the same price as a packaged encyclopedia.
"In 2019, I dealt with Ms. J.K. Rowling to publish the book script of the new stage play "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child", which was only set at 25 pounds. Even so, I have received countless offers. Negative feedback thinks that we are shamelessly taking advantage of the fans’ feelings. The survey report of the group marketing department believes that if you want to obtain larger shipments, twenty pounds is the bottom line. No matter how high the setting is, the profit of a single piece cannot make up for the total amount. The loss of declining sales is not worth it.”
"This is not a textbook that you have to buy. Readers are not the only one choosing "The Little Prince" from Scholastic Group." Osborne shrugged.
"Printing costs are actually not a big deal. No matter how expensive the ink is, how much is it worth? If I were a publishing house, I would rather squeeze some profit margins."
Anna suggested as she took a sip of lemonade in her glass.
hehe.
Osborne laughed twice, rolled his eyes, and said nothing.
Expensive books are a social phenomenon across Europe and the United States, and Anna’s claims about suppressing profits don’t count, and Osborne’s claims don’t count either.
Various publishing groups compete with each other in many aspects, but they have little interest in engaging in price wars.
The best-selling e-books on the Kindle Mall, Star Wars comics, and a small volume without any physical printing costs still cost more than ten pounds.
"Okay, don't worry. CMYK is already a high-end printing method. The industry's standard color difference is plus or minus 10%. Scholastic Group's own production line can control it at 3%, so the effect won't be too bad."
Osborne casually chatted: "You are really too interested in this set of books. His agent, Mr. Sloth, who hides his face, has an old relationship with you, right?"
"Your aunt's classmate? Or some other acquaintance?"
The girl blinked and gave Uncle Osborne a mysterious "guess it" smile.
"This illustration is worth all the hard work. Now that I have decided to redo it, it would be a real loss if I didn't do a good color correction, control every color difference to perfection, and restore all the Detective Cat's brushstrokes." A work like this fails.”
Anna changed the topic: "Especially those eyes, Uncle Osborne, they are a pair of very magical and moving eyes, am I right?"
"So, I think the "Little Prince" project team will understand my little willfulness." She said.
"The new illustrations are good, but the old illustrations are also good." Osborne doesn't think so. "Not everyone agrees that it is necessary to revise the manuscript."
"What about you?" Anna looked at Osborne with a smile.
"I...I actually don't know."
Osborne hesitated for a moment: "From an artistic point of view, this illustration is certainly good. But Anna, you know, your uncle and I are a businessman. Businessmen believe more in marketing and brand gimmicks, but it is difficult for them to pay attention to such things as artistry." What huge expectations to have because it’s uncontrollable.”
Osborne cut off a corner of the Wellington steak and threw it into his mouth: "I believe in your vision, Anna, and I also think this is one of the best illustrations I have seen in all my years of working in the industry. But it is just I don’t dare to put much hope in an illustration.”
"There are many scenes in the history of books where illustrations create miracles." Anna said softly.
"Of course, miracles can always happen, but it's always a matter of probability."
"I can't just look at an illustration and think that it will become the next "Niels Riding a Goose" or "The Wind in the Willows". Maybe the artistry can be compared, but the business logic is different. "
"No, not from an artistic point of view."
Anna shook her head and corrected Osborne: "She's not the next Niles and The Wind in the Willows, it's higher than that."
"Beautiful things can always move people's hearts. This is just the simplest physiological feeling and has nothing to do with artistic logic or commercial logic."
"Anna, it seems that you are very confident about the sales of this set of books. This is the best, but I also hope that under my leadership, I can publish a set of classic books that will be best-selling for many years to come."
Osborne tilted his head, "It would be best if the words and illustrations complement each other."
"I read the translated version by Dean Hawke of Oxford University. The writing is elegant. It does not have the habit of being rotten and using long words indiscriminately like old academics who study traditional British literature. The writing is very classic."
"If the illustrations of Detective Cat are what you call a classic, Uncle Osborne, the previous set of illustrations has actually fulfilled this requirement perfectly. The current cover painting -"
"If you need a miracle, it can give you a miracle."
Anna knocked on the table with her white jade knuckles, speaking confidently and decisively.
Osborne said nothing.
He just looked at the determined Anna quietly for a few seconds, and finally gave a helpless smile: "Little Anna, I don't know whether this persistence and seriousness are your strengths or weaknesses. I can only say that you are still the same as when you were a child. Look."
Osborne gently wiped the corners of his mouth with a tissue and took out the large-screen Samsung Galaxy phone from his pocket.
unlock screen,
The cover painting of "The Little Prince" comes into view.
"This is indeed an impressive picture," Osborne thought.
He didn't know whether Anna's assertion just now was just blind confidence in the detective cat.
At least one thing Osborne believed was that the girl was right.
Detective Cat’s new illustration is truly a charming piece of work.
In particular, the little boy on the dune has magical eyes. Even after he received the drawing, he subconsciously set this "Little Prince on the Dune at Night" as the cover of his mobile phone.
When Osborne received a manuscript submitted by the art department led by Charlie. But I have never felt like this before.
perhaps……
It is really possible that Miss Elena is right.
"Then I'll lend you your blessing, Anna."
Osborne licked his lips, feeling a little overwhelmed by what the girl said.
"By the way, speaking of marketing, I have something here that might interest you. Anna, you should check it out."
Osborne clicked a few times on his phone, then passed it along the table, "This is our new publication advertisement."
advertise?
Anna wiped her fingertips with a wet wipe and then took Osborne's phone.
Marketing is a must-learn subject for book publishing-related majors.
The publishing industry not only believes that "a good book will be popular", it also states that "excellent marketing investment is a prerequisite for the success of a publication."
Excellent text combined with a large-scale exposure strategy can achieve the effect of a good wind sending me to the top.
Defoe's "Robinson Crusoe", J.D. Salinger's "The Catcher in the Rye" and Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby" are all classic cases that must be learned in the book marketing industry.
The latter publisher’s slogans in the New York Times in 1925 were “the epoch-making work of this century,” “the greatest in American history,” and “a condensation of the mark of the times in the 20th century.” They are all very classic advertisements. The phrase attracted many people to enter the store and choose to buy a copy of "The Great Gatsby" to see what it was like, setting a sales record at the time.
In the past twenty years, Scholastic's largest book promotion campaign was a series of marketing activities for the final work in the Harry Potter series, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," before it was launched into the book market.
This includes holding various large-scale press conferences, holding pilot autograph sessions around the world, inviting professional voice actors to read certain plot passages on the spot, and turning some story segments into stage plays to perform small performances at the event.
The publishing house even directly arranged for Ms. J.K. Rowling to appear on "The Ellen DeGeneres Show", "The Today Show" and "The Oprah Show" to hold symposiums on top variety shows with millions of viewers.
Advertising spending in London alone amounts to millions of pounds. This kind of generous marketing has pushed the sales of "Deathly Hallows" to the outrageous and terrifying figure of 100 million copies.
Anna understood that "The Little Prince" would not be eligible for the group to invest such a huge amount of resources.
She didn't even expect that the project team would shoot a professional advertisement for this book.
The video on the phone is not long, about tens of seconds.
There are only a few simple shots, but it is not purely promotional content with celebrities talking about books, but with a small and brief plot, which is the so-called story-based advertisement.
A story about a crying little girl.
The video Anna is seeing now is a work that the publishing house asked the BBC's professional advertising team to complete based on what happened in the [Bookstore] with the approval of Director Morgan.
The directing team simply wrote the script after research and discussion based on the needs of the publishing house.
He did not reshoot any camera movements and directly used shots from different angles collected in the surveillance room to retain the true sense of the scene.
Through professional editing, the team quickly perfectly expressed the theme concept of "fairy tales make crying children smile" in this advertisement.
One thing to say, one thing to say,
The stage design and lighting conditions in the video are not very good.
Fortunately, the monitoring system for the market simulation bookstore in the Scholastic Group's European headquarters building is very advanced. It was just renovated two years ago, and it is enough to see the subtle expressions on the faces of customers while shopping, which is not comparable to road surveillance.
The advertising team then performed corresponding post-processing on the surveillance video such as image quality enhancement and algorithmic frame filling on the film and television post-production software.
There are still differences between the video images and highlight dynamics in mobile phones and those shot by professional 8K movie cameras, but they are better than those of common mobile phone cameras.
It is already available for TV commercials.
Anna doesn't care about the picture quality.
She was pleasantly surprised to find that although the scene in this advertisement was extremely simple and the creativity was not new, the expressions of all the actors were very real.
Especially the moment when the little girl's expression changes - that ignorant, innocent smile with missing teeth, it can easily penetrate into people's hearts.
Anna read the advertisement several times.
She dragged the progress bar of her phone back from the slogan "Scholastic Publishing Group, allowing children to encounter a beautiful world while reading" at the end of the screen, and focused on the little black girl.
"It's very real. This little girl's acting skills are really good. Is she a child star?"
"Child actor? Oh no, this is live footage we captured during a market research campaign between Detective Cat and Wehrlein. I don't think it could get any more real than that."
Osborne smiled: "The video you see is 96 seconds, and it will be updated on the group's official account and YouTube account. There are also two versions of 60 seconds and 30 seconds, and the content is quite different. . It’s just that the editing choices are different, and they will be put into urban rail subway and different TV station programs according to the advertising expenses.”
"The director team suggested——"
Osborne even raised the thumbs and index fingers of both hands to his chest, making a parentheses gesture: "We will add at the bottom of the officially released video [The content of the advertisement is completely captured from real events, real scenes. It is not a scripted plot" interpretation] explanation. The BBC team feels that the marketing effect must be very good."
"Such a big investment? Buying ads on a TV station is not a small sum of money."
Anna looked Osborne up and down, her tone full of gratitude: "I don't even know what to say."
"No need to thank me. This is not my decision. In Stratford and London Bridge alone, two subway stations with more than 100,000 passengers, video advertising costs 3,000 pounds per second. The project team of "The Little Prince" The budget can’t even afford expensive TV ads.”
Osborne waved his hand: "What you are seeing is this year's Scholastic Group's corporate video and the planned advertisement for the Easter book buying season, not the promotional advertisement for "The Little Prince."
Publishing groups with a market value of more than 10 billion US dollars produce their own corporate videos every year.
During the Easter promotion season, Christmas holidays, Black Friday and other important consumer shopping times in the West, they will also put their own products on various media channels just like Dongxia’s Dangdang Book Season and Double Eleven Shopping Festival. Shopping promotional ads.
Director Morgan liked the effect of the ad.
"I think Director Morgan successfully persuaded the North American board of directors to replace the originally planned promotional video advertisement and determine it as the publisher's corporate video this year. It mainly promotes the children's book business of Scholastic Group-"
"And our "Little Prince" was lucky enough to catch this ride."
Anna mentally admired her and Ms. Detective Cat's good fortune.
The girl felt that this was not only luck, but also inevitable. The little girl's reaction just proved the excellence of Ms. Detective Cat.
Fortunately, the camera captured the scene.
"Free ride? No, this is not a free ride but a free rocket." Osborne couldn't help but smile like he was hit by a pie.
(End of chapter)
