Press release from Allen & Unwin who represent Faber & Faber in NZ & Australia.

Faber and Faber launch new site
Tuesday 24 Jun 2008 -

Faber and Faber, the UK’s leading independent book publisher, has launched a new site built by digital communications agency Lateral.
The new website, which includes fully integrated e-commerce, represents a complete re-think of Faber’s web presence, and places its digital strategy at the heart of all of its marketing activity.
The previous site, also created and built by Lateral, was five years old and in Summer 2007 Lateral proposed the whole presence and strategy behind the site be changed. Lateral held workshops with all departments of Faber to find out what they wanted to see on the site, and the implications for the site design of Faber’s strong film, drama, poetry and music lists.

“It was essential we spent as much time as possible researching. The book market and the way brands present themselves online has changed considerably since we built the last Faber site. As specialists in the book market we are aware of what other publishers are doing, both good and bad, and it was important that the new site capture the essence of Faber: its independence, its design heritage, its history and its forward-thinking approach to the digital environment”, said Mathew Riley, Group Account Director, Lateral.

The new site provides a platform for Faber Finds, the groundbreaking print-on-demand imprint for out of print books, and is the primary channel through which these can be purchased. Readers will be encouraged to nominate books to bring back into print, and also to provide additional information, wiki-style, on the books being published in the imprint, creating a unique forum for both readers and authors.

The ability for users to browse for titles has been increased considerably; all titles can be searched for by detailed categorisation and through the use of tagging. The tagging approach was developed in close partnership with Faber, and their in-depth knowledge of the Faber catalogue was applied to every title available on the site, creating groups of ‘American poets’, ‘murder mystery’ books and ‘Nobel Prize-winners’, for example.
This new site enables Faber to make available far more supporting content, including short films, author interviews, podcasts and a new blog written by authors and Faber editors.
A dedicated Faber Kids section has been created, with a new brand identity especially developed by Lateral for use both on and off line.

The e-commerce facility is fully integrated with TBS (www.thebookservice.co.uk), the distribution arm of the Random House Group that handles Faber’s international distribution.
Registered users will get extra benefits through a future content personalisation strategy that will be extended on to the site post-launch. Further post-launch developments in 2008 will include a dedicated Faber Archive area providing a snapshot of Faber’s 80-year design history; and integration with Faber’s digital publishing strategy, which will include ‘browse inside the book’ functionality and downloadable audio and e-books.

“The new website provides an exciting platform for our recently announced new projects – the music magazine Loops (with Domino Records), our collaboration with Film in Focus (http://www.filminfocus.com/), merchandising of the Faber brand, and the Faber Finds project, providing a fully integrated marketing channel,” said Stephen Page, Publisher at Faber and Faber.