I love being able to buy books in Tesco and I am grateful that I can get a paperback for the same price as a magazine. It means that I get to read all the best sellers once they’ve been made popular by other people. I’ve even read the whole of the much derided Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer. I’m glad I did that because otherwise I might have missed this piece of marketing genius.
New cover of Wuthering Heights
This rebranding of Wuthering Heights with Twilight’s now well-known style, black background and stand-out gothic image, certainly caught my eye and I expect it will work on the legions of Twilight fans. The sale will be made when fans realise this is the book that Twilight’s heroine Bella quotes. The Guardian reported that sales of the book in France rose 50% in 2008 and are continuing to rise. A wonderful example of referral marketing by an author.
Will the Twilight fans fall in love with Brontë’s work? I doubt the majority will, but Tescos will make a lot of money selling a book that you can get for free from Project Gutenberg or for a quarter of the price from bookshops.