Campaign Website

Spent a couple of days setting up a campaign website using the WordPress CMS. This included a simple form so that people could upload their profile and nominate an indie bookshop they want to support. We made the form semi-automated so that we only had to moderate the submissions once they came in and we made sure to add categories from the start so we had some flexibility in re-jigging the site later.

Spread the word

With our website ready, we spread the word via Facebook and Twitter. We created a Twitter hashtag #booksnotbeer so people could join the conversation and this was particularly successful. The word spread far and wide and we began to get submissions from all over the UK plus Germany, the USA, Australia, Spain and France.

Industry news

We also got a piece onto the Bookseller’s blog to announce the campaign to the booktrade. This, and the activity on Twitter, prompted a piece in Australia’s equivalent, The Bookseller and Publisher.

Twitter dialogue

Come 1st October the submissions to the website stopped and people started to use Twitter and our #booksnotbeer hashtag to give updates on their progress. This was the fun bit as participants became ever more imaginative with their Tweets. Some even posted photos of their non-alcoholic beverages and tweeted pictures of books they’d bought with their saved beer money.

Retox event

To end the campaign we’ve organised a drinks evening on 1st November at Treadwells bookshop in Bloomsbury. It hath been dubbed “Indiependence Day” to remind us why we did this in the first place. Stay tuned for pics and a further update. And if you’d like to attend, let us know!

Jasmine’s website needs to appeal to her target readership – kids aged 8-12 years – as well as parents, publishers and agents who might want to get more information about Jasmine. We have used the imagery from The Book of Wonders cover to give the site a magical, fantasy-style mood and we’ve included a couple of animated icons to get the attention of young readers. We’ve also included a forum so Jasmine can chat to her fans and we’ve got Twitter, Facebook and YouTube feeding through to the homepage.

This 2-minute animation was produced for Riot Communications. They needed a quick turnaround video that would have an impact in under two minutes so we came up with a few ideas, sketched out a storyboard and then commissioned the fantabulous illustrator, Gemma Correll. We then did the edit, applying a few stop motion techniques along the way, and voila! A lovely little story about how books change lives. And it’s true, they really do.

Directed and Produced by The Curved House
Illustrated by Gemma Correll
Written and narrated by Riot Communications

This limited edition of Haruki Murakami’s 1Q84 was a collaboration between Kristen Harrison here at The Curved House, Simon Rhodes of Harvill Secker (an imprint of Random House) and designer Stefanie Posavec. The edition was strictly limited to 111 copies signed by the author. We approached this project as we would an artists’ book, ensuring the finished products were predominantly hand-produced and unique works in themselves. The front and back covers of each book were printed by hand, by Justin Knopp. These were then bound onto the book blocks after which the three edges of each book were hand-coloured before the books were placed into a slipcase, numbered and finally wrapped and sewn into a cloth covering. The author has signed every set by hand. Every copy in this series is unique with slight variations on all hand-produced aspects (including the author’s signature) and as a result each of of the 111 series is a truly cherishable object.

Photos courtesy of Justin Knopp