Bookworld partners with popular parenting website to tap into key market

Online retailer Bookworld is hoping to tap into Australia’s lucrative parenting market by partnering with one Australia’s most popular parenting websites, Stay at Home Mum.

 The initiative will create one of the largest online reading communities in Australia, bringing together Stay at Home Mum’s 450,000 monthly readers and more than half a million of Bookworld’s customers.

 The new online book club will allow Stay at Home Mum readers to access exclusive competitions, offers and reviews – as well as personal recommendations from the website’s founder Jody Allen.

 Allen told SmartCompany this new partnership has been something she has wanted to do all along to showcase Australian writers.

 “I’ve always had a voracious appetite for books,” she says.

 “My readers have a voracious appetite too. I’ve always been hoping to have a book club because there wasn’t really a good one in Australia besides Goodreads. It was just a natural progression and a win-win for both if us.”

 Bookworld chief executive James Webber said in a statement the partnership is a good opportunity for publishers to connect with a highly-engaged reading community.

 “Being able to connect a large community of high-engaged mums to the best local Australian authors and books is hugely exciting for us,” he said.

 “Mums are time-poor but often big readers, so being able to browse recommendations and then have that book on their doorstep within a few clicks is really valuable.”

 Despite the challenges facing brick-and-mortar bookstores in Australia, niche bookstores and online book sales are performing much better. According to an IBIS World report, industry revenue from online book sales is forecast to experience 26% annual growth over the five years through 2013-14. In addition, online bookstores are using innovative marketing techniques to combat downward trends in the print and publishing sector.

 Bookworld is renowned for being a marketing-savvy business. During the Christmas shopping period the retailer transformed bus shelters and tram stops in Sydney and Melbourne into mobile bookstores to encourage consumers to shop locally.

 Bookworld marketing manager Kim Noble told SmartCompany she is excited about the new partnership because it will allow readers of Stay at Home Mum to interact with the very best books and purchase them directly from the site.

 “We saw very quickly that the Stay At Home Mum audience were highly-engaged book lovers and a natural fit with Bookworld’s growing community,” says Noble.

 “From a retailer perspective, we strive to showcase and support Australian publishers and by launching the Book Club we are able to provide a place for readers to discover new books and authors.  By combining our two communities we hope to create Australia’s most engaged and successful Book Club and we both see some fantastic growth opportunities for the Book Club over the next year.” 

 Stay at Home Mum is one of the most popular parenting websites in Australia, with more than 430,000 Facebook likes and 5000 Twitter followers.