Book Display Basics - Get Inspiration from Marketing Emails

One thing I always suggest is that you pay attention to the many marketing emails that you receive from publishers and other mailing lists. They often create lists with clever names that you can borrow. Just create a list or display with titles from your existing collection. Alter the title as you need to depending upon your library’s needs. They can be used to just spark inspiration. I will list some recent examples I have received below.

From A Love So True:
15 Sad Romance Novels That Hit You Right in the Feels
8 Books Like ACOTAR to Keep Your Fantasies Going
Swoon-Worthy Books Like 'Persuasion' by Jane Austen
8 Romance Novels Like 'The Mummy'
11 Sexy and Spooky Romance Novels

From Brodart Books:
Mouthwatering Morsels (a collection of cookbooks)

From Fierce Reads:
Meet the Best of Booktok
The Perfect End of Summer Reads

From The Portalist:
13 Gripping Sci-Fi Books Like 'Black Mirror'
The Most Explosive Space Battles in Science Fiction Books
Genre-Bending Horror Books Like Christopher Buehlman's Between Two Fires
8 Cozy Fantasy Titles Like Bookshops & Bonedust
13 Powerful Standalone Sci-Fi Books

From The Line Up:
Sci-Fi Horror Books to Fill You With Futuristic Dread
What Book Recommendations Would These Iconic Horror Movie Villains Offer?
The Next True Crime Book You Should Read Based on Your Zodiac Sign
These 11 Books Deliver Chillingly True Ghost Stories

From Off the Shelf:
8 Literary Must-Reads with a Hint of Mystery
10 Historical Fiction Mysteries Ideal for Winter
8 Sinister Stories Featuring Secret Societies

 

I hope these give you some inspiration and help you with coming up with titles for your lists and displays.

  

Book Display Inspiration Using One Book - This Cursed House by Del Sandeen

 

Another in the series of demonstrating how you can both approach a book in many ways and that when you create a display or list, it’s not necessary to stress over how well an individual book fits a theme. These are marketing tools for your backlist and getting them attention will help your overall circulation. Today, we are going to work with a debut -  This Cursed House by Del Sandeen. From the publisher:

In this Southern gothic horror debut, a young Black woman abandons her life in 1960s Chicago for a position with a mysterious family in New Orleans, only to discover the dark truth: They’re under a curse, and they think she can break it.

In the fall of 1962, twenty-seven-year-old Jemma Barker is desperate to escape her life in Chicago—and the spirits she has always been able to see. When she receives an unexpected job offer from the Duchon family in New Orleans, she accepts, thinking it is her chance to start over.

But Jemma discovers that the Duchon family isn’t what it seems. Light enough to pass as white, the Black family members look down on brown-skinned Jemma. Their tenuous hold on reality extends to all the members of their eccentric clan, from haughty grandmother Honorine to beautiful yet inscrutable cousin Fosette. And soon the shocking truth comes out: The Duchons are under a curse. And they think Jemma has the power to break it.

As Jemma wrestles with the gift she’s run from all her life, she unravels deeper and more disturbing secrets about the mysterious Duchons. Secrets that stretch back over a century. Secrets that bind her to their fate if she fails.

This is a great book to center in a display or list because it’s a debut which would benefit from the spotlight.

Where to start? There are many options even in this description from the publisher. We have:

Southern novels
Gothic fiction
Southern gothic
Fiction about black women
Fiction about young adults
1960’s
Chicago
New Orleans
Spirits/ghosts
Starting over
Moving/relocating
Tenuous hold on reality
Eccentric families
Family secrets
Curses

Most of these are themes that would lend themselves to titles that are outside of horror. I would bet that at least a few of them are themes that you could fill a display with using the titles in your collection. Adding non-fiction and DVDs are encouraged. At the very least, most people who read fiction will pick up biographies and memoirs so keep that in mind.

To get you started, I have put some book lists below. Have fun creating your own book display with one book as inspiration!

Decay, Rot, and Plenty of Hauntings: The Best Gothic Novels of 2024 – Crime Reads
So You Want to Read Southern Gothic: Here’s Where to Start – Penguin Random House
Best Southern Gothic Literature – Goodreads Listopia
Fiction Set in Chicago – Chicago Public Library
New Orleans: A City Whose Truth is Stranger (and Better) than Fiction – New York Public Library
7 Novels About Very Dysfunctional Families – Electric Lit
The 5 Best Books About Dysfunctional Rich Families – Crime Reads
10 Unputdownable Books About Big Family Secrets – Celadon Books
23 Books with Family Secrets We Still Can’t Believe – Epic Reads
Five Books Where Curses Are Magically Inherited – Reactor

 

 

 

Five for Friday - Alternative Dishes for Thanksgiving

 One easy way to promote your collection is to have staff take turns selecting 5 books on a theme from your collection, take a photo of them and post it to your social media. If you make it a regular feature, patrons may look for it and find their next great read. Set up a calendar and let different people from throughout your library get a chance to pick their five books. 

One display I try to put up every year is a selection of cookbooks for Thanksgiving that contain recipes outside of the usual options. Include vegan, vegetarian, international, and cookbooks for those with special health concerns. This will show off your cookbook collection while giving patrons ideas if they are seeking something unique to serve. 

As an example, I have several photos of cookbooks below with a simple fall themed picture behind them. You could add text explaining the theme and have just the first photo or add photos like I did below with each book shown faced out. Let your patrons know that you have a wide variety of cookbooks and give them some out of the box ideas for their holiday celebration. 

Summer Scares 2025

 

Summer Scares is a great program, designed to help promote horror in libraries during the summer. Everyone has their own idea about what a beach read is and those who love scary, thrilling, or suspenseful books should not be neglected!

From the press release: 

Summer Scares is proud to announce the 2025 spokesperson, #1 New York Times Bestselling author Kendare Blake:

"As a proud member of the club of people who read Stephen King too young, I am both honored and absolutely psyched to be this years' Summer Scares Spokesperson. Long ago, in elementary school, I had a beloved librarian with hair as black as night and teeth like Nosferatu. On dreary, wintry afternoons she would gather the children near and read to us from Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, her eyes brightening with our every small whimper. She was, in short, THE BEST. I hope to meet many more librarians this year with her same, spooky spirit. So come along, folks of all ages, and let's read the scary stuff all summer long! It's not just for October anymore."

There are three books chosen for an adult audience, young adult, and middle grade. The books are written by a wide variety of authors and have included graphic novels. The titles for 2025 will be announced in February. 

A programming guide has been created by the HWA Library Committee Co-Chair Konrad Stump and the Springfield-Greene County Library,. Konrad is a programming superstar and the Oh The Horrors! program he organizes for his library every year is amazing and should inspire your own programming. 

Information about Summer Reads is compiled by Becky Spratford on RA for All Horror: here.

Book Display Inspiration Using One Book (or show) - The Lincoln Lawyer

 While I usually base these posts on a book, today I am going to use a popular show from the streaming service Netflix to talk about creating a book display with one title as inspiration. The Lincoln Lawyer is based upon the book series by Michael Connelly.  From the author’s website: 

Haller is a Lincoln Lawyer, a criminal defense attorney who operates out of the back seat of his Lincoln Town Car, traveling between the far-flung courthouses of Los Angeles to defend clients of every kind. Bikers, con artists, drunk drivers, drug dealers — they’re all on Mickey Haller’s client list. For him, the law is rarely about guilt or innocence — it’s about negotiation and manipulation. Sometimes it’s even about justice.

While it will seem as if it makes sense to use the easiest option and simply grab titles from the author’s backlist, Connelly’s books already circulate well in public libraries and are bestsellers. It’s a better use of the book display space to harness the popularity of the Mickey Haller series to shine a light on some other titles which would benefit from some attention. 

There are several easy ways to approach this title from the brief description above. It’s legal fiction about a defense attorney, for starters. Beware of lists you find online that only suggest other bestselling authors. Don’t forget to look at fiction and non-fiction about the legal system in other countries. There may also be biographies in your collection which would fit. 

You can even use phrases like guilt or innocence in your display, putting up fiction and non-fiction which 

Another option is to look at books and movies which have a focus on automobile or in which cars feature in the plot or even on the cover. It’s good to remember that a display with a loose connection like a car on the front cover will be easy for anyone to fill in. Some months that is what you will need due to other obligations or staffing issues. 

Los Angeles as a setting opens a lot of options for titles to include. There are many books about the darker side of the City of Angels. Bring in movies and non-fiction as well. It’s been a popular fiction setting for a long time. Don’t forget to include books which cover the depth and breadth of Los Angeles’ population. 

I hope I have demonstrated that it's possible to use a popular title as inspiration for a number of different displays. Remember that just like with a book display, a reader can approach a book from a number of different ways. 

Five For Friday - Reoccuring Book Display Idea: New Books You Might Have Missed.

 Usually when I talk about book displays I am referencing promoting backlist titles. As someone who works in acquisitions and technical services, I know that some new books do not come in with a bunch of hold requests or are from unknown debut authors or could use a little promotion. A social media display or small physical display in your library will shine some attention on those titles. 

Pick five of the books on your new release shelves that have not been checked out and add a picture with a link to your catalog on your social media. If you can, create a digital display on your website or blog with a list of the titles and links to place a hold on the books. You can make this a regular feature of your social media, giving it a name something like new book spotlight. 

Obviously, those books with holds or which are part of popular series do not need our help to get patron attention. Save this kind of promotion for those books which need a boost. Make certain that you include books by marginalized authors, books in translation, and books from small publishers. You could use narrative non-fiction and memoirs as well. 

Book Display Inspiration Using One Book - Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow

 Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin is ostensibly about video games but is also about friendship and deep relationships that are not romantic. Since the Chicago Public Library  is using it for their One Book, One City program I thought I would use it to again show that you do not need to feel restricted when it comes to adding books to a display or as a starting point for a display. This is especially useful when you have a title with a long holds list. That title can be used to both advertise your holds list and to bring some light to your back list titles. 

While there are romantic relationships in the book, the core of the story is about two friends and their friendship that evolves over time. One option would be to set up a display with friendship themes. Look broadly for books with this theme. There are a lot of crime fiction series with friendships between characters that develop as the series progresses. 

Books to Read With Your Best Friend - Penguin Random House
Six Great Novels about Old Friends and Old Friends - Literary Hub
Popular Adult Friendship Books - Goodreads
Top Ten Books About Friendship for Adults - Audry Fryer

Videogames and the video game industry is another theme in the book. Sam and Sadie, the two main characters, establish a video game design company. Video games have been a part of popular culture since at least the 1980's so there may be more interest in your community that you suspect. People who are not familiar with the plot of Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow but are interested in video games may find their next great read. Just because a book was popular doesn't mean that every patron had it on their radar. 

The 8 Best Books About Video Games Will Change the Way You Play - PC Magazine
Ultimate Popsugar Reading Challenge discussion 2024 Challenge - Regular > 22 - A book that centers on video games - Goodreads
Level Up Your Reading - Books for Gamers (Adult edition) -Douglas County Libraries
20 Must-Read Novels Based On Or Inspired By Video Games - Book Riot

Some of these lists include graphic novels. Don't hesitate to mix graphic novels and prose novels on the same display. 

I hope these lists give you a start. Other themes in the book include: video games as art and their connection to other forms of art, cultural appropriation, disability, work, fame, loss, and coming of age. Pick one or more of these themes and set up your own display.