A Reading and Conversation with Guy Tal

OVERVIEW: Photography is widely understood to be a mode of expression. However, Photography as a whole is often linked to and even eclipsed by one of its sub-genres: ‘photo realism.’ This sub-genre of photography depicts things as they to the objective eye, rather than using creativity to ignite the viewer’s senses or imationation. Guy Tal, a self-described artist ‘working in the medium of photography,’ creates expressive art intended to offer visual metaphors for thoughts and feelings, rather than to document appearances. He is an artist, instructor, and an author, and his newly released book, The Interior Landscape, was published in 2022 by Rocky Nook.

WHO: The intended audience of this campaign were customers interested in learning more about art and thoughtful expression through the lens of landscape photography, naturalists, as well as followers of the ‘photography-as-art’ movement.

WHAT: The primary component of this campaign was its free webinar, which was formatted as a live reading and a conversation between Guy Tal and the moderator (myself), as well as with the live audience.

WHY/HOW: While there is a lot of flexibility around what authors can do during their book launch webinars, it is typical for authors to share slideshow presentations behind the creative process and making of their books. Following an author’s sharing, there is a Q&A moderated by the host. For this webinar, the author requested a different webinar format: A reading of 4-5 passages from his newly released book, and a live conversation with the moderator (myself) and audience. An audience’s questions are typically inspired from watching and listening to the author’s presentation and asking for additional clarification on any given subject matter. Because this webinar would not have a visual component (such as a slideshow) for audience to easily follow along, I gathered that our audience might be slower to pose questions to the author’s thoughtful essays. In preparation for this, I wrote questions for the author, as well as transitionary comments tailored to the list of passages he would be reading. I also created a Google form which allowed me to source audience questions ahead of the webinar so that I could curate those into the webinar’s outline and flow.

RESULTS: The 1 email’s results were an Average Open Rate of 39% (11,780 opens), and a CTR of 1.2% (365 unique clicks). The unique coupon, TAL40, was used 33 times at Rocky Nook’s online store for a total of $1,153 in gross sales. The free webinar sourced 224 LIVE viewers, and the YouTube recording gained more than 1.5K views.

RECORDING LINK: A Reading and Q&A with Guy Tal