Stationery Icons, a 304-page illustrated hardback by Christopher Leonard-Morgan, has launched its first Christmas campaign, positioning the book as a distinctive gift for stationery enthusiasts, collectors and design lovers.
The campaign runs through Christmas and combines advertising on StationeryNews.net and PGBuzz.net with promotional activity on Instagram and LinkedIn. The campaign celebrates the brands, personalities and stories that make stationery such an enduring fascination. Rather than relying on a single retail push, it is built around the book’s editorial premise: a collection of stories about the brands and people behind stationery.
Events point to gift appeal
The campaign follows encouraging sales at two London events: Open House at Stationers’ Hall on 20 September and the London Pen Show in Hammersmith on 10–11 October. Both events highlighted the book’s appeal as a present, with customers purchasing copies for friends, family and fellow stationery enthusiasts.
Leonard-Morgan said the particularly encouraging point was how many people saw the book as a present for someone else. He noted that most people know someone who has a favourite fountain pen, treasures a particular notebook or cannot resist a stationery shop. Stationery Icons, he said, brings together the stories behind the brands those readers love in a book they can enjoy and return to for years.
Featured brands invited to share
The Christmas campaign invites the 100 featured brands to celebrate their inclusion through their own social-media channels and customer communications. That activity is intended to extend awareness of the book among stationery enthusiasts around the world, using the brands’ existing relationships with customers and followers.
Richard Webb, publisher at Narrative Media, said stationery inspires a remarkable degree of affection and loyalty. He said the book’s breadth of stories spans six centuries of ingenuity, entrepreneurship and design. Webb added that the publisher was delighted to give featured brands an opportunity to share their own stories with customers and followers, building on the wider interest generated by the campaign.
Limited first edition
The first edition has an initial print run of just 1,000 copies. It is priced at £80 and is available to order directly from www.stationeryicons.com. The combination of a limited print run, a premium price and direct ordering gives the campaign a gift-led character, while the book’s 304 illustrated pages are intended to appeal to readers interested in stationery history and design.
The campaign’s timing links the book to the Christmas gifting season, while its appearances at the two London events provided early evidence that buyers were choosing it as a present. The announcement did not disclose a sales total or claim that the first edition had sold out; it cited encouraging sales and customer purchases at the two events.