Here’s a great article by bestselling author Kyra Davis on how she thought out-of-the-box to implement a successful, creative publicity campaign that generated quite a buzz for her last book, Passion, Betrayal and Killer Highlights.
Most new authors assume that they're going to get some marketing and publicity help from their publishing house. Don't count on it. In fact you can't even count on it if your editor tells you that you'll get that support. There's a good chance that your editor isn't going to be the decision maker in regards to what kind of campaign you're going to get (or if you'll get any) and it's not unusual for a publishing house to over-promise and under-deliver in this area. By the time I was publishing my fifth book I had experienced all the highs and lows of the world of book publicity.
I hired Susan to handle the campaign for my first novel, Sex, Murder And A Double Latte. The campaign she ran for me was nothing short of phenomenal. I got coverage in Cosmopolitan, The New York Times, The Washington Post, I was interviewed on multiple regional television talk shows...in other words I got spoiled. My publishing house ran the campaign for my second novel, Passion, Betrayal And Killer Highlights. They had a completely different approach from Susan. It’s true that my publisher poured a lot of money into promoting my second book but they misspent almost every dollar of it on things like launch parties in the Hamptons and free give-aways. No one reached out to regional television shows. There was no major push to get me in the highest profile publications. I sat back and watched as the quality of my reviews got better and better and my sales got worse and worse. It was painful to say the least.
I knew that when I published my latest book, Lust, Loathing And A Little Lip Gloss, I was going to have to take matters into my own hands. By that time many of the newspapers that had reviewed me had ceased publication. After the failed publicity campaign of my second book my publishing house was declining to invest much more in that area so my budget was small. I considered sending myself on a tour but that would have been prohibitively expensive. And then I thought, what if instead of traveling all over the place to visit with a bunch of readers I fly one reader to San Francisco to visit with me? I could hold a contest. All a reader would have to do is blog or tweet about my latest book and they would be entered in a contest to win a free trip to San Francisco and I would take them to all the places that my protagonist visited throughout the series. The businesses that were featured in the book (restaurants, cafes and chocolatiers) were happy to contribute gift cards to enhance the winner's San Francisco experience.
As I continued to develop the idea further I decided that readers would also be able to enter the contest if they reviewed the book on a bookseller's website. If they posted a book trailer on YouTube that would be worth ten entries. If they chose my book for their book group and had me speak at their meeting via speakerphone or webcam everyone in the book group would be entered twice. In other words I would make my readers my publicists.
There is no better publicity than word-of-mouth publicity and the power of the Internet makes that true ten-fold. The readers were excited by the prospect of visiting the haunting grounds of one of their favorite protagonists. Reviews for the book came pouring in only days after the release as people stayed up all night to finish my latest novel. Book trailers popped up left and right. In addition to all this I hired Susan to exclusively target Internet book review sites. And then the icing on the cake was CocoaBella chocolates. I had mentioned them in my book and in exchange they not only provided me with gift certificates for the contest but they actually came out with a specialty box of chocolates named after my protagonist. They even held an event for me at which my books were sold. So now I had a publicity campaign that was partially funded with sponsorships, I had a publicist to help me with the professional review sites and I had readers promoting my book with enthusiasm.
It was a successful campaign. Lust, Loathing And A Little Lip Gloss generated buzz and was supported by readers. Furthermore I connected with readers more than I ever have been able to before. It cost me a little more than a plane ticket.
When it comes to promoting your work you have to think out of the box and more importantly you have to take responsibility for your own campaign. Your book is your baby and expecting your publisher to truly nourish its growth and success is like sending your child to an orphanage and hoping that one of the nurses will decide to treat your baby with more personal care than all the other babies who are demanding her attention. Your baby deserves better and you, possibly with the help of a publicist (who is kind of like your baby's nanny) can give it the care it needs. Just don't be afraid to use some creative parenting.
Kyra Davis’ latest book, VOWS, VENDETTAS & A LITTLE BLACK DRESS is available on May 26th. Please visit http://www.kyradavis.com/ for more information.
Labels: Book Publicity, Book Publishing
Just as spouses who are often the last to discover that their partners are cheating, authors are often the last to know when a publisher decides to delay or move up the pub date of their books.
Recently, a client of mine called me, distraught that his book’s pub date had been moved up two months. He had done his homework and made sure he hired me more than three months before his book was due to hit the bookshelves. Now, without his knowledge, his publisher had decided to release his book two months early, which put a kink in the publicity plans. This author wondered aloud if he had made a mistake in hiring me, and asked if it was not too late to maximize publicity.
In the best of all possible worlds, a publicist wants to be able to pitch the long lead national monthly magazines as well as the national morning and evening magazine shows at least three months prior to pub date. Many publications prefer to tie in a review, profile or Q&A to a book’s pub date. This rule is not set in stone, but it is more often than not reliable. indeed, many national network programs book their author interviews or evening segment stories three to four month’s in advance.
Rules, however, are made to be broken, and a good publicist can find ways around those rules. My schedule would have to be stepped up. Instead of writing the press materials at my leisure—because I thought I had several months to do so—I got to work immediately. They were ready within days of the author’s phone call.
Next, I urged the author not to wait for his publisher to print advance reading copies, but to print his manuscript and have it spiral-bound. his book is on a timely subject—strategies for small businesses to survive in a tough economy—and I wanted to get his book out to as many shows as possible while the topic is hot. As I explained to the author, a publicist never knows if a show such as 20/20 is doing a story on small businesses. I would hate to turn on my TV several months from now and watch a segment on how small businesses are coping and know that my author missed a media opportunity because his publisher was unable to print galleys fast enough to meet the earlier than scheduled pub date.
What can authors do to stay abreast of their publishers’ decision making and not learn about sudden changes of plans after the fact? Authors have to be vigilant. This doesn’t mean that you pester your publisher everyday. But you should be receiving fairly regular communications from your editor and in-house publicist. A good agent is usually on top of things. But, for those authors who don’t have agents, sending regular e-mails to ascertain when advance reading copies are due, when covers are ready, and checking Amazon to make sure your publisher has featured your book on Amazon three months before pub date so you will not lose out on pre-orders, is essential.
In my author’s case, he did all of the above. Sometimes, despite all of your efforts, you are still the last to know. In an ideal world, everything runs smoothly. You have hired a publicist six months before your book comes out. You have written about a topic that makes breaking news as soon as your book hits the shelves. You do the talk show circuit. And you hit the bestseller list.
In a less than ideal world, a good publicist who thinks out of the box can often do damage control and get you more media coverage than you ever anticipated.
I have been an independent book publicist for almost 20 years, working behind the scenes, yet many don’t really know what goes on in a book publicist’s day. I recently wrote a piece, Send Cookies, for Your Shelf Life, and a producer from a nationally syndicated radio program responded, “Now I’m beginning to understand. Folks never talk about this part of the business.” So I have decided to offer an insider’s look at the book publishing business from the perspective of an independent book publicist.
Look for informative and entertaining stories about the book publicity business…anecdotes about the typical day in the life of a book publicist…the occasional book review or a favorite recipe or two… ruminations on my current reading… news about the books I am promoting…what really happens behind the scenes.
And there are so many stories to tell. Such as the story of an author’s worst nightmare—performing a cooking demonstration on live TV when the host offers a taste of her kid-friendly meal to a child on the set and he gags.
Other stories that shed light on the daily challenges a book publicist faces, especially this year, when publishers have slashed their budgets, making it more challenging for even the best of us to promote our authors as we would like.
Such as the day I received an e-mail from a publisher’s assistant who asked me if she could send half a book to reviewers. Will there be a new book award category, my partner asked, an award for “Best Half Book?”
Or the publisher whose advertising and publicity budget had been slashed, and had a very limited amount of review copies to send me. How do I explain to the author that the publisher will only send out review copies if I get a request from a media contact? And how do you get media placements without sending review copies?
A good publicist has to be able to think out-of-the-box. I am not a magician, however, who can pull books out of a box by waving my magic wand or get media coverage by simply wishing it to be so—even though I did read The Secret.
Still, I doggedly sent 50 e-mail pitches, creating a buzz about said book. And another 50. And another 50. Bingo: At 7:00 PM, when I am about to shut off my computer, there is an e-mail from a producer in Seattle requesting a copy of the book and asking me when the author is available for an interview.
Then, at four in the morning, I received a phone call from a talk show host who can’t sleep because his wife is away. He apologized profusely, and said he wanted to book an interview with the author.
Several months after the campaign was over, the author won a prestigious award. I extended her campaign, and booked her on almost two dozen radio interviews, including several NPR programs.
All in a day’s work. When you are an independent book publicist, your work is never done. There are good days and bad days, and then there are truly spectacular days such as when your French cookbook author invites you to her 17th Century Chateau in France for cooking classes as a reward for my promotion of her cookbook.
And then there was the memorable day I made a phone call to a book reviewer at The Wall Street Journal almost nine years ago that led to a lengthy phone friendship. And then we met. And then he moved in. And seven years later we got married.
And we have lived happily ever after.
So there are good days, and then there are even better days….
For more information about the books I’m promoting, please visit http://www.susanschwartzmanpublicity.com/ and http://www.susanschwartzman.blogspot.com/
Labels: Book Publicity, Book Publishing