After the Manuscript
7.28.10: Do Your Own Publicity
7.22.10: Book Publicity: How to Create an Online Media Kit
7.7.10: The Question of Media Contacts by Christina Mamangakis of Simon & Schuster
7.1.10: Using Contests to Advance your Reputation as an Author
6.23.10: How to Get the Media’s Attention By Peg Booth, Booth Media Group
6.16.10: How to Work With a Publicist by Mari Selby of Selby Ink
6.9.10: How to Hire a Publicist by Kate Siegel Bandos, KSB Promotions
6.3.10: Building Your Author Platform Dana Lynn Smith
5.26.10: Tips for Working with Freelancers: In a Little League of Their Own
5.20.10: Five Things That May Surprise You About Book Publicity by Christina Mamangakis of Schribner
5.13.10: Pre-Pub Marketing: Book Endorsements
5.5.10: Five PR Myths You Must Not Believe By Peg Booth, Booth Media Group
4.28.10: Making Your Radio Interviews Count by Mari Selby of Selby Ink
4.22.10: Nothing Trumps the Personal Touch By Kate Siegel Bandos, KSB Promotions
4.14.10: How to Bring Sexy Back to Book Signings by Tolly Moseley, PR by the Book
4.7.10: Traditional Tours & Speaking Events: A Counterpoint
3.25.10: No Substitute for Good Old-Fashioned PR
3.17.10: A Simple Step Sells Your Book
3.10.10: Book Publicity…Then and Now
2.24.10: Wait a minute…I have to write more!
It’s a bit of an understatement to say that the publishing world has undergone a recent change. It’s probably more accurate to say that the industry has been turned almost completely upside-down these past five years. The rise of electronic readers and Amazon’s eminence, the decline of indie bookstores and holding-on of major chains, the emergence of new forms and genres, like graphic novels and urban literature, and the decimation of print coverage….even those outside the book world are cognizant of this last fact. Entire book review sections have disappeared and even the major staples of the print media (including the much-revered New York Times Book Review) have been forced to cut their page numbers and resize their margins.
Why, you ask, am I adding my voice to the ever-present chorus of doom and gloom? Because publicity, as we know it, is not over – it’s not even close. It’s merely a question of adaptation and creativity to fill the void of traditional print coverage – of straight reviews, Q&A’s, and profiles.
Again and again, editors are coming back to publicists, clamoring for what they term “original material.” New books are now regularly used as a jumping-off point, and authors are often viewed as experts who can raise the topic and level of discussion above the book itself.
The form this “original material” takes depends on your book. Nonfiction books often lend themselves to op-eds, which are a good way to explore controversy and tie your book’s themes to current events. Books about politics, foreign affairs, and business are fairly self-explanatory. But, say, you’ve written a history of something (a war, a time period, a person, you name it). Chances are you’ve stumbled across something in your research of the subject that has bearing on today’s world. Your job as an author (and often through the help of your editor and publicist) is to make those connections between past and present.
What about fiction or memoir? It’s not particularly easy to tease out ideas from a novel and make them the subject of an op-ed, though it has been done before. And I’m not exactly letting the cat out of the bag in saying that the memoir genre has lost some credibility recently. These types of books lend themselves very nicely to an increasingly popular format: the first person narrative or short essay, which is especially appealing to long-lead magazines. Some publications have special sections devoted to these types of pieces (like O Magazine), whereas other publications simply incorporate them into pre-existing sections, should the piece strike an editor’s interest. Websites like Salon, the Huffington Post, the Daily Beast, and WowOwow.com, also possess similar sections and their editors (books and other) are constantly on the lookout for authors who can blog for them and add to their content.
The key to success in placing these pieces is to:
- Tease out the elements of your book that would make for an interesting first-person piece or even a short essay. Are you going to write about the food aspect of your memoir? Are you going to write about the themes in your book that lend themselves to a tech-savvy audience? Are you going to write about the writing process itself – such as how you came to write a novel or what you learned about yourself in the process of writing short stories about animals?
- Know your audience and spend some time getting to know different publications and websites to figure out which ones might work for your book and the type of narrative you’re pitching. Again, your publicist can help you with this part. Chances are, the editors at Glamour are not necessarily going to want the same type of piece as the editors at Wired. Chances are, if Slate has just posted a piece by a debut novelist whose inspiration came from studying Buddhism, the editor’s not going to want another one, even if you think your essay is better written and more revealing.
I know some authors are, at first, reluctant to write original pieces because they’ve done so much for their books already. However, not only do these pieces help raise an author’s profile with publications’ individual audiences, they can also serve as a publicity hook in pitching you to other media venues. So don’t despair at having to write more…think of it as a challenge in connecting the dots with the goal of further building your reputation as a writer and reaching audiences you may not have originally imagined!
Christina Mamangakis is a publicist at Scribner, an imprint of Simon & Schuster. Before that, she worked at W. W. Norton & Company.
2.17.10: Promoting Your Book Through Speaking Opportunities
While it’s very important to utilize the online Web 2.0 tools that are available to all of us now as authors and publicists, it’s still as important to constantly create new opportunities for visibility of your book through speaking engagements.
Speaking engagements come in all forms, and there are many incredible ways an author can help garner more speaking events. Corporate speaking, book signing, and niche event speaking opportunities offer authors very strong opportunities to build their profile and garner new book readers.
For your book to stay visible, especially during the first year of its release, it’s vital to couple your book tour (or even travel for personal reasons, like a wedding in Seattle) with in-person book signings and speaking engagements.
Authors have found success speaking at churches, universities, book stores, business clubs, libraries and all of those events offer you an opportunity to connect directly to your readers.
While it can be slow going at the onset, the persistent speaker can find new opportunities, and you can continue to be booked at a higher rate of pay the more that you speak at different events. To make sure you’re ready as an author to start your speaker’s tour you need to have the following:
- A well-formed speaker’s one-sheet that lists your accomplishments, your current contact information and your speaking topics.
- A high-resolution professional headshot or photo for your speaker’s one sheet.
- A list of some of the corporations, organizations, associations or high-profile groups that you’ve spoken to previously.
- A list of speech title (with one paragraph explanation) you can give so that the event has choices.
It’s a good idea, if possible, to have a video or DVD of you speaking in front of a live audience. This needs to be an actual video of a speaking engagement that was taped at one of your previous events. This is especially important when you’re pitching national conventions and larger speaking engagements. The DVD or video needs to be very professional–high quality and good sound quality. This important piece helps take a speaker to the next level of opportunities.
Keep in mind that all the groups you speak to are important. You never know who might be sitting in the audience listening to every word that you say. For instance, you might be speaking to a group of 45 people at a smaller event, but we’ve seen authors get a very large speaking event from a smaller event, simply because there was a major CEO or programs manager at the smaller event whom they impressed.
I spoke to an author at Berrett-Koehler Publishers who almost canceled one of his speaking engagements when it appeared there were going to be only 12 to 15 people in attendance. But he did not cancel it, and there were only 11 people there. However, one of them happened to be a New York Times reporter who wrote a great feature story on him and his new book that week after hearing his speech that night! You should never judge a speaking opportunity solely based on the size of the audience. We all have to start somewhere.
When you’re speaking even directly in regard to your book’s promotion, you must absolutely be engaged and excited so that your audience feels you value their time and effort in attending.
For many events, you’ll also have the opportunity through speaking to sell books at the back of the room. This should be discussed well in advance with the event coordinator and plans made for books to be available for purchase and signing immediately after your speech in the back.
Keep in mind that everything is negotiable. You might get paid a speaking fee for the engagement, or just expenses, or a small honorarium or, in some instances, the event may purchase one of your books for each person who attends. That itself is a great benefit both monetarily and for further exposure. You can turn these opportunities into win-win situations for both the event and the author. Networking at the events you speak at will also give you new opportunities for increasing your book’s visibility.
You can also work with your publicist to help you set up speaking engagements for your book tour itself. Too often, an author or publicist just books a book signing at a book store and does not try to book any more speaking engagements in that city. This is a missed opportunity for book sales and connecting to a larger community. You also want to look at universities and chamber of commerce membership associations in each town on your tour (or wherever you may be traveling for business or personal reasons) and pro-actively send them a book flyer, a press release and your one-sheet.
One of the most interesting tours that an author did recently was Gary Vaynerchuck, author of the book, “Why Now Is the Time To Crush It: Cash in On Your Passions,” who did many speaking events at upscale wine and food stores, including Cost Plus World Market.
One of Booth Media Group’s clients, John Perkins, recently had several speaking engagements at Green Festivals, as well as the United Nations and the Library of Congress, as well as many universities, colleges, and prep schools across the country. Don’t discount a speaking opportunity because it’s a somewhat different locale than you are used to.
Keep in mind as well that each locale you speak at also has a potential news peg for coverage on the local radio or television station. If you are coordinating the speaking tour with a publicist for your book, those opportunities for media coverage that will help increase the sales of your book. Remember you can also find opportunities for speaking through the usage of LinkedIn.com, so ensure you are active on this social network, as well as a member of the groups that most align with your speaking or book’s focus on the same site.
You cannot only rely on old marketing methods for garnering speaking engagements. Just as you network offline, you must also strongly network online. We’ve seen very good success with authors who employ the Web 2.0 tools, like Twitter and LinkedIn.com, and ensure that as well during their offline book signings and speaking engagements that those profiles are listed on all the marketing materials.
Now go and polish up that stellar speech!
For more than 30 years, Peg Booth has been working in marketing, sales, and publicity. She started in book PR with the esteemed Arielle Ford and then formed her own PR firm, Booth Media Group in Carlsbad, CA in 1998. Their focus is non-fiction and she’s had the honor of working with new authors in addition to New York Times bestselling authors such as Dr. Deepak Chopra, Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen, Ken Blanchard, Dr. Bernie Siegel, John Perkins, and Greg Palast.
2.10.10: The Five Most Common Mistakes of Debut Authors
Prior to being published, new authors will frequently make mistakes that damage, or even preclude, their book’s marketability. Commonly, these errors include:
- Lack of clear audience for their material
- Poorly designed front cover art and a back cover without endorsements
- Unedited or unprofessionally edited manuscript
- Lack of marketing platform and budget
- Inadequate online presence for author and title
Independent Literary Publicist Stephanie Barko helps authors present their voice to the public. If she gets a manuscript early enough, she can redirect one that’s heading for a nose dive back up into the sky like a plane with a banner tied to its tail.
“It’s all about having a guide,” she says. “When you become an author, you’re entering a dynamic, unregulated industry full of people who want to make money off you. The less you know about it, the more you need someone to advocate for you. A publicist can open doors when all the author sees are walls.”
Stephanie Barko is a Literary Publicist specializing in nonfiction and historical fiction. Her award-winning clients include traditional publishers and their authors, small presses, and independently published authors. Services include book platforms, custom virtual tours, media relations, and more. Visit with Stephanie at http://www.authorsassistant.com/Barko.htm.
2.4.10: Assembling a Team Building Your Book
Remember the movie “Field of Dreams” and the theme, “build it and they will come”? Your book is a “field of dreams.” Once you have the manuscript finished, you have many decisions to make. How will you get your book to press? How will you distinguish your book from others like it? How will you promote your book? What are the goals for your book? Authors are often encouraged to promote themselves. However, with 500,000 new books published each year, competition is fierce for media attention and shelf space in bookstores. When you take the time to build a superior product with a great team your book becomes part of a winning game plan.
These are the members of your team:
- Literary Agent: Once the book is a finished manuscript an agent will “shop” your book to publishers. (See more information below)
- Publicist: A publicist promotes the finished book, and literally creates a market for the book. Because they also promote you (the author), a publicist is invaluable, whether your book is independently published or released through a publishing house. (See more information below)
The below teammates are necessary if you are becoming an independent publisher yourself:
- Editor: Every writer needs a good editor to correct grammar, syntax, and flow. Without an editor your book will not be as reader-friendly and saleable.
- Cover Designer/Book Designer: Their job is to create a beautiful cover and inside of your book that will separate your book from the crowd. A great cover for your book helps develop your brand, as well as title recognition.
- Book Shepherd: As a first-time independent (self) publisher, an author may choose to hire a Book Shepherd instead of going through the confusing publishing process alone. Their goal is to make the final product as readable, professional, and marketable as possible. They will interface with the printer, the book designer, and may act as the publicist.
- Literary Agent: A Literary Agent is necessary if you are determined to be published by a sizable publishing house. Most publishing houses will not take submissions from anyone but a Literary Agent. A publishing house with a name and reputation can secure publicity and distribution more easily than a lone independent author. They have the clout to launch a book successfully. Some publishers, like Red Wheel Weiser, welcome direct submissions from authors. A literary agent’s main responsibilities include shopping your manuscript around, securing a contract, confirming that the contract is beneficial for you and your book, and even soliciting foreign rights. Some agents may help their authors find sponsors for the whole promotional campaign. However, when the material in the book is time-sensitive, there is a deadline for getting the book to press. Finding the right agent to take on your book takes time. And there is always a queue for your book to be published; the queue can take 18 months to 2 years for a finished book. Can you wait that long? Often publishing houses will obfuscate how much they will invest in marketing your book. With a free-lance publicist’s help your book may move more quickly off bookstore shelves.
- Publicist: How did you find the book you are currently reading? Was it recommended to you by someone you trust? Chances are, a publicist brought this book to your attention either directly or indirectly. A book review may have caught your eye, or a radio interview tickled your ear, or you saw an author on TV. These are a few of the ways a publicist creates attention for your book. A publicist’s work can begin with your manuscript to help you create a more polished and marketable format. This is part of book shepherding. Or a publicist can begin promoting you and your book 3-6 months before the book is released. At that time, effective publicists secure endorsements, build your platform, submit articles, or solicit pre-publication reviews. Because of the publicist’s experience and contacts, they are able to secure the publicity for a book much more easily than a lone author. When your book is released, a publicist can create what’s called a “bricks and mortar” city tour, solicit radio and TV interviews, build a following through social networking, or secure reviews of the published book. Many media people will not respond to authors. A publicist helps develop name recognition that will improve book sales and enhance your author profile. Unless you are already famous, publicizing your book is the most critical part of building a reputation for yourself and for your book.
You (the author) and your book are the most essential part of the team. Without your book, the team is missing the playing field. Without your full participation and enthusiasm, the team has no captain.
Mari Selby founded Selby ink in 1998 after working for a small publisher where she was successful in improving their sales from 20,000 books to over 100,000 books in one year. Prior to being a publicist Mari was a family therapist in private practice for almost 20 years. All of us at Selby ink are passionate about healing and transformation, we prefer to work with books that make a difference in people’s lives, their relationships, our society or the planet. Our passion for books, drive to make your work well-known, and international contacts will provide just the edge you need to create a successful promotional campaign. Selby ink covers all the publicity and promotional bases, from book-shepherding to traditional book tours to online services to viral campaigns. Contact Selby ink today for a free short consultation about your book and you! mari@selbyink.com or www.selbyink.com
2.2.10: Tips for Getting Coverage Off the Book Page
Written by Kate Siegel Bandos, KSB Promotions
Often the best coverage for a book comes from feature articles, authors-as-expert comments, excerpts, and even sidebar mentions. Here are a few tips to get you started.
One
Develop 2-10 different angles or “hooks” that you think are newsworthy. (Remember, with 500,000 new books being published each year, the publication of a book is not news. Content from the book is news and you as an expert on the subject has many angles.)
Two
For each angle, select 10 media that you think are a perfect match. Research each publication before you waste your time and money sending a book off to the editors. You can find a description of the publication’s content by checking its web site, studying several copies and/or by requesting their advertising materials. The advertising packet will give you the publication’s target audience and their circulation figures.
Three
Approach the media you selected for your favorite angle. You can do this by:
- Emailing the editor or producer and pitch the idea (this is the preferred method most media state when asked.). Make sure you get your idea across in 25 words or less, and have a good subject tagline. Attachments are a no-no, but you can add hotlinks to the appropriate page on your web site.
- Calling the editor or producer and pitch the idea. Make sure you can get your idea across in 25 words or less, 30 seconds or less. 99 percent of the time you will be leaving a message on voice mail, not actually talking to a human being. Tell them you have just sent or will send them an email with the subject line such-and-such that has more details. They can then look for that email if they are intrigued.
- Emailing a ready-to-use article which highlights your idea, or send a teaser about the article and then include a hotlink to the right page on your web site. Let the editors know the article is free for them to use in their publication or on their site or as a guest blog with proper credit.
- Emailing editors and bloggers telling them that you have free, ready-to-use articles, listing a few of the headlines.
- Mailing your book to the editors or producers you have chosen, with a note about why you think it would be perfect for their readers or listeners or viewers. Mark the pages that are especially applicable. Include appropriate press materials.
Four
Depending on your success, try another method of contact and/or fine-tune your approach and try again. If you are successful, select additional media to contact in the same way.
Five
Pick one of the other angles and start the process all over again.
Six
Read and watch everything you can. Be ready to send letters to the editors, offer comments at web sites, submit follow-up show or article ideas, etc. Think of how what you have to say connects with something in the news.
Seven
Make sure all the materials you develop are available to send electronically and/or are easy for the media to download from your web site. Create a CD with both text and art if appropriate.
Eight
Research key dates that you can tie into — or establish your own. Chase’s Calendar of Events (http://www.mhprofessional.com/?page=/mhp/categories/chases/content/about_chases.html) is the most comprehensive and authoritative reference available on special events, holidays, federal and state observances, historic anniversaries and more with more than 12,000 listings. Many authors and publishers have created their own day or week and used it to great publicity advantage over the years. There are other books like this including John Kremer’s Celebrate Today! (http://celebratetoday.com/) as well as many web sites where you can glean this type of information.
Nine
Be accessible. You never know when someone you have contacted will want to contact you for a story or interviews. If you are hard to reach by phone or email, they will likely move on to another contact on their list.
Ten
Success breeds success. Don’t be afraid to send articles, reviews, and good coverage to other media people via mail or email, sending them to a posting on your web site or a hotlink to the article/review itself. Rather than making the media turn away since the topic has been covered, it usually reinforces the appeal of your message and they are comfortable coming to you for more information on your topic. Make sure that the copies of articles or interviews are reproduced in a professional manner.
We have seen books and authors use these methods keep a book alive for ten years or more, becoming the “go to” person on the subject over and over again. You can do it too.
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About Kate:
Kate Siegel Bandos established KSB Promotions in 1988. A veteran of nearly 40 years in book promotion, she was promotions director for Globe Pequot Press (CT) and publicity director for Pelican Publishing Company (LA), Acropolis Books (DC), and M. Evans & Company (NYC). She has been a featured speaker and panelist at numerous regional and national conferences. She has spoken about book promotion and the importance of publicity at the IBPA (PMA)/BEA Publishing University, the National Small Press Book Publishing Institute, Mid-America Book Publishers Conferences, and the Favorite Recipes Press Conference.
