Book Publicity 101 - Part 2

Today's guest blog is from Carolyn Howard-Johnson, the author of so-called hard-to-promote genres (www.howtodoitfrugally.com/literary_books.htm) and of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers, http://www.howtodoitfrugally.com/. And, yes, she will be speaking at the Book 'Em book fair in North Carolina in February of 2013. It's part of her overall marketing campaign and a way to help other authors avoid the same promotion potholes she once fell into.

This is Part 2 of Book Publicity 101. Part 1 was posted yesterday.

How do you find the best help with publicity possible?

1. Consider what you need and how much time you can put into it. Your budget may not accommodate a full-service publicist. You may not have the time to fully participate with all of those services.
2. If that’s the case, consider people who will work with you piecemeal like BookinSync. You may need an online book tour. I like Denise Cassino's book launch service. Contact her at dencassino@gmail.com . It shouldn’t be too expensive to get help when you do it in bits and pieces. And when you work with others, many of the contacts you get from your service will become contacts for the life of your writing career. Or you may need help writing your first release so you can do it yourself. That kind of help is available, too, from people like Mindy Philips Lawence, mplcreative1@aol.com .
3. Before you hire anyone consider their Rolodex. I'm talking about a file of contacts that are real
   

   personal, working relationships with editors, radio hosts, etc. Ask what kind of publicity have they gotten for their other clients? Consider whether those contacts are people who might have an interest in a project like yours. A book publicist who has had mostly experience with mystery writers, deals mostly with books stores that dedicate themselves to stories about crime, and has a huge file of names of reviewers interested in psycho/thrillers probably won't be able to do you much good if yours is a literary novel. And vice versa.

As you have already guessed, you want someone who has clients similar to you. Check that out, but also check with the clients. Were they satisfied? If not, why not. Their expectations may have been different than yours. Further, if there were some gaps that you consider important, you may be able to negotiate with your newfound partner to include those services in the publicity package you are contracting for.

Am I speaking from experience? You betcha. And lukewarm results were not the fault of my publicist. She did a great job with what she had. She just didn't have what I needed! If you do your homework, you’ll be happier with your publicity campaign and your publicist will be able to help you reach your goals more quickly…and they’ll be happier with you.

Today's guest blog is from Carolyn Howard-Johnson, the author of so-called hard-to-promote genres (www.howtodoitfrugally.com/literary_books.htm) and of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers, http://www.howtodoitfrugally.com/. And, yes, she will be speaking at the Book 'Em book fair in North Carolina in February of 2013. It's part of her overall marketing campaign and a way to help other authors avoid the same promotion potholes she once fell into.

 

Book Publicity 101

Today's guest blog is from Carolyn Howard-Johnson, the author of so-called hard-to-promote genres (www.howtodoitfrugally.com/literary_books.htm) and of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers, http://www.howtodoitfrugally.com/. And, yes, she will be speaking at the Book 'Em book fair in North Carolina in February of 2013. It's part of her overall marketing campaign and a way to help other authors avoid the same promotion potholes she once fell into.

This is Part 1 of Book Publicity 101. Check back tomorrow for Part 2!

If your name isn't King or Grisham or Roberts you've probably already figured out that you need to do a lot of publicity on your own because your publisher hasn't assigned a budget ample enough to shoot your book to stardom.

That publicist can be you or someone else, but somebody's got to do it if you want your book to sell.

I have a publicist friend who is also an author. He rightfully claims that he could never find a PR person who would do the same kind of job he does, including the time he spends on his own PR work. How could anyone argue with that? We all are our own best publicists, even if we hire someone else.

But what if we don't have the time or expertise?

We can learn to do it ourselves. After all, we are writers. We should be able to grasp the knack of how to write a release.

But the best way to do it is to learn a lot about the marketing of books and then partner with expert publicists or people who can help you with specific projects like online book tours. And partnering with them in a way that won’t eat up your advance or cost you more than you’re likely to make on your book.

Here are some suggestions for preparing yourself to be the best publicity partner around.

1. Join organizations like SPAN (Small Publishers of North America) (www.spannnet.org) where you’ll learn to understand the world of publishing from every angle—your, that of your publicist and that of your publisher.
2. Subscribe to newsletters sent out my experts in the field of publishing. Dan Poynter, John Kremer, Penny C. Sansevieri, and one of my favorite publicity gurus Joan Stewart are all online resources for getting online information that isn’t rooted in myth and gossip. You’ll learn tons from my Sharing with Writers newsletter, too. Subscribe by sending a SUBSCRIBE message to HoJoNews@aol.com.
3. Take a class in public relations. The only way I know how to avoid drastic mistakes in choosing a class is to patronize your local college or attend writers’ conferences sponsored by universities.
4. One of the most frugal ways to learn a new skillset is to read. Most of those who publish free newsletters like the ones I mentioned above have books that will get you off on the right foot. Find mine at www.budurl.com/FrugalBkPromo

The next question is how do you find the best help with publicity possible. Tune in tomorrow for tips!