Book Promotion If You Can’t Afford a Book Publicist
Frequently, I hear from authors who can’t afford to hire a book publicist. Still, they hope to get some advice about book promotion.
Can You Pitch My Blog to Newspapers as an Op-Ed?
What Else Can I Do With My Blog?
Recently, a book promotion client realized he was putting a lot of thought, time, and effort into writing blogs. He knows his blogs are inspirational, and he enjoys writing them. So he asked me, “Can you pitch my blog to newspapers?” Specifically, he was inquiring about whether or not one of his blogs could be published in major newspapers as an op-ed.
My answer was that, yes, I could pitch some of his blogs as op-eds to newspapers. It would require some editing, though.
Avoid Mistakes Authors Make With Book Promotion Interviews
As a book publicist, I’ve booked hundreds, if not thousands, of interviews for authors over the years. Like all book publicists, I have my war stories — you know, the stories about interviews that may seem funny now, but that reduced me to tears at the time.
I really want my clients’ book promotion campaigns to succeed, and when authors make rookie mistakes during interviews, it’s tough for me to see (or hear, read, etc.). So, authors, I’m about to share with you some of this book publicist’s advice about mistakes authors make with interviews — and how to avoid them — to maximize your chances of book promotion success.
How to Find Author Interview Opportunities for Radio, TV, Newspapers, and More
Authors and publishers can give their book promotion campaigns a great boost from media exposure. The best way for authors to get media coverage is to offer themselves as an interviewee for radio and TV shows, podcasts, newspapers, magazines, blogs, online news sites, newsletters, and the like. If you’re an author who hasn’t booked interviews before, or even if you are an author who has experience in doing media interviews, here are some tips for getting even more interview opportunities:
Authors: Don’t Count on Radio Shows Until They Air
For authors and publishers, the best time to get excited about a telephone radio interview is after the radio interview has aired. Yes, it’s wonderful when your wish to appear on a radio show by telephone turns into an invitation. But until the radio interview actually airs, a radio interview is still only a hope. There are so many things that can go wrong with a telephone radio interview, and most of those problems with radio interviews happen right at the beginning — when you schedule the radio show.
Book Promotion Brilliance: Paul Amirault’s Great Unboxing Video
An Author’s Clever Book Promotion Model
Book promotion brilliance is a privilege to see and experience. What is book promotion brilliance? That is my phrase for great marketing ideas that I sometimes come across, suddenly and powerfully. I stumbled across one such brilliant book promotion example this morning.
Well, I say that I stumbled across a brilliant book promotion example. Actually, I was handed a great example of book publicity by a forever (and ever and ever) friend, Paul Amirault (more about the forever and ever and ever part later).
Can Authors Replace News Clipping Services With Google?
Cindy, a fellow publicist and good friend, recently asked me, “Do you ever use a news clipping service? I recently did an article marketing campaign for a corporate client, and I’d love to track all of the pickups the article has received. But they don’t always pop up in Google alerts.”
It was an interesting question. Cindy the publicist handles corporate clients and not members of the book publishing community, but there is some overlap between what we do. She knows that, as a book publicist, I frequently conduct book promotion campaigns that include print media outreach as well as strategic article marketing.
Book Promotion to Build Reader Engagement
If you’re like most authors, you’ve probably figured out how to use Google Analytics, or whatever metrics your web site host or blog host offers to determine how many readers have viewed your web site or blog. That’s important, because the amount of traffic you’re getting helps determine how effectively your efforts to increase your reader base are working.
Increase Your Readership Through Book Publicity
Authors Have Varying Book Marketing Goals
Would you like to enhance your reader base? Indie authors and publishers have long used book publicity to accomplish a variety of worthy goals, whether it’s to turn their book into a calling card; to build brand; to gain recognition and prestige; to persuade or inform a target audience; or to simply increase their readership.
In other words, although book promotion can be a part of an indie author’s overall marketing strategy, sometimes an author or publisher has a far more straightforward goal: to enhance their readership base.
Advance Book Promotion for Indie Authors: Part 2
Book promotion campaigns mean one thing to a traditional publisher. As an indie authors or small publisher, you probably view them in a different way. At least, as an independent book publicist, I have found that it would be in your best interest to learn that there are book promotion opportunities after the advance book publicity campaign has come to a hard stop.
Because traditional publishers have so many books on their plate, it’s important for them to focus on the books that are creating the most buzz. From their point of view, it’s okay if the rest of the books they publish get left behind. However, that’s not the way you look at it. Each of your books is an opportunity to get paid for the time you’ve invested in creating, and in publishing, your book. You have to garner visibility for each of your books, because each of them matters to you. That’s why your book’s publication is only the beginning.
Advance Book Publicity Is the Only the Beginning
It’s important to reach out to advance book reviewers and readers before the book’s publication. That’s an important window to leverage, and you can only garner advance book reviews and before the book has been published.
Similarly, during the advance book promotion campaign, it is your responsibility to enhance your social network. Develop loyal followers, friends, and contacts who are most likely to become part of your readership base. Provide them with information they can use, entertain them, or make them smile. In other words: make friends and build your tribe.
Advance book publicity is important. If you have the time and resources to conduct an advance book promotion campaign, you should.
But the main show is the book promotion effort that begins once your book is actually available. I promised to talk more about that in yesterday’s blog, Advance Book Promotion for Indie Authors.
Inevitably, the advance book promotion campaign is over when the book has been published. For traditional publishers, that is most often when their entire book publicity campaign comes to a hard stop. For indie authors and independent publishers, that’s when the real work — and successes — begin!
How to Create Book Buzz After the Book’s Publication
The most exciting time to promote a book is when there’s actually a book. It’s also the most productive time for indie authors, because their book marketing efforts can translate into book sales.
So now’s the time to create book buzz. Creating visibility for your book can finally lead to book sales.
Advance book promotion isn’t the same thing as post-publication book publicity. The main difference is this.
Book publicity campaigns at the post-publication stage of a book’s life revolve around authors, rather than books. Indie authors are experts. They are entertainers. They have something valuable to offer the media and readers. This is the time to start sharing it!
Disseminate Your Messages and Start the Book Buzz
How do you begin to share messages and begin to create buzz?? First, determine your offerings and their relevance to what’s happening in the news. If you’re a subject matter expert, then create your message points and determine the best ways to deliver them. Who is most likely to be interested in what you have to say? Which media beats are the best to target?
Scan the news. When you see a potential news hook, that’s the time to create media pitches. Scout out opportunities for media interviews. Which media outlets are covering the story? How can your perspective and experience be of value to them?
You can pitch yourself as an expert as frequently as you’d like, as long as the focus is on what you can offer viewers, listeners, and readers, and how you fit into breaking news and current events. Just vary your media pitches, and customize each overture to your target audience.
It’s also the time to write, and publish, op-eds that relate to the news and current events. Distribute your press releases now, and frequently, during the months ahead.
If your book is a work of fiction, then you can provide the perfect respite from the news of the day. Is the world a scarier place than usual? Then the media’s viewers, listeners, and readers need a break from it. That’s where you can help.
Frame what you have to offer with respect to what people need a break from? What’s your value add? How clever, cute, different, or funny is your offering? Prove it!
This Is the Prime Time for Book Promotion
Once the advance book promotion campaign has come to a conclusion, you’ve reached the prime time to use social networks and your web site to build your mailing list. Use online advertising, and leverage your book web site as the hub of your book publicity campaign. Grow your readership by offering newsletters, and free information and free samples, to your targeted audience. This is where you can harness the power of Google Adwords, as well as social media advertising campaigns.
Sound complicated? That’s okay. Focus on your messages, and disseminating the information you have to the people who need it.
You are the expert or the entertainer. You are there to help people, either by educating them or by relieving your target audience from stress.
You can inform your targeted readership. Or you can make them smile. Maybe you can even do both.
Not only can you do it, but you have a responsibility to do it. After all, that’s why you wrote your book and became an indie author to begin with, right. As a bonus for doing the right thing, you’ll also find yourself selling books.
By Stacey J. Miller, independent book publicist and founder of the Massachusetts-based book promotion firm, S. J. Miller Communications. For more information, please visit www.bookpr.com. Follow me at @bookpr.