The Keys to Promotion and Publicity by Tracy Budd Day After reading Allen Weisse's An author Goes Solo: Hiring Your Own PR Firm in the winter '99 Bulletin, I thought I might be able to offer a few tips to other mid-list or first-time authors considering a similar route. I am an independent publicist who works with a variety of authors, and if you think your job is over after you've sold your book to a publisher, I suggest you think again. That's when the real work of selling begins. What to Expect from Your Publisher As publishing becomes ever more a "bottom-line" business, the level of promotional activity planned for any one book is increasingly determined by a profit/loss formula set not by your editor but the marketing and promotional department. Chuck Adams, an editor at Simon & Schuster, recently told writers at the Mystery Writers of America Symposium that "the higher the larger the promotion budget and correspondingly the less they invest the less publicity/promotion help you will get." How much money will be committed to the promotion of your book? A sticky question and one many publishers will hedge on, but a question that should be asked nonetheless. Editors can rarely influence the profit/loss formula at the outset, but once galleys have begun circulating and a buzz develops about a book, they are in a position to push it along, and the better your relationship with your editor, the more likely he or she will be to promote your interests within the house. your editor should act as intermediary between you and the promotion and sales force, but if you feel this is not about to happen, speak up. You can write a personal note to the head of promotion, requesting that you be invited to make a presentation to the sales force to "sell" your work. Who on the staff will be handling promotion? Publicity departments may have a high staff turnover rate, and many publicity associates are recent college grads at the bottom rung of the career ladder. Publicity is where many aspiring editors begin. According to a survey conducted by the Omega Group in 1996, publicists at the bigger publishing houses are usually working on eight to ten books at a time. My advice is, get to know your publicist, make an impression, volunteer as much information as possible and follow up. Many houses will ask the author to fill out a questionnaire listing contacts. If no one asks you to complete one, go ahead and make your own list, detailing who should be contacted, how and when. Knowing what you have to work with in terms of galleys and copies of the bound book will help you start to plan your own promotion efforts. Galleys are the best bet with reviewers and other members of the press, who need to see a book weeks or even months before publication date. Find out when galleys will be available, how many copies you get, and whether or not you have to pay for them. How many free copies of the book will you receive? My experience is that a finished book, rather than galleys, goes over better with bookers for electronic media (TV, radio). It's also less expensive than a press kit, which rarely gets looked at anyway. Hiring an Independent Publicist Here's a short list of questions you might ask yourself and any publicist you are considering hiring. How long have they done book publicity and for whom? Most independent publicists and firms have a variety of clients and commitments. As with your publisher you want to know where you rank on the list. Does he or she handle books in all genres or do they specialize? How sophisticated is his or her knowledge of niche outlets? I have a personal preference for mystery and my rolodex is stuffed with possibilities for mysteries, which reduces the learning curve. But I have publicized books in other areas as well, and a bit of creative thinking and research allows me to place stories for non-mystery clients. How many authors or projects does the publicist take on at one time? I can work on may projects simultaneously, but I carefully plan my calendar around clients' publication dates. Does the publicist work on an hourly basis, or a placement fee or a project fee? Dr Weisse lamented working with a firm on a placement-fee basis. The difficulty I have with this type of arrangement is that publicity is not a commodity business. By tuning to what I call a la carte placement services, you may end up paying for a placement in the New Haven Register, which is fine if you live in New England, but if you are a Southwest author, this might not increase the sales of your book. Publicity should really begin when you are in the outlining stage of your writing. Think about research, interviews, and other activities - is there a story hidden somewhere? While publicists do much of their work by phone and fax, this can still add up to a lot of time and high cost when charged by the hour. Monthly retainers or project fees give you a concrete idea of the expense involved. The publicist will have calculated his/her anticipated time commitment and reflect that in the fee. My preference is a monthly retainer or a project fee broken down into four to six months of activity. Ask for a proposal/plan of activities and also whether a fee is charged for this. As a publicist, I am not going to give away all my secrets in a plan, but I will provide a skeletal outline of activities, i.e., TV, national morning shows, local cable, network affiliates, etc, but without names of contacts. a proposal will give you some idea of how imaginative the thinking on your project is likely to be. It will also help you see how much will be expected of you in terms of time and travel, and what you are willing to do to promote your book. If you are uneasy with some of the ideas proposed, SPEAK UP. You are the person who is going to be out front, not your publicist. And if the first publicist you ask charges a fee for a proposal, keep looking. Finally, do you like him or her? Personal chemistry really counts. You may not always get to meet in person but will spend a lot of time communicating. You should feel comfortable and grow to trust the publicist's judgment, even if you do not always agree. Publicity 101 for Authors A national morning show producer once told me, "Please don't send me authors who can talk only about their book." Consider what else you as a writer bring to the table. Author Leslie Glass, for example, sit son the board of the New York Police Department Police Foundation. When the NYPD was coming under press attack, she appeared on a national morning show and managed to plug her latest book. One author I worked with recently had interviewed Gregory Peck and the fashion designers Givenchy and Vera Wang in the course of her research. do you think this helps in securing interviews? Absolutely. Another author frequently includes recipes in her mysteries. Capitalizing on her talent in the kitchen she was able to attract the attention of food editors who gave her more print coverage than book reviewers. Maybe you found yourself climbing hundreds of feet below the earth in a cave or sky-diving for the first time. Whatever it is, don't keep it a secret, because it might be the hook that will get your book the attention it needs. Review your life and all the people you have met along the way. This is no time to be shy. Did you go to elementary school with anyone now associated with the media? High school or college? Many colleges have very good alumni publications, which they mail out to thousands of alumni across the country. By listing every possible person or outlet, you will show your publisher the kind of support you can bring to the book personally, and your willingness to follow through. Author websites are growing in popularity. If you have one, terrific; if not you should seriously consider creating one. Your website needs to be updated on a regular basis. Let your readers know where you will be appearing, what you're working on. Ask readers for feedback. Author Lisa Scottoline ('95 Mystery writers of America Edgar Award Winner for best paperback) once used her site to post a chapter of her current book. She asked for feedback and comments, and wound up with a story in the Philadelphia Inquirer. Boston pianist/author Janice Weber now times the publication of her books with the release of her classical CDs. Her books sometimes arrive on reviewers' desks with copies of her current musical release, helping her to stand out from the dozens of other books reviewers receive weekly. Some authors have postcards printed up showing their book jacket and including information about upcoming signings or blurbs. You can mail these to your own list of contacts, use them as business cards, or send them to booksellers. Though booksignings have long been popular, I find them unpredictable and often disappointing for the author. If you are going to make this kind of appearance, insist on being positioned near the front of the store, not back by the water fountain. If possible, work with the bookseller to create a thematic window display that includes items other than books. You might try organizing multi-author events. This allows the bookseller to pool the available advertising dollars and, for marginal authors, may make the difference between no appearance and a very successful one. If you do plan to contact booksellers independently, be sure to do so long in advance of your book's publication date. There are over 1800 independent booksellers in the country and a large number of specialty bookstores. Many of these have newsletters that carry reviews and list upcoming author appearances. Ask if you can include one of your postcards in their mailing or make use of the mailing list to send the cards out yourself. Don't overlook the public library circuit. Libraries across the country have budgets, buy books and sponsor readings. The Queens New York library system has the largest book buying budget in the country, spending over $4 million dollars annually. One final thought: Do your homework and verify your contact list. If you are going to do any type of mailing, be certain to personalize it. reviewers change frequently and there is nothing worse than sending a mystery to a reviewer specializing in history or addressing a letter to a writer who has changes newspapers. Mailings addressed to "to whom It may concern" usually wind up in the wastebasket.. when you do receive a review, a mention by a feature writer, or make any kind of promotional appearance, remember to send a thank you note to the writer or producer. Successful publicity and promotion are the result of careful planning and opportunities seized. Be flexible and think creatively.

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