How Publicity Helps Writing Careers: A Case Study

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At some point, almost every writer asks: How will publicity help my career?

The truth is, like with so many other writer’s life issues, there is no single answer. But there are some general scenarios that can help guide our thinking, and this past month I had the privilege of seeing an author I’ve helped live out one of the success stories we all can hope for.

In early January Joe Burgo, whose self-published book Why Do I Do That? Psychological Defense Mechanisms and the Hidden Ways the Shape Our Lives I publicized, landed an impressive publishing deal from Touchstone for his next book, The Narcissist You Know.

Before getting to the story of the role publicity played, I have to gush about how superbly top-notch Joe’s writing and expertise are. Why Do I Do That is a page turner that sheds light into something we should all be aware of: the little lies we tell ourselves to hide from pain. Joe – who’s a practicing, Ph.D. psychotherapist – works round the clock, not only writing books and helping clients, but also blogging at his personal site, AfterPsychotherapy.com, writing articles for The Atlantic and blog posts for Psychology Today.

(The last two are are gigs that came from our work together.)

Joe’s story of catapulting from self-published to “featured deal” on Publisher’s Lunch Deluxe – at auction no less — is exactly the type of scenario

What it Takes to Get on NPR

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Recently I heard a snippet of Terry Gross’Fresh Air interview with Eat, Pray, Loveauthor Elizabeth Gilbert. Gilbert has a new book out and was on the show to talk about it.

A bit earlier in the same week, an author client had asked if I’d pitched her to NPR shows, including Fresh Air. My answer was, “Yes, of course.” It always is, because I always pitch the authors I represent to NPR — and to all the other dream-caliber, A-list outlets. But does that mean I expect interviews to pan out there for them?

Sadly, no. Not at all.

It’s an uncomfortable dilemma. Authors want to know their publicist is reaching out to A-list, dream outlets like Fresh Air, The New York Times, Oprah and The Today Show. Isn’t that one reason they’ve hired a publicist in the first place? And it wouldn’t make sense to simply leave those outlets off the list of places I reach out to even though the chances for the overwhelming majority of authors are virtually zero. For one thing, there’s the crucial dream factor for authors. As I’ve said before, I’m all for dreaming big! I also feel that as a matter of principle those outlets should continue hearing from all authors who’d like a fighting chance at recognition. They should be made aware again and again of these authors’ utterly staggering numbers, the variety of stories they’re writing about, their talent, their accomplishments.

But people like Terry Gross aren’t just looking for a good read to talk about: they’re looking for news. News, by definition, is something that’s not only new and timely, but is some combination of the following:

Preventing the Bad PR Hangover

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Over the past few months I’ve spoken to two authors who’d signed with the same, well-reputed PR firm for a book launch campaign, paid a considerable amount of money and then…nothing. Barely a review or author interview to show for the firm’s initial promises and excitement.

(For the record, this was not one of the wonderful PR firms plugged into the Writer Unboxed community.)

Each of them told me – with quite a bit of emotion – about their disturbing experience: a positive, promising initial meeting followed by months of waiting for potential press coverage that never panned out, then finally, a barrage of lame excuses including, “It’s because of your book.”

One of these authors became my client, and before we started work I asked to see the list of media outlets said firm had contacted about his middle grade fantasy novel. To my surprise, the list contained no fewer than 4,000 entries, which is far too many and implies that proper targeting hadn’t been done. Case in point: the list included publications such as General Dentistry and American Cowboy.

The second author was unable to obtain a copy of her press list at all, having been told it was “proprietary.”

Needless to say, this makes my blood boil. It’s deeply unfair to the authors who placed their trust in this firm, it’s disrespectful of authors in general – taking advantage of their earnest hope and vulnerability – and it’s an insult

Simple Promo Tip: Call Your Book By its Name

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It’s a funny thing, being both the creator of such an intimate and personal product as a book and the one who has to do most of its peddling. This contradiction — asking authors to throw what’s often deeply private smack into the public realm for commercial purposes — can have strange effects on behavior, such as making us go suddenly tongue-tied when we actually have to use that one-line description we’ve practiced ad nauseum. (Sound familiar?)

And that’s just one example. At two recent events – the AWP conference in March and Grub Street’s Muse & the Marketplace conference this past weekend, I was reminded of another that’s been a bit of a pet peeve of mine, since it’s a big publicity faux pas: It can be summed up with these two simple words. “My book.”

On panel after panel, I heard authors talking about this amorphous…thing…they referred to as “my book.”

Each time, I cringed. “Doesn’t it have a name?” I wondered, “A title? Something to give it an identity beyond: ‘a very personal endeavor I’ve slaved over for years that’s become inseparable my very existence?’”

Which leads me to this quick, ridiculously simple promo tip for every writer out there (bonus: using it is cost-free!):

Always refer to your book by its title.

Or by an abbreviation of the title if it’s long. Especially when

Why Your Site Needs a News Page

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ecently I browsed over to the website of one of my dear author friends, curious to see what sort of press she’d been doing. To my surprise, the site had a page for her bio, one for her books and another giving information about her freelance work, but absolutely nothing showing where she’d been quoted by or mentioned in the media.

When I asked her about this, her answer was, “Should it?”

Yikes!

Because my friend had diligently hired a publicist to help build her media platform, I found it baffling that not only was there no place for her to showcase all the wonderful results of this investment, but also, that her publicist had not suggested that she create one.

A website News page is the pillar of your media platform. The glue that holds it together. Whether it contains links to interviews you’ve done on the Today Show or to guest posts you’ve written for small-ish blogs (which by the way, are all referred to in the lingo as “press clips,”) it is a vital piece of information for two reasons:

First, it’s a marketing piece. By showing that you’ve been actively out and about talking to the media — and that the media is interested in what you have to say — it helps compel readers to buy your book(s), talk about you, tweet about you or otherwise help spread the word.

Second, and perhaps most importantly, reporters considering whether to call

Why Your Publicist Should Think Like a Novelist

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It probably happens each time you sit down to write: You have a plan, an idea of where you want your story to go. But as soon as the words start to flow, your idea changes slightly or another one pops into your mind. Since you’ll be obsessed with it unless you at least explore it, your plan has to change.

This is a lot like the process good publicists go through when planning and leading a campaign. That’s because fundamentally, PR is a creative story-telling exercise. Think about it: a publicist’s job is to find ways to tell the media and readers about your book.

The first step is crafting a brief but grabbing story about it. But this writing project is just the beginning of the creative journey involved in figuring out who among the gazillions of reporters and readers out there might want to hear this story, which particular aspects of it some might be more interested in than others, and how to re-tell the story in various ways depending on this.

Most often, ways to retell and re-frame a story come to mind only after a campaign has begun, once real reporters and real people have become engaged in live conversations about your book. And with each new conversation, new ideas spring up about other people or news outlets to contact beyond the initial list built for this purpose. For yes, there really, truly are gazillions.

Soon this creative process takes on a life of its own. Just like with