There are many benefits you can have by hiring a book publicist. But before you find one, you need to have a clear strategy of how you can use this publicity to improve your book sales. In other words, you need to have larger goals for getting a book publicist because publicity cannot be an end in itself. This post will discuss what you should know about book publicists.
Understanding a book publicist
A book publicist can be considered to be a public relations professional who works as a freelancer, as part of an agency, or at a major publishing house. Many book publicists tend to use their relationships and connections to assist you publicize your book, especially publicity that can be challenging for you to do yourself.
A book publicist is also important when it comes to helping you to publicize your book. This is because you may have a lot of things to handle during the publication of the book. For the book launch, you have to handle your social media, email list, promote your book on various platforms, contact bloggers and media outlets, and create press releases.
This is why it can help to hire a book publicist to handle some of this public relations work. But a book publicist is not there to guide you who your readers should be or even how to reach out to these readers. You may have already known this when you decided to publish your book.
Some book publicists may not work with self-published writers or assist them promote self-published books. Besides, avoid hiring a book publicist until you have a book marketing plan in place. It’s a good idea to seek a book publicist when you already know what you desire them to do on your behalf.
In the past, a book publicist usually organized public events and book signings. Today, book publicity focuses on digital marketing and media. Therefore, book promotion mostly tries to reach out to email lists, social media, and digital media outlets.
Book publicists can assist you coordinate book tours as well as get information to booksellers to help their purchasing options. But they usually spend a lot of time doing media placement. They assist you get media coverage in online and print publications, local radio, TV interviews, and podcast interviews.
These promotional efforts can be helpful and effective for writers with an established audience. However, if you don’t have an established audience, then you should try to do it slowly. A book publicist cannot assist you to magically increase your following. They can only help you to develop interest and then get into some of the larger events.
How you can work with a publicist
Public relations firms usually work on several projects at the same time, so they can have a lot of things in their hands. Therefore, you need to be organized as a writer to make sure that you get a good return on your investment.
The best way is to get a plan in writing. This means you have to know the objectives of your book publicist and how they intend to approach them. You need to find out the publications they are going to pitch, the number of outlets they want to send the press release to, and the contacts they want to approach first.
A good book publicist also needs to provide weekly updates. They should tell you the people they contact, the readers who have responded, and the results they received. You can also contact your book publicist if they fail to send you updates.
When you get a book publicist, they may tell you everything they want from you. Some of the things they need include a headshot, a book cover image, a book description, and an author bio. You can also give them other materials, such as a video trailer.
You must give your book publicist all the marketing materials in your possession so that they can figure out what they want to work with. Remember that you should lock all these marketing materials and be ready to send them before a book publicist begins promoting your book.
You can also begin marketing pre-sales of the book to have some media coverage before launching your book. Also, make sure that the book publicist has all the materials a few weeks before the publishing of your book.
It’s worth noting that you should not leave everything to the book publicist. Instead, you need to play your part to get prepared. You can choose to practice discussing your book with other people.
If you want to use the book just to promote your business, then you should prepare to update your website as well as other contact information. Choose the high points of the argument and some interesting scenes from your book. At this stage, you don’t have to write anything, though you should prepare for various questions that potential readers may ask you. You should also listen to podcasts and how to respond to some questions.
If you find a public relations firm before you begin writing your book, then they can help you with the positioning. In such cases, they can also assist you with the entire strategy. However, if you can’t do this and you approach them once you complete writing the book, then they may not assist you develop the entire marketing strategy.
The good thing is the book publicists can have a list of media contacts that they can utilize to help your book get media coverage. However, you must tell them your needs and wants.
Book publicity firms may not have a game plan for you. This is because it’s your responsibility to give them a clear vision for your book. In other words, you need to direct your book publicist in a direction you intend to take, and they will try to implement it. A book publicist can help you to get the opportunities and connections you ask for. This is what you can expect from any reputable book publicist.
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