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Do You Know What a Book Publicist Does?: A Guide for Creating Your Own Campaigns
Claire McKinney, author
Are you an author? Is your book about to be published? Are you wondering how to promote your book?
Over the years, Claire McKinney has found that the lack of information on how book promotion works has left most authors in the dark, without a clear idea of how they can contribute to their own campaigns. In her book, she opens a window into the world of media relations and publicity so that authors will learn:
How to promote your book to the media
How to create your own media contact list
How to write press materials and how to use them
How to create a timeline and plan a campaign on your own
How to pitch, who to pitch, and when
How to talk to your publisher about publicity
Reviews
McKinney, a veteran book publicist, has produced a clear, basic road map to publicizing a book. McKinney’s advice illustrates that the same rules (mostly) apply regardless of whether an author has been signed by a major house or is self-published, or whether an author specializes in fact or fiction. Chief among these rules is that writers need to actively promote themselves, in all and any ways that they can, and that they must begin planning their publicity early on. The book does well at covering the basics—such as defining the difference between publicity and marketing or explaining what a distribution agreement is—and in explaining step-by-step how to track contacts. It spends too much time dwelling on how the industry operated 20 years ago—emphasizing the rapid pace of change could have been better accomplished by comparing publishing today to five years ago—and it occasionally lapses in providing definitions (search engine optimization, an important topic in maximizing exposure, gets a single paragraph). However, the case studies of the author’s clients are helpful, and the book is a solid beginners’ guide to an ever-faster-paced industry. (BookLife)
