When you should hire an outside publicist
Susan Schwartzman on Mar 11 2009 | Filed under: Business, REAL WORLD
SCENARIO ONE:
Your book has been out for months and you have not received any media coverage. You originally thought about hiring an outside publicist but really didn’t want to spend the money since your publisher was handling the review mailing and other media coverage.
Three months later, you realize your publisher has moved on to another book. You received little or no media coverage. You make frenzied calls in a panic to several publicists who tell you it’s too late to do anything for your book.
SCENARIO TWO:
You find a publicist you like and want to hire her—three weeks before pub date. Your publicist is doing everything she can to get media coverage, but your hometown magazine has scheduled its book reviews months ago. You learn, unhappily, that the magazine would have definitely reviewed your book had they received an advance reading copy three or more months ago. Although your publicist has managed to place a profile story in your hometown newspaper, and has booked several radio interviews, you realize, too late, that had you hired an independent publicist six months prior to your book’s pub date, you would have received a lot more media coverage for your book.
WHEN TO HIRE A PUBLICIST AND WHY
Unfortunately, many authors contact me months after their book’s pub date. Others contact me just a few weeks before their book comes out. Even sadder is when an author contacts me well in advance—six months or more before their book’s pub date—and then decides after speaking with their publisher not to hire me until after their publisher’s campaign is over—when it’s too late to get any media coverage.
The media requires that their reviews and author interviews (whether the medium is newspaper, magazine, TV, radio or website) tie in with the book’s pub date. The media is being pitched hundreds of books on a daily basis and will rarely decide to give coverage to a book that has already been out on the shelves for months.
The bookstore shelf-life of a book these days is approximately three months. If your book has not received media coverage within the first three months of its pub date, chances are booksellers will return your book if it hasn’t sold enough copies and will be out-of-stock should you hire a publicist four or five months after pub date. You don’t want to spend money for media coverage for books that are no longer available in bookstores. Even though your book may still be available on Amazon, unless it is also available in bookstores you are losing substantial sales if you hire a publicist three months after your book’s pub date.
What’s more, if you decide to hire a publicist at the last minute you will discover that most publicists’ schedules are full because they schedule their calendars six months in advance of a book’s pub date. In March, I am already launching campaigns for June and July books.
Why? Because the national monthly magazines have a three to four month lead time (a few have as much as a six-month lead time) and will only review books whose pub dates tie-in with their magazine’s on-sale date.
That means Vanity Fair, The Atlantic Monthly, Crime Spree Magazine, O, Redbook, Esquire, Marie Claire and other similar publications, have already selected in March the books they will be reviewing in their June issues.
National newspapers such as The New York Times Book Review also assign books for review coverage months in advance. You will occasionally read a review in The New York Times Books Review for a book that has been out for a month or more, but that is the exception, not the rule.
National morning shows and magazine shows also book author interviews months in advance and want to see advance reading copies three months prior to pub date.
Bookstore event planners also have a three-month lead time for their author events. On occasion, I have been successful setting up booksignings weeks in advance, but that usually happens if there is a cancellation, and again, it is the exception, not the rule.
Local TV and radio have more forgiving schedules and often book several weeks in advance, some a week before a scheduled interview, but even most radio and local TV shows need at least a three-week lead time to schedule author interviews.
THE GOOD NEWS:
I have been successful in booking great tours with one month’s lead time. But often, when an author contacts me a month before his or her book’s pub date, my schedule is already full. Keep in mind when hiring an independent publicist that most publicity capaigns are scheduled six months in advance. And even should a publicist decide to take you on at the last minute, she cannot possibly read your book and write press materials in one day, or even two days. Nor can she drop her other campaigns to make room for your campaign, so it’s quite a hectic juggling act if a publicist decides to take on your book a week or two before your book’s pub date. You can’t expect overnight miracles.
POINTS TO REMEMBER:
• An effective campaign takes weeks of prep work and months of labor intensive work. A frenzied campaign scheduled at the last minute is neither in your nor your publicist’s best interests.
• Hire an independent publicist six months or more prior to your book’s pub date.
• Make sure you give your publicist ample time to schedule your campaign on her calendar. Even if you are not interested in national magazine coverage, your publicist will be launching campaigns for many books three to six months ahead of the current month and may not have room for your campaign at the last minute.
• Make sure that you hire a publicist well in advance so she will have ample time to read your book and write press materials.
When you’ve spent so much time and effort writing your novel, you want to make sure you also give your book its best possible chance of receiving the most media coverage possible. Reviewers often give negative reviews to books they feel were written in haste. Likewise, a publicity campaign launched at the last minute will not generate the best possible media coverage your book deserves.
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Susan,
I’ve been looking forward to this continuation of your series. Thanks for sharing.
Are there some types of books that don’t lend themselves to the efforts of a publicist? Have you ever encountered a book that you declined to represent, perhaps because you didn’t feel comfortable doing so? And do publicists generally provide a spectrum of services, allowing authors to choose greater or lesser publicist involvement with pricing accordingly? Probably silly questions, but I’ll bet others have them as well.
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I second that last question. Thanks for an informative post! It’s nice to have some things spelled out.
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Practical and valuable advice. Thanks for a great post, Susan.
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Hi Richard,
None of your questions are silly. They are actually quite good!
Some books are more difficult than others to promote. Fiction is the most difficult to promote because of the limited amount of media venues. But I enjoy reading fiction and enjoy promoting a great book.
And yes, I do decline books that I don’t feel comfortable promoting.
The Good News for novelists is this: More and more novels are getting great coverage through Internet media (see some of my previous posts). With the demise of newspapers such as the Seattle Post-Intelligencer (due to fold next week), and book review sections eliminated in newspapers such as The Washington Post Book World, which has been incorporated into The Washington Post’s Style Section, a good and proactive publicist has to look for new ways to promote novels.
I always encourage authors to do media tours. More on that in a future column.
Genre fiction such as Romance and Science Fiction is more difficult to promote. And I often decline to represent self-published books because they are competing against the hundreds of books published by the traditional houses that the media is more inclined to review.
I’ve seen some of the proposals and contracts of the bigger PR firms when I was the Manager of Macmillan’s PR department, and many firms fees begin at a much higher price for much more comprehensive campaigns. So you may be able to choose a National TV campaign over a 5-city tour, but these firms have a minimum fee that is much greater than mine and generally higher than boutique firms in general.
My firm does allow authors to pick and choose what options they want. My proposals include individual fees for each option. And I strategize campaigns to meet the budgets of my authors–and to maximize media coverage for individual budgets.
I hope this helps!
Susan
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“The bookstore shelf-life of a book these days is approximately three months. If your book has not received media coverage within the first three months of its pub date, chances are booksellers will return your book if it hasn’t sold enough copies and will be out-of-stock should you hire a publicist four or five months after pub date.”
This more than anything means that authors need to hustle, hustle, hustle right out of the gate.
Thanks, Susan, for demystifying a process that leaves most authors bewildered. Keep ‘em coming!
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As we flounder about in these rough, economic waters where even the large publishing houses are feeling the financial crunch, it’s important for authors to be proactive in publicizing their works. But where to turn? What must be considered? What to even look for in a PR company?
Thank you for answering these questions, Susan! Very helpful advice!
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I’m sorry if it sounds stupid and/or obvious, but does an author need authorization from the publishing company to hire an outside publisher?
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Alexander,
LOL. I’m smiling because no, you don’t need your publisher’s permission to spend money to hire your own publicist!
Most in-house publicists welcome the outside help. Some don’t. To avoid the possibility that your in-house publicist will do less work on your campaign, it’s a good idea to say your outside publicist will be handling local publicity that your inhouse publicist will not be handling. Or that she will be complementing your publisher’s efforts.
I send weekly updates to in-house publicsts which include all the media I have obtained for that week. And I do need the publisher to send me galleys and finished books for mailings, so at some point both the author and the publicist need to alert the in-house publicist.
The best time to do so varies, but usually you want to alert your in-house publicist as soon as possible so they include in the print-run for advance reading copies the amount your publicist will need.
Susan
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