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About Sharon Bially

Sharon Bially (@SharonBially) is the founder and president of BookSavvy PR, a public relations firm devoted to authors and books. Author of the novel Veronica’s Nap, she’s a member of the Director's Circle at Grub Street, Inc., the nation’s largest independent writing center, and writes occasionally for the Grub Street Daily.

Recent Posts by this author:

  • Mythbuster: Why Contacts Won’t Bring Your Book Media Coverage
  • The Joy of Telling Other People’s Stories
  • Simple Promo Tip: Call Your Book By its Name
  • Beware: The Shady Side of New Publishing Opportunities
  • What Your Writer’s Resume Says About Your Chances for Recognition
  • What You Pay for When You Hire a PR Firm
  • To Promote or Not To Promote: An Existential Question
  • The False Divide Between Book Promo and Author Promo
  • A ‘Logic Model’ for Author Success
  • Guest Articles: The New “It” Media Opportunity
  • A Love Letter to Authors
  • What it Takes to Get on NPR

    • Mythbuster: Why Contacts Won’t Bring Your Book Media Coverage

    By

    cloud of words or tags related to myth and reality on a digital tablet
    cloud of words or tags related to myth and reality on a digital tablet

    If you’re thinking of hiring a publicist, one of the first questions you’re likely to ask is:

    “Do you have good contacts?”

    Authors ask me this every day. While it would be easy for me to say, “Of course!” (and to add with a glint in my eye, “if you just sign on this dotted line,you’ll see…”) it would be misleading.  Not because I don’t have contacts.  Rather, because the very notion that contacts will lead to media placements is a great big myth it’s time to dispel.

    Think about it.  Our press corps is immense. Far beyond book reviewers, there are bloggers and producers and editors and staff writers covering every topic under the sun from food and travel to fashion, psychology, money, health and gardening — even adhesives.  Seriously.  My Vocus media database boasts an archive of 1.6 million media contacts and growing.

    Like most PR pros, my work, too, spans a wide range of topics.  I’ve promoted everything from business books to crime novels and literary fiction.  While publicizing Alden Jones’ dazzling travel memoir The Blind Masseuse, I reached out to reporters covering travel and specific Latin American countries.  For Lisa Borders’ literary novel The Fifty First State set in southern New Jersey, I was in touch with — you’ve got it — the South Jersey press.  (Yes, there is such a thing.)  While working on Ashley Warner’s rape memoir The Year After I dug up names of reporters who focus on women’s health.  I also figured out who happened to be producing news about the college campus sexual assault stories that were making headlines at the time. The list goes on and on.

    Can anybody possibly know all these contacts?  Absolutely not. That’s what databases are for.  Besides, the media is notorious for high turnover.  A great contact who’s here today could very well be gone the next.

    Instead, what a good publicist knows is how to find the news angle in any given book or project.  Because the single most important factor in garnering coverage is the story itself.  Reporters, reviewers, bloggers, producers and news editors are all looking for specific types of news stories presented in fairly specific ways.  Mining those stories from each given book and each author’s personal history [Read more…]

    The Joy of Telling Other People’s Stories

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    How’s this for a story: For the past 18 months, Chris's ex has forbidden her to see their young daughter.  Not because Chris has harmed her daughter, violated any agreements or broken the law, but -- as Chris sees it -- because she recently completed her transition from male to female.  Chris is transgender. Since she began her transition 5 years ago, her entire family has shunned her.  She’s been disinvited to Christmas, to birthday celebrations and other activities.  Members of her … [Read more...]

    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. Some of us may find ourselves at a loss for words when we’re asked what our book is about, even if we’ve recited our elevator pitch one-line description a thousand times.  Others may … [Read more...]

    Beware: The Shady Side of New Publishing Opportunities

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    Once upon a time, there was vanity publishing. Remember?  Those were the days when self-publishing had a very bad rap. Not so much because the books’ quality was shaky (though that tended to be true), nor even because authors had to pay to have them published (though that was indeed frowned upon), but mainly because of the way the firms offering self-publishing services operated. These firms cut a very nice profit offering everything from proofing to interior and cover design and could … [Read more...]

    What Your Writer’s Resume Says About Your Chances for Recognition

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    Lately, a new mantra has caught on: "There’s no better time to be a writer." Not only has self-publishing helped open the doors to so many aspiring authors, but the online world has created more opportunities than ever before to build a platform, network and self-promote. From a schmoozing and promotion perspective, anything seems possible.  We can have conversations with Jodi Picoult on Twitter, send Facebook messages to Paulo Coehlo and mingle with top agents and editors right here on … [Read more...]

    What You Pay for When You Hire a PR Firm

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    Let’s say your book is coming out in several months, and you fall into the camp of those who want to put some time and resources into promoting it.  Knowing that that your publisher can’t commit to much more on the publicity side than mailing out galleys to a standard media list, you’ve decided to give it your all, to go ahead and hire an outside publicist. But as you research firms and see the 5-figure price tags for most campaigns, a lump forms in your throat.  Your advance was modest.  You … [Read more...]

    To Promote or Not To Promote: An Existential Question

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    It’s no secret that publishers do little these days to promote most books but that there’s an infinite number of steps authors can take to fill the void, from DIY to hiring an outside publicist. Nor is it a secret that even the most exhaustive efforts can potentially get you….almost nowhere in terms of sales. This may be why many authors opt not to do much promotion if any aside from what their publishers have planned (typically mailing out galleys and ARCs to reviewers) and to focus their … [Read more...]

    The False Divide Between Book Promo and Author Promo

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    Imagine this: After years of drafting, critiquing, revising, submitting and watching rejections pile up, you’ve finally landed a publishing deal and your book is coming out in several months. Over those years you’ve worked hard, too, to build a platform -- giving webinars on craft, writing articles that have run in places like the Huffington Post and contributing regularly to a popular blog  (maybe WU?) drawing thousands of readers from around the country. Yet, when you sit down for the … [Read more...]

    A ‘Logic Model’ for Author Success

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    “Managing our career.”  “Managing our expectations.”  “Managing our resources and time.”  All these “management” terms being applied to the writing life -- with good reason -- can make it sound like we might actually need an MBA to reach our goals as writers. In fact, in this age of the “writer as an entrepreneur” responsible for a growing share of the work required to not only create but also to sell a book, adding management skills to our repertoire of abilities is not at all a bad idea.  … [Read more...]

    Guest Articles: The New “It” Media Opportunity

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    Around the time blogs first started catching on, writer Julie Powell decided – just for the heck of it – to cook every recipe in Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking and chronicle the experience on her blog. We all know her story’s happy ending. Soon every writer was launching or joining a blog. So was every mom, every foodie, every fitness buff, bibliophile and investment guru.  For fun and fulfillment, but also, quite often, in the hopes of increasing discoverability. And we … [Read more...]

    A Love Letter to Authors

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    Dear Authors, I love you. Really. I know, you must be thinking the holiday season has gone to my head, pumping me with Hallmark joy and wrapping-paper cheer.   Or that I’m promiscuous -- a floozy who hops too easily from one love interest to the next: The job publicizing businesses, the job publicizing authors and books.  The kids, the family, the stolen time writing fiction here and there and the regular hook-ups with voice lessons, ballet and yoga classes.  When you look at it that … [Read more...]

    What it Takes to Get on NPR

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    Last week I heard a snippet of Terry Gross’ Fresh Air interview with Eat, Pray, Love author 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 … [Read more...]