As your book’s publication date approaches, it’s natural to turn to the pros involved in its promotion — your in-house publicist, the independent PR firm you’ve hired, or both — and ask:

“What can I do to help?”

After all, there is so much to do! And participating in the process can bring a sense of having an iota of control over this overwhelming and frankly, often quite frightening, journey.

In truth, there are a million things you could do. But while it might make you feel good to get hands-on with this project, many things might not actually help. Reaching out to every distant friend or connection who knows somebody at a magazine or TV station to ask if they can cover your book, to cite just one example, won’t help much at all, because those efforts are not well-targeted.

There are also a number of things you should be doing no matter what, such as staying on top of your social media (Instagram in particular is becoming the new it place for book promo) and organizing a launch event.  But while these are all good for your book’s visibility, they don’t directly help your publicists with their job.

So what does?

Lately my team and I have been noticing a trend that’s given us one clear ask of our authors. Fewer and fewer people in the media are actually reading the books we send them.  I know, it’s disappointing. But people in the media only have so many hours in the day, just like the rest of us. And more often than not, they have a whole stack of books for review on their desk. Getting to your book might feel urgent to our team and to you, but for the reporter, it’s just another multi-hundred page reading project they need to undertake. [Read more…]