What to Say to Edtors to Get Free Publicity

I thought I’d share a pitch I wrote to my local newspapers in April for Earth Day. It illustrates how we authors need to figure out how to make a query work for their particular title—in whatever news cycle might apply to its theme, characters, settings, or whatever.  

This query matches my poetry book (with Magdalena Ball) called Sublime Planet with Earth Day, but you might adapt yours to other holidays or current events. I also include a few basic dos and don’ts at the end of the query letter. And, if you are a blogger or have a radio show or about anything else that would benefit from a current topic like this, feel free to contact me at hojonews@aol.com. I mean, have at it! (-: Magdalena and I have poetry chapbooks that celebrate most of the major holidays in any given year.  Here it is: 

Hi, I’m an award-winning author who knows how hard it is to find good stories for Earth Day or to fit with current news about global warming which we both know is always a topic of interest.

Earth Day is sneaking up on us but I have an idea for you that will help the environmentalists in your audience celebrate. They’ll love the accessible poems about the fragility of our cosmos by my Aussie poetry partner Magdalena Ball and I. We love to share my poems about XXX and XXX. (In fact, I welcome reprints of any of my poems from any of my award-winning poetry books!) 

Further there is a feature story in how we came to be partners living in separate hemispheres without having ever met. I can schedule interviews just about any time that works for you.

Please let my Sublime Planet poetry book help you with a feature story this month—one probably unlike one you have ever published.

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Here are the tips I promised you readers of this SharingwithWriters blog:

Notice that I didn’t bother giving the editor my name. Unless your name is already known by the contact or you are as famous as J. K. Rowling, it isn’t necessary and just keeps you from the interesting stuff that will help them choose your idea for their book page, blog post, entertainment section, radio show or whatever it is that they do.

I also didn’t mention the title in the first sentence. The only time that should come up front is if it is very catchy or outrageous.

Notice how precise the idea is. Query letters need to be clear about the benefits for the media or editor (they need material for current events and holidays). Editors are perfectly capable of moving from the particular to the general or adapting one detailed idea to another of their needs.

By the way, sending media releases—even releases that get ignored--benefits you because you can contact the same editor for the next holiday or current event. Soon they will have come to expect ideas from you that are well considered for their needs. I included another script by well-known publicist Raleigh Pinsky that you can use as a template in my Appendix of my The Frugal Book Promoter. Well-known publicist Raleigh Pinksky gave me permission to reprint it and it will give you even more detail for formulating pitches—in this case telephone pitches—that work.

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 Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of This Is the Place; Harkening: A Collection of Stories Remembered; Tracings, a chapbook of poetry; and how to books for writers including the award-winning second edition of, The Frugal Book Promoter: How to get nearly free publicity on your own or by partnering with your publisher; The multi award-winning second edition of The Frugal Editor; and Great Little Last Minute Editing Tips for Writers . The Great First Impression Book Proposal is her newest booklet for writers. She has three FRUGAL books for retailers including A Retailer’s Guide to Frugal In-Store Promotions: How To Increase Profits and Spit in the Eyes of Economic Downturns with Thrifty Events and Sales Techniques. Some of her other blogs are TheNewBookReview.blogspot.com, a blog where authors can recycle their favorite reviews. She also blogs at all things editing, grammar, formatting and more at The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor .

Foreign Rights Now Chechnya Is in the News

As many of you who subscribe to my SharingwithWriters newsletter know, I honor the wisdom of Ann Landers with a regular column called "Q&A a la Ann Landers" where by subscribers ask and I answer or find an answer.  Last issue featured this question from a longtime subscriber. I thought visitors to this blog would be especially interested in his question because Chechnya is so in the news these days and because he has had so many spectacular successes using my The Frugal Book Promoter as his guide for marketing and the resources in it for his many awards. So, please meet Robert W. Schaefer.

Question:

 

So, using the metrics for success I found in The Frugal Book Promoter (http://budurl.com/FrugalBkPromo), by May I had exceeded the "inches" guideline for promotion that you recommend.

 

The identification of the Boston Bombers as ethnic Chechens resulted in a solid week of national media interviews (radio and print)--and perhaps some of my best work to date--getting asked by CNN to contribute a piece for Fareed Zakaria.

http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/2013/04/22/the-truth-about-the-chechen-threat/

Also, because of my marketing success (based on your methods), I've also been asked by the Executive Producer of NBC's 2014 Olympic Coverage to be their consultant.

I'd been beating up my publisher for a while to get the book published in a few other languages. And although he personally believed it was a good idea, he was unsuccessful in convincing the corporate headquarters that it could make money.

However, I was able to use my recent media flurry to convince them that the book MUST be published in a some different languages before the Sochi Olympics and that, if they weren't going to do it, then they need to sell the foreign rights back to me so I could do it myself. He was able to convince corporate to do that - and so I'm able to buy my foreign rights back for just a few hundred dollars.

 

So now, I can either self-publish in a few languages (and pay for interpretation myself) or I can try to get a foreign publisher (which I'll be able to broker my own deal with instead of taking whatever my original publisher left for me) and let them do the work.

 

I'm in the research phase now and thought I should start with you first. After all, if I had started with you when I was writing the book, it would have saved me a lot of time, effort and frustration.

  

Answer:

Oops.  Robert!  There is no easy way to do this!

And because I'm steaming toward Korea and will be there in about 20 minutes, I'm going to give you a short answer now.

There are excellent foreign rights venues in Europe--Frankfurt and London being two of the best. Here's the catch. There are people who will take your book to "display" and "sell" your rights for you. Don't believe it!

 

There is a section in The Frugal Book Promoter on displaying at bookstores and tradeshows. Use your index to try to find them. Their service is not exactly a scam but it's highly unlikely to produce any results UNLESS YOU GO ALONG WITH YOUR BOOK, STAND IN THE BOOTH, WORK THE SHOW AND SELL YOUR OWN DAMN BOOK. And yes, I am yelling. I get really tired of seeing authors throw their $400 to $600 down the drain.

 

If you can go, however, you might get results with these same services. But even then, you have to do your homework first. Check to see who publishes in Russia, Chechnya, etc. you already have a handle on your European markets so start there. Then arrange to meet prospects in Frankfurt, etc.  And work the floor, too!  Have your media kit and cards and copies of your media release/query with you.

Yes, having someone translate for you is expensive. And it's hard to tell if you'd make that much money back. Another problem my husband had with his What Foreigners Need To Know About America From A To Z published in China (traditional publisher) and now in English. We had no idea about the accuracy of the translation--even after he had Chinese friends read it to see what they thought. It's highly unlikely that his friends would see the discrepancies he would. You know, things the Chinese publishers may have left out for political reasons, as an example. 

 

So, you have a bit of a row to hoe. But like everything, to be successful it's probably going to be up to you. Would that we could count on good luck to just come and sit in our laps. (-:

 

 Robert's book is very current as you can see from his successes above. Here is more information on it:

"A tour de force in breadth and depth" - Kirkus Reviews(Starred Review) "Enormously helpful" - The New York Times "A remarkable book" - The Economist Named to Kirkus Reviews "Best of 2011" Named to the "Top 150 Books on Terrorism and Counterterrorism" 2011 USA Book News "Best Book Award" for Current Events 2012 Military Writers Society of America Gold Medal (History) 2012 Independent Publishers Bronze Medal (Foreign Affairs) Read full reviews and get more information on Amazon.com

So you can see how a Chechnya tie-in has helped propel Schaefer's book to stardom. Are you watching the news to see how what's in the news can work for your book--whether it's nonfiction or fiction? (Yes! This technique can work for fiction, too. You may have to reread your own book for possible tie-ins, but it can be done!)

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Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of This Is the Place; Harkening: A Collection of Stories Remembered; Tracings, a chapbook of poetry; and how to books for writers including the award-winning second edition of, The Frugal Book Promoter: How to get nearly free publicity on your own or by partnering with your publisher; The Frugal Editor: Put Your Best Book Forward to Avoid Humiliation and Ensure Success; and Great Little Last Minute Editing Tips for Writers . The Great First Impression Book Proposal is her newest booklet for writers. She has three FRUGAL books for retailers including A Retailer’s Guide to Frugal In-Store Promotions: How To Increase Profits and Spit in the Eyes of Economic Downturns with Thrifty Events and Sales Techniques. Some of her other blogs are TheNewBookReview.blogspot.com, a blog where authors can recycle their favorite reviews. She also blogs at all things editing, grammar, formatting and more at The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor . If your followers at Twitter would benefit from this blog post, please use the little Green widget to let them know about this blog:

On Marketing Your Book and Homecoming Queens

I'm including this first person essay in my blog because when I teach marketing classes to authors at UCLA, my students often have trouble wrapping their minds around exactly what the first-person essay that should be included in their media kits is. And  that difficulty is exacerbated when I tell them that it helps if the essay is associated with issues that are currently in the news. This one is related to current events at the most basic level--that is, it is a commentary on a news/feature story in a respected newspaper. But the issues are current, too. I hope it helps SharinwithWriters readers.  I've also included the author credit, because that is a vital part of marketing media

 

 

Marketing, Continuing Education, and Homecoming Queens

By Carolyn Howard-Johnson

I admit it. A feature story  in the New York Times Digest on...ahem...beauty queens struck a chord.  On several levels.

The article by Tara Parker-Pope told the story of Heidi Hansen, a forty-two year old mother of teens who has gone back to school to study nursing. And if that weren’t nontraditional enough, she’s running for homecoming  queen. Gasp!

Even  more amazing she’s marketing her candidacy with the same vigor of her young competitors and she’s doing  it without a shred of apology for her untraditional paths or (apparently) without an utterance of the word “shameless” connected with her marketing campaign (which I’ve always contended has a subtext that there is something to be ashamed of).

So, I should back up and tell you I have an agenda. I like to defend my own circuitous path to a degree from the University of Southern California (USC). I was graduated at the ripe old age of thirty-three with two young children, one of whom I once hauled to class with me and let him pretend to catch fish in the fountain outside my class window where I could keep an eye on him. By the time I received that degree on heavy, lineny paper, I had taken at least one class every semester (including summers) since I started seventeen years before. I always considered this approach to education a gigantic plus. One class at a time with plenty of time to focus on required (and optional!) study and research. I figured I was getting more from my education and would retain it longer.

That explains my personal interest in the late-bloomer aspect of this NY Times story. But I find Hansen’s proclivity for marketing just as satisfying. Not only did she decide to run for homecoming  queen because “…it’s a continuing process of being engaged in the world around me, and right now a big part of my world is my life on campus,” but she isn’t dodging the issue of being, shall we say, a bit older than the other candidates even though the photograph in the Times looks to me as if she could easily pass. No. Her campaign slogan to attract votes is, “I’m not your mother, but I could be.”

Now, you should know that I began a lifelong interest in public relations very early when I worked in New York as a publicist and when I worked in several jobs as a journalist and writer. But it didn’t really congeal until my last semester at USC when I studied public relations under the head of the PR department, a former President of Western Airlines who believed that the way to find the best and brightest students for his department was to teach entry level classes and teach them as if he were teaching seasoned pros. And my awareness of the importance of marketing in all our lives only became more intense when I became a published novelist, poet, and author of how-to books on—you guessed it—marketing!

So you can imagine how I rooted for Ms. Hansen when I read that she enlisted the help of every demographic she had access to (other than her children who seem to be. . . well, oblivious to their mother’s schmaltziness). She found fellow students (not necessarily students in her age range) to contribute their skills—one writing a musical campaign ditty, another for producing a video. I call this cross-promotion in my Frugal Book Promoter, a how-to book on marketing for writers. Mr. Hansen's videographer and musician friends are both getting their share of marketing exposure by being part of her campaign. I mean, a mention in the New York Times? I sure hope these students use that information (and the example set by Ms. Hansen) in their resumes as they learn more and more that nontraditional paths and tried-and-true marketing work  for everyone.

Regardless of their age.

 

Carolyn Howard-Johnson is a senior (not in the collegiate sense) who has always used her marketing skills in her professional life and found they gave her a special boost when she took on a new award-winning career in publishing at the age most  are considering retirement. Learn more about her at http://howtodoitfrugally.com.

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Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of This Is the Place; Harkening: A Collection of Stories Remembered; Tracings, a chapbook of poetry; and how to books for writers including the award-winning second edition of, The Frugal Book Promoter: How to get nearly free publicity on your own or by partnering with your publisher; The Frugal Editor: Put Your Best Book Forward to Avoid Humiliation and Ensure Success; and Great Little Last Minute Editing Tips for Writers . The Great First Impression Book Proposal is her newest booklet for writers. She has three FRUGAL books for retailers including A Retailer’s Guide to Frugal In-Store Promotions: How To Increase Profits and Spit in the Eyes of Economic Downturns with Thrifty Events and Sales Techniques. Some of her other blogs are TheNewBookReview.blogspot.com, a blog where authors can recycle their favorite reviews. She also blogs at all things editing, grammar, formatting and more at The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor . If your followers at Twitter would benefit from this blog post, please use the little Green widget to let them know about this blog:

KFC Slam Dunks an Old Marketing Technique Writers Can Use

 Holy moly. Talk about a smart marketing move!

In The Frugal Book Promoter (www.budurl.com/FrugalBkPromo), I advocated watching current events and hooking them to anything in one’s book that might relate to one of them. Kentucky Fried Chicken just showed us how to do that! Big time!

They paid attention to one of Wade Dwyane’s tweets asking if anyone was hiring after the NBA lockout. Dwyane used to work for KFC, so they offered him his old job back. If he’d lead a team filling KFC buckets fast (instead of NBA baskets), they’d donate $250,000 to charity. Geesh! That is cheap advertising when they figure how much publicity they’ll get with this master stroke of publicity-getting! Here is the link to read more: http://aol.sportingnews.com/nba/story/2011-07-11/kfc-offers-dwyane-wade-a-job-during-lockout?icid=main%7Chtmlws-main-n%7Cdl10%7Csec1_lnk3%7C218968 .

So you don’t have $250,000 to do something similar? You don’t need to. You just need to keep your marketing bonnet on so that when the opportunity arises, you will be there. Maybe it will cost you $5. Maybe it will be free. But when it comes, you don’t want to miss it!

Writers who would like more tips like this may want to subscribe to my Sharing with Writers newsletter. Just  send a SUBSCRIBE message to HoJoNews@aol.com and I'll do it for you! (-: Or subscribe to this blog. Actually do both so you don't miss even one tip on book promotion, craft, or publishing news.

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Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of This Is the Place; Harkening: A Collection of Stories Remembered; Tracings, a chapbook of poetry; and how to books for writers including, The Frugal Book Promoter: How To Do What Your Publisher Won't; The Frugal Editor: Put Your Best Book Forward to Avoid Humiliation and Ensure Success; and Great Little Last Minute Editing Tips for Writers . The Great First Impression Book Proposal is her newest booklet for writers. She has three FRUGAL books for retailers including A Retailer’s Guide to Frugal In-Store Promotions: How To Increase Profits and Spit in the Eyes of Economic Downturns with Thrifty Events and Sales Techniques. Some of her other blogs are TheNewBookReview.blogspot.com, a blog where authors can recycle their favorite reviews. She also blogs at all things editing, grammar, formatting and more at The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor . If your followers at Twitter would benefit from this blog post, please use the little Green widget to let them know about this blog: