What You Want For Christmas (Or Learn To Do It Yourself)

If your name isn't Stephen King or John Grisham or Nora Roberts you've probably already figured out that you need a publicist. That publicist can be you or someone else, but somebody's got to do it if you want your book to sell. Your publisher won't spend much, if any, time or money on your publicity (except in the above three cases, of course!)

I have a publicist friend who is also an author. He rightfully claims that he could never find a PR person who would do the same kind of job he does, including the time he spends on his own PR. How could anyone argue with that? We all are our own best publicists, even if we hire someone else.

But what if we don't have the time or expertise?

We can learn to do it ourselves. After all, we are writers. We should be able to grasp the knack of how to write a release.

But the best way to do it is to learn a lot about the marketing of books and then partner with expert publicists or people who can help you with specific projects like online book tour specialists. (I suggest resources for these specialists in The Frugal Book Promoter.) If you decide to do that here are some starter recommendations:

1. Join an organization for publishers and authors. That could be Small Publishers Association of North America or IBPA. Yes, even if you are not self-published or subsidy published. Attend their seminars—online and off. You'll learn more about promotion and your own industry than you can possibly imagine. Not only that, but you'll get over your natural reticence to promote yourself and your book. After all, if you don't believe enough in yourself and your book to do a good job of it, who will?

2. Subscribe to my favorite publicity guru's newsletter. Her name is Joan Stewart; her letter is called The Publicity Hound. She does a print version and a free web version. Contact her at jstewart@publicityhound.com or go to her site: publicityhound.com. Tell her I sent you.

3. Take a class in Public Relations. The only way I know how to avoid drastic mistakes in choosing a class is to patronize your local college.

But what if you decide to hire a publicist? You should know that even if you hire one, you’ll need to know some of this stuff to partner well with her.

Here is the one most important rule for finding a good one:

When you hire a publicist, you are buying her Rolodex; and I'm not talking about a list she gleaned from a directory. You could get that at the library from Barron's Directory for less than what it costs to hire a publicist for one month

What I'm talking about is a Rolodex of personal, working relationships with editors, hosts, etc. Those relationships must be—to a great extent—contacts who might have an interest in a project like yours. A book publicist who has had mostly experience with mystery writers, deals mostly with books stores that dedicate themselves to stories about crime, and has a huge file of names of reviewers interested in psycho/thrillers probably won't be able to do you much good if you write literary novels. And if you write mysteries, well! The people she will put you in contact with will be a Trojan horse for you well into an entire career of writing.

Am I speaking from experience? You betcha. And lukewarm results were not the fault of my publicist. She did a great job with what she had. She just didn't have what I needed!

You may wonder why I selected her. The price was right and I thought that with my PR background and a reasonable amount of time at my disposal (until I figured out the plot for my next novel) that I could supplement her efforts effectively. It didn't work out that way. First of all, I didn't have a lot of effective contacts in the book world (it was my first book) and the same rules apply to me, as an author cum PR partner. You gotta know some people.

If you're considering hiring a pro this is one way to go about finding Mr. or Ms. Right:

1. Join a list-serve of authors who write in your genre. Pick their brains.

2. Do a Google search on "book publicists + lists." Keep varying those search keywords until you find something that seems to fit your needs.

3. Then check out what you find with your new friends at the list-serv or organization you just joined. Or your social network. Or your critique partners. Or your writing teachers.

Contacts, contacts, contacts. Contacts can't be warmed up overnight; it takes lots of sincere tact, warmth, and effort. But it’s a skill you will use long after you’ve published your book and after you’ve hired a publicist.

To hire or not to hire is not an easy decision. It isn't an easy process to find the right publicist if you decide to go that route. Warning! Steep learning curve ahead! But the ride will be fun.

You can finance your classes (or a publicist's first month fees!) by asking for cash for Christmas.  Or you can buy a great book or two. Start with The Frugal Book Promoter (www.budurl.com/FrugalBkPromo) but don't stop there. I mean, at an average of about $10 per book, you can afford to splurge on yourself. 

----- 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 ediction 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:

Favorite Newsletter Tip Time

I've begun sharing my favorite tip from each of my Sharing with Writers newsletters right after it is issued . Those  of you who want lots of tips, articles, in-the-news of the publishing world notices, etc. may subscribe by sending a SUBSCRIBE message to HoJoNews@aol.com.  Here is my fave from this week's edition:

Tip: In the Frugal Book Promoter (www.budurl.com/FrugalBkPromo), I show authors how to build contact lists of readers, editors, and others that can help them with their marketing efforts. One of the groups that they often forget to include on those lists are bloggers. Another is editors of e-mail newsletters (meaning people who put together newsletters like this one). That’s grassroots marketing, folks, and it’s an easy way to kick start a campaign and grow your network.

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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:

ON BEING A FRUGALISMO – Self Promotion I: DATABASING

Mindy Philips Lawrence writes a regular Itty Bitty Column for my newsletter, Sharing with Writers, as well as serving as line editor for it. This column received lots of response from readers (in spite of the fact that list building is the core of the plan I outline in The Frugal Book Promoter!). At least--one way or the other--Mindy and I are getting people to hear this message!


Cheap is a word with bad connotations. I’d say “frugalista” except I hear the word is now trademarked and I don’t want the legal system sending me cease-and-desist letters, so I will use the term “FRUGALISMO” to define doing things effectively but with as few monetary resources as possible.

Recently, I received an e-mail wanting to know if I was the publicist for Norris Church Mailer. I have no idea why anyone thought this but it made me drool to think that she has a new book out, a memoir called A Ticket to the Circus, and that anyone thought I had anything to do with it. Our only connection is that we are both from Arkansas. But it made me think. I began to wonder, if I WERE her publicist, how I would promote her work, a hypothetical dream job. From there I thought of how writers without Mailer’s resources could promote their creative work and still get the job done.

So, in the same vein of our fearless leader, Carolyn Howard-Johnson, here are some “frugalismo” ways to promote your work.

[If you have ideas, PLEASE forward them to me and I will post them in the Itty Bitty with your name and the title of your work (or work in progress).]

BUILD YOUR OWN DATABASE: Draw a radius around where you live. Stick a compass in your hometown and decide how far you are willing to travel to promote your book or other creative work. When you’ve done this, use the Internet to list every single media outlet within that radius. Build a database either in MS Excel or another database system such as ACT 2000 or FileMaker Pro. Include in this database Internet Web sites and phone numbers and e-mail addresses for local radio and television stations, newspapers, and magazines that might help get the word out on your work. You can branch out as your promotional plan begins to work, allowing you to travel farther cause you are selling your work.


USE A GOOD RESOURCE such as The Frugal Book Promoter, an Internet search, or both, to learn how to write an exceptional press release and query letter. You’ll have to do this in an incredibly professional way so go to school on professional releases you find from other writers and publicists. Go to publicists’ Web sites and see how they do what they do. LEARN!



KEEP TRACK OF WHAT YOU DO and when you do it. Make certain to update your contacts every six months. People move around in publishing and media often. Just call and ask if the person you have as your contact is still there and, if not, who has that position now. You’ll need to send a new letter to a new person to introduce yourself. This can be an e-letter or one by the good old US Mail, according to what the publisher wants.


IF YOU HAVE TROUBLE PROMOTING YOURSELF, as some do, think of yourself as a hypothetical big-name writer and promote that person. Of course, this person is actually YOU. You are worth promoting. Your work is worth promoting.

Writers like to write. Often, they don’t enjoy promoting their own work but it’s necessary. Unless you can afford to pay a publicist $1000 a month, it behooves you to learn to do this. And you want to be successful, don’t you? Of COURSE you do!

This is post number one in a series on self-promotion. In the next issue, I’ll have other ideas and, hopefully, some that others have sent me to put here. It’s spring. Let’s bloom! If you want to get in on the coming columns, send Carolyn an e-mail with SUBSCRIBE in the subject line. Her address is HoJoNews (at) AOL (dot) com.

Mindy
“Into Words ~ Into Print ~ Into Minds”

Link-A-Dinka-Dos



The Frugal Book Promoter

(if you don’t have this book, what are you doing without it?)
http://www.amazon.com/Frugal-Book-Promoter-What-Publisher/dp/193299310X

Be Your Own Publicist http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1563/is_n12_v8/ai_9685405/

How to Be Your Own Publicist

Publicity Hound: Free Publicity

How to Write a Press Release

Press Release Writing

Building Blocks to a Powerful Press Release

How to Write a Successful Query Letter

The how-to-write-a-great-query-letter chapter in The Frugal Editor--straight from the mouths of high-powered agents. Also find sample query letters in this book and The Frugal Book Promoter.

Sample Query Letter: Charlotte Dillon

Self-Promotion Guide: The Promotional Jigsaw

About the Guest Blogger:
Mindy Phillips Lawrence has written two poetry collections (One Blue Star and Above and Below) and co-authored The Complete Writer The Complete Writer's Journal(Red Engine Press). She writes the "Itty Bitty Column on Writing" for Carolyn Howard-Johnson’s Sharing with Writers newsletter and is a publicist, editor and literary agent for the fiction work of Bev Sninchak (Star Ferris). She lives in Springfield, Missouri and is working on her first novel. She blogs at MPLCreative. You can find her online.



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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 two how to books for writers, The Frugal Book Promoter: How To Do What Your Publisher Won't and The Frugal Editor: Put Your Best Book Forward to Avoid Humiliation and Ensure Success. Her FRUGAL book for retailers is 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. She is also the author of the Amazon Short, "The Great First Impression Book Proposal". 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 it:

Owning Up Results in Two Lessons: One in PR, One in Editing. And, Oh! A Template, Too!

My Humiliation, Your Benefit

Mea Culpa. I sent out a media release to my full contingent of media contacts and it had a boo-boo in the first line. The lesson here is that everyone (especially me!) should follow the advice I give in The Frugal Editor: Put Your Best Book Forward to Avoid Humiliation and Ensure Success.

The second lesson is a PR Rule. When you mess up, acknowledge it immediately. Admit your fallibility. Use a little humor to help ameliorate your situation. A grammar error is not (should not) be huge in some instances, but in others they are. An example of the latter is when authors are trying to get their manuscripts read by agents and publishers. Another is when an author has written a book on editing makes a gaffe in a formal media release!

I hasten to give you a disclaimer here! My newsletter doesn't count. I have a great little (but over-worked editor in Mindy Lawrence) and my newsletter is not my primary job so this is the warning that should come with all your issues of Sharing with Writers*; "You, dear subscriber, must be patient. My intent is to get resources and information out to you! To include YOU in the process. And to continue to do it weekly."

One can't, however, do that with a media release. So here's what I sent to my media list as an apology after I fouled up. You'll see I included the new, edited version of the media release. And you'll see that I didn't tell those on my media list what the goofy mistake I made was. YOU, however, can find out by going to www.thefrugaleditor.blogspot.com and scrolling to the bottom of the post. So here is the apology note and the release (which, I figure, you can use as a template for releases of your own):

In The Frugal Editor I suggest that everyone use an editor. On the occasions when they can't, I give a list of suggestions for avoiding humiliation. Well, I was so excited about the release you find below that I didn't follow my own advice.

The only aspect of this humiliating (see the subtitle of The Frugal Editor: Put Your Best Book Forward to Avoid Humiliation and Ensure Success) event is that in my book on editing I also assure everyone that the typos/grammar gremlins will one day get everyone no matter what precautions they take and that we should all be a little forgiving with our fellow authors and publishers. So, please forgive me. Here is the altered (read that edited) media release.

PS: I bet everyone but Krasna wants to know what trap I fell into. Well, I'm not going to tell you. (-: Thank you, Krasna.

Here is the media release (a basic one) to use as a template, if you wish. Note that I do not use bold face for important words. This is a media release and the traditions prefers that you don't either. (-:

M E D I A R E L E A S E
Contact: Carolyn Howard-Johnson
E-mail: HoJoNews@aol.com
Fax: 818-790-4299
Phone: 818-790-0502

For Immediate Release

Indie Book Awards Gives Carolyn Howard-Johnson a Double Honor

Chelsea, MI -- Good things come in twos as well as threes.

Awards administrator for Indie Book Awards C. Goulet announced that the marketing campaign waged for The Frugal Editor: Put Your Best Book Forward to Avoid Humiliation and Ensure Success won their Best Marketing Award.

In addition The Frugal Editor was a finalist in the how-to category of that same contest's Next Generation Indie Book Awards.

As a winner The Frugal Editor will be listed in the contest catalog which will be distributed at Book Expo America in Los Angeles later this month and will be featured on the Independent Book Publishing Professionals Group website. The contest is designed to honor exemplary books and marketing efforts of small and independent publishers.

Actually good things do come in threes and even fours. This year The Frugal Editor also won first-place acclaim from USA Book News and Reader Views.

Howard-Johnson is the author of a novel, book of creative nonfiction and poetry, all award-winners. Her fiction, nonfiction and poems have appeared in national magazines, anthologies and review journals. She was named Woman of the Year in Arts and Entertainment by the 43rd and 44th Districts of the California Legislature. She speaks on Utah's culture, tolerance and subjects relating to writing and publishing and has appeared on TV and hundreds of radio stations nationwide. She is also is an instructor for UCLA Extension’s Writers’ Program. Her book The Frugal Book Promoter: How to Do What Your Publisher Won't was named USA Book News' Best Professional Book and earned the Book Publicists of Southern California's Irwin award.

For more information on the book awards go to www.indiebookwards.com.

Howard-Johnson is also the founder of Authors' Coalition, an organization for writers (http://authorscoalitionandredenginepress.com).

Howard-Johnson may be reached at (HoJoNews@aol.com). Complete information is available in downloadable media kits in the media room at http://www.howtodoitfrugally.com.
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(Photos, book cover art and a full media kit are available electronically or by post upon request.)


*Subscribe by sending an e-mail with SUBSCRIBE in the subject line to HoJoNews@aol.com.



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Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author THIS IS THE PLACE; HARKENING: A COLLECTION OF STORIES REMEMBERED; TRACINGS, a chapbook of poetry; and two how to books, THE FRUGAL BOOK PROMOTER: HOW TO DO WHAT YOUR PUBLISHER WON'T; and THE FRUGAL EDITOR: PUT YOUR BEST BOOK FORWARD TO AVOID HUMILIATION AND ENSURE SUCCESS.
Her other blogs include TheNewBookReview.blogspot.com and AuthorsCoalition.blogspot.com, a blog that helps writers and publishers turn a ho-hum book fair booth into a sizzler.