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by Brian Feinblum, Planned Television Arts, feinblumb@plannedtvarts.com 212-583-2718

45 Years As The Nation’s Leader in Book Publicity 45 Tips To Get You Started!

Planned Television Arts, the nation’s largest and oldest book promoter, is celebrating our 45th anniversary this month, and in honor of reaching this milestone, we are pleased to offer 45 free tips on what authors need to know about getting published, promoted, and distributed. If you have further questions, please contact PTA’s Chief Marketing Officer, Brian Feinblum, at feinblumb@plannedtvarts.com Please feel free to click onto www.PlannedTVArts.com and download, at no cost, The Million-Dollar Rolodex, a great publishing resource. You can also sign up for our free e-newsletter at the site. Also look for our updated list of new free publishing/PR teleseminars.
1 Time: You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to generate publicity, but you need a lot of time, and your time is best served writing and growing your business—and not tracking down media contact lists, making lots of calls, and trying to learn who to reach, how to reach them, and then what to say once you finally get hold of them. Use a publicist – -it’ll save you time – and a lot of headaches.

2. Affordability: They say never gamble or invest money you can’t afford to part with. The same is true with PR. Don’t dip into a college fund, retirement account or take a loan on the house to pay for publicity. PR and publishing is an experiment — it’s certainly worth trying — just don’t bet the farm on it.

3. Goals: Determine what your goals are and explore how the publicity will help you achieve them. For instance, you need more than a radio tour if the goal is to be a best–seller, but by contrast, you don’t have to be on national TV to sell books, build your brand, create a media resume, get a positive message out there, or to increase Website traffic.

4. Ego The worst reason to do PR is pure ego. Additionally, some people simply expect their book will be an instant best-seller and be featured on The Today Show. Instead, you should do PR because you have a useful book and have a positive message that deserves exposure. The rest will flow from there. Be optimistic, but contain your expectations.

5. Have A Good Book, On A Timely Topic, With Good Credentials
Know your competition and determine why you offer something truly new, different, unique or better. The consumer and the media don’t need more of the same — they need a fresh voice and perspective.

6. You Can Judge A Book By Its Cover, Layout & Title The media is like anyone else — they look at surface things and make quick judgments. Your title should be one that’s short and easy to say — don’t use insider terms that only hold significance for a few. The subtitle should clearly explain what the book is about. As for the layout design of the contents, no one will read small print, hold cheap paper, or stare at dull chunks of text or books that just don’t feel inviting. The media also likes a cover that draws them in. So, appearance counts!

7. Endorsements Only Mean Something If You Don’t Have Them
You should get testimonials from fellow experts and authors on the topic you write on. Go after recognizable names, organizations, schools, etc. Professors, heads of corporations or non-profits, politicians, celebrities- all are fair game. But, once you get them, do not be under the false impression that this alone ensures sales, but do be aware, the media and consumer will notice if no one or only small names endorse the book.
8. Timing Is Key The merits of your book speak for themselves, but if you can also link your book to a story the media would find more interesting and relevant, then do so. If it’s a parenting book, link it to the first day of school, graduations, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, etc. If it’s a hot topic like politics, link to the upcoming elections, the war in Iraq, or July 4th. Or maybe your book ties into an anniversary of an event or links to an honored day-week-month such as Breast Cancer Awareness Month or Literacy Day, etc.
9. Road Tours The use of road tours is still popular but many people substitute or supplement road tours (physically traveling to other cities) with tours they can do from one location, such as a radio tour by phone, a local TV tour by satellite, or an e-marketing campaign online. It’s a waste of time in most cases for authors to purposely hit the road for a 10-city tour. But if you already plan to be in various cities because of business, or you conduct seminars, or you are there for family matters, then you can seek out piggy back media, where a publicist seeks to get you media in the cities you are in. Just don’t hit the road solely to promote a book tour – with no events or connections to those cities.
10. Hire A Firm vs. A Publicist
PTA is unique in that we performance is tied into our fees. We offer specialized campaigns that are customized to fit the needs, goals and budgets of authors. When a publicist is willing to be invested in the project – not necessarily to get paid based on book sales, but to get compensated based on the number and types of media placements secured — only then will you have a partner in synch with your objectives. Further, a larger firm typically has more depth of knowledge, skills, resources, tools, and media relationships than one-person operations. In the case of one-person PR shops, though some are very good and hard-working, they are often stretched to the limits. They spend more time trying to bring in business than executing it. They have no support to fall back on, where a firm has many people who can step in and assist on a campaign.
11. Watch For Ridiculous Promises Avoid the publicist who says they have an “in” at Oprah. She only covers a few dozen books a year in the course of doing a few hundred shows annually. 175,000 books have been published in the last 12 months. You figure out the odds. That isn’t to say you can’t be on Oprah, it just means don’t put too much stock in empty promises about getting on her show.
12. Money Is Not The Sole Deciding Factor When comparing between choosing a publicity firm don’t let costs be the deciding factor. Sure, have a budget in mind – or some sense of a rate of return on your investment – but you should consider the key factors: what is being promised vs. guaranteed; length of campaign; has the firm promoted many authors in your genre; is it a one-person shop or a larger firm with more resources and media contacts?
13. Know Who Is Working On Your Campaign The person who is doing your outreach is very important. Find out who will actually be conducting your campaign. It usually is NOT the person who is trying to bring you in as a client, nor should it be. A good client manager will stay involved, but the day-to-day media booking is reserved for experienced specialists.
14. Get Good Counseling Part of selecting a publicist means finding a knowledgeable advisor, someone who not only generates media exposure for you but who also can coach you for the news media. He or she should also provide valuable guidance and advice on all things pertaining to marketing and promoting your book, taking both a short-term and long-term approach.
15. Press Kit Writing Is Important Your publicist should write a press kit and generate creative press releases. Typical elements include a press release, biography, Q & A, book excerpts, story angles, side bar material, related statistics/facts, and other materials that will both get the media’s attention and help summarize your book for conducting interviews– and go beyond what’s in the book.
16. Familiarity With Books In Your Field When interviewing a potential publicist for your book ask if they have represented books like yours and if you can see some of the placements they got. Ask for references.
17. Get To Know Bookstores Within 30 Minutes Of You Make friends with your local bookseller(s). They can influence potential customers.
18. Study The Media If you have no media experience, watch and listen to interview programs and critically examine what good interviewees do and how they get across their message. You will want to Balance your publicity efforts – the goal is to get exposure in all media: radio, print, television, and the Internet. First secure local coverage and then spread out to national media.
19. Learn By Listening To Yourself It’s amazing how many people have never seen or heard themselves on tape. So along the same lines, practice your interview skills on videotape and audio tape with a friend questioning you. When conducting an interview your answers should not be longer than 30 seconds. Practice narrowing your comments and message down to smaller sound bites. Always say the interviewer’s name back to them when doing an interview – it sounds personal and friendly.
20. Give Yourself An Online Presence Before you even create a Web site for your book, reserve your personal name and misspelling of your name as a domain name. Then reserve at least 10 potential titles for you book (think of having a series of books). You can reserve names inexpensively at www.rickscheapdomains.com. Remember to build your list (of faithful fans) and have an online newsletter. One way to build your list is to circulate your newsletter or blog through friends and family to their lists of friends and family. Another way is to circulate a freebie – something you give away for free t hat is of value to others and that can serve as your best advertisement for them to keep coming to your site. The free item can be an e-book, an audio speech; or a teleseminar. For your Web site, set up a shopping cart system and a mailing list system. Everyone uses this system — it is the best!) Please consult:
http://cornerstonecart.com/app/default.asp?pr=90&id=101001
21. Do Teleseminars Tape them every week or every other week. You can check out www.plannedtvarts.com for over 50 hrs of free teleseminars. Repurpose those teleseminars into e books or books.
22. Go To As Many Publishing Seminars As You Can. You will not only learn from the speakers, but form fellow attendees. A very good one is the Mega Marketing Publishing seminar put on by the Mark Victor Hansen, co-creator of Chicken Soup for the Soul. It’s happening May 31st. See www.megabookny.com
23. Attend Book Expo! You should attend BEA (the first week in June in NYC this year). It is the big publishing event of the year, where thousands of publishers, authors, literary agents, editors, distributors, and other members of the publishing community gather. Please consult: www.bookexpoamerica.com
24. Consult The Gurus Read publishing expert Dan Poynter’s material — consult www.parapublishing,com Publishers Weekly Is The Book World’s Bible Read it! www.publishersweekly.com Keep Up With The Publishing Industry. See Publishers Lunch at www.publisherslunch.com. Also think about subscribing to www.publishersmarketplace.com. Also consult John Kremer at www.Bookmarket.com
25. Network With The Pros Join Publishers Marketing Association (PMA) or SPAN. Get into a mastermind group of other authors like you. Consult www.bestselleru.com

26. Budget Money Or Time Though you don’t have to hire a PR firm, you do need to set a budget aside to invest in PR. This budget is either of your money (if you hire help) or your time (if you do it alone). PR will pay off with book sales, prestige, boost your career, and position you for future book deals. You are always branding!

27. Build Up Your Media Resume Don’t expect national TV until you do some local media or gather press clippings. You must build up your media resume before you can even begin to think you are deserving of major media. That said, you have to start somewhere. The Internet, radio, and local media are great places to begin.

28. Book Reviews Are Not So Important Though book reviews can be effective, they are not always the best way to go – broad coverage in other parts of the paper – not on the book page — is something worth shooting for. Book reviews are simply much harder to come by these days, given the limited amount of book review space and their biases against self-published authors or small publishers. Op-eds and by-line pieces are a good way to get exposure as well. Coverage off the book page will get a bigger readership. For instance, say you have a diet book. Getting into the health section of your paper is more targeted than being lost in the book section.

29. 15 Seconds Of Fame Be prepared to summarize the highlights of your book in 15 seconds. That’s how long you have to convince someone your book is worth looking at. Whether it’s a consumer, a member of the media, a bookstore manager, or an organization that you want to speak before, be concise. You need a sentence or two to summarize your credentials for writing the book, and then 3 bullet points of what’s in the book and why people should care. Blabbering on won’t sell it – just being concise, creative, and timely will. YOUR 80,000-WORD BOOK NEEDS TO BE A 15-SECOND SOUND BITE Writing a 250-page book is not as hard as reducing all of that to a 15-second sound bite, but that’s exactly what you need to do when promoting and marketing your book. When you meet a stranger or even when you want to explain to a friend what your book is about, you need to do it in a quick and interesting way so that by the end of your description they will want to buy it or ask more questions.

30. Timing Is Important One key to promoting yourself is doing it with a sense of timing. If you want to be featured in a magazine, you have to send a galley of your book to them 3-4 months in advance of the official book’s publication. If you want to visit a city and contact local media, it helps to call them about 4 weeks ahead of your arrival. Once a book has been out for 3-4 months it is deemed “old” by most media.

31. Create Your Own Virtual World Explore how to create your now blog, podcast, or teleseminar by utilizing simple technology. Check out resources for audio and video tools for authors at www.audiovideoforauthors.com. Your book is a tool to get people back to your Web site. And when they get their you must have audio on the site. Get an Audio Generator at http://members.audiogenerator.com/specialinfo.asp?x=551229. You also should have a way to capture their e mail address with an “ethical bribe” and send them newsletters. Have a Shopping Cart System and Mailing List System (http://cornerstonecart.com/app/default.asp?pr=90&id=101001) Once you get them in your ” funnel” – You can sell them more books, e-books, CDs, teleseminars, seminars and your services.

32. Traditional Publishing When considering your options for publishing, think in these terms: If you want a mainstream publisher to publish your book, you’ll need to first get an agent. To get an agent, who takes 15% of your lifetime earnings for that book, you can consult The Literary Marketplace and other books to get a list of agents that represent your type of book. The process of finding an agent and a publisher and then seeing the book finally get into print, could easily be 18 months to two years, from start to finish.

33. Print-On-Demand Or you can go POD – print-on-demand, with companies like www.iuniverse.com. They charge a few hundred dollars – maybe up to a thousand – to get you manuscript set up to be printed as a book. Books are printed one at a time, based on actual orders. You will likely keep about 50-60% of the book’s cover price in this format, though you generally sell less books this way than the other two ways to get published.

34. Self-Publishing Or you can self-publish and print the book on your own. You’ll lay some money out, but you will get to keep all of the money from the sale of each book, as opposed to earning a smaller royalty when someone else publishes you. However, it helps to get a distributor – -a middleman who will sell the book into bookstores and libraries – usually costing you about 25-30% of the net proceeds. Two distributors to explore working with include www.greenleafbookgroup.com and www.midpointtrade.com If you have a series of books for sale, you might also consider larger distributors such as NBN, IPG, and PGW. A list of distributors can be found in the Literary Market Place.

35. Killer PR! One look at the headlines making the news and you would see the best way to make the news is to, unfortunately, commit a crime. So how do you compete with that — as well as all the ink given to celebrities, the weather, sports, terrorism, and the latest movie? The first way to get media coverage is to tie your book’s message to the things that are making news. Can you comment on the latest court case, or media tragedy like Anna Nicole Smith? Well if you’re an expert on paternity, celebrities, law, marriage, or self-destruction, you can get media coverage talking about some aspect of her life or death — even if your book never discusses the case.

36. Predict The News Another way to get media coverage is to anticipate the news. Check your calendar and look to see what holidays are coming up. Memorial Day means war, security, international relations, death, history, etc. Father’s Day means dads, grandfathers, parenting, family, etc. Can you speak on those topics? How about the seasons? Summer means stories about travel, camp, droughts, picnics, West Nile, baseball, etc. Think of how your message ties into a holiday, a season, or an honorary day, week or month (i.e.: February is Black History Month, March is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, April is National Autism Month).

37. Create Your News Make news with the results of your research, surveys, interviews with important people in your book, or the uncovering of hidden facts. Even if your book lacks original earth-shattering news, perhaps you can create a poll of say 500 people on your subject and then report those results. If you can shed light on the newest treatments for a disease or effective parenting strategies or tell us the three smartest ways to save for retirement, people will listen.

38. Keep It New An old book is only promotable when it becomes new again – revise and update your book if it’s older than six months but you want to hire a publicist. Or even better build on the book and create a sequel

39. Raise An Issue Or Ask A Question For instance, declare something interesting or controversial. Should pets be allowed to sue for health care? Should we eliminate the presidency and instead have three co-presidents? Should there be a legal limit on how much someone can weigh? Should people who have cosmetic surgery be forced to disclose this to the people they date?

40. Give The Cliff Notes When you tell someone about your book, the goal really isn’t to become the Monarch or Cliff Notes for them. You don’t want them to know about everything in the book, only something. you want to tease them, whet the appetite and make them drool for more. So less is more here. The second rule is you need to look at the vocabulary selection you use to describe things. Move from the functional to the descriptive. Load up your verbal diet with adjectives and use verbs that have some sound effects. Don’t merely say your book is about how to invest money in the stock market — it’s about how to use the proven strategies and loopholes that rich people use to turn hard-earned money into bigger pots of gold. With this book, you’ll retire early! See the difference? Lastly, always give an analogy or metaphor — something people can instantly relate to — perhaps something funny, something timely, something eye-opening. So, use your words wisely and always remember it’s style over substance when it comes to PR.
41. Word Of Mouth is what sells books. Get the word out early and often. Tell everyone you meet or know about your book. Initially, to get known, you need a grass roots campaign. Where appropriate, speak before any group that you can find will have you – a church or temple; a college; a library; a book store; an association; a book club – anyone! Partner with others to cross promote each other’s book, services or products. Link with people in a related or similar industry to you.
42. Internet Guru Learn from people who have made a ton of money on the Internet. Check out Internet Marketing Training Materials Package with Tom Antion at www.greatinternetmarketing.com/pta.htm
43. Get A Knowledgeable, Experienced Publicist Get a publicist who has a track record of success, familiarity, and interest in your genre of expertise. This person should share in your vision and see beyond the book. Conducting a PR campaign has a bigger potential payoff vs. one-time advertising. Ads rarely pay for themselves. Do not expect a publisher to do everything or anything for you. It’s up to you as the author to promote your book. If you self-publish your book, seek to arrange for distribution before hiring a publicist.
44. Sell More Than Your Book Have other products/services to sell, so that when your book generates publicity and traffic to your Web site, you are building customers for life with other items to sell them.

45. Make It Personal We know that creating your book is a labor of love — and time and money. But the biggest step you have to take comes once the book is printed and ready to be sold. You need to have an aggressive publicity and marketing plan — or else your book gets lost in the tsunami of new books published annually. And when you’re promoting your book, particularly to the news media, you need to make it stand out. The best way to show off your book’s uniqueness is to make it personal. To differentiate your book from others on a similar topic is not to highlight the contents, but to spotlight your very own story. No one, no matter the subject they write on, can have your story. You are one of a kind — at least until cloning takes over! Link your work to who you are — your experiences, your credentials, your personality. We must be able to hear a unique voice from the author even when the books begin to look alike. So the next time you discuss your book, discuss yourself. Lastly, whatever you say in describing your book, be positive, smile, and give off a confident, inviting look. People must feel they need, like, and trust you before they’ll buy from you.

BONUS TIP: HIRE PTA TO PROMOTE YOU!!

 Brian Feinblum, 2007.

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