Recently I started writing on platforms such as The Huffington Post, The Good Men Project, Addicted 2 Success, and She Owns It. Writing and reading have always been a passion of mine since I was a little girl.
I noticed since I began to write for those publications that our emails have increased. After reading several emails, it occurred to me that some authors might not understand the process of reaching out to a book publicist company.
Every day we get tons of emails from people wanting to know how to get more publicity for their books. We try to reply to each email based on the information that an author provides to us.
We received an email from an author asking us how they could best promote their book. They gave us the name of their book and asked us to review a video on YouTube. Unfortunately, that kind of email gives a book publicist very little to work with. A book publicist needs to know a lot more about an author than the name of their book. And, because most book publicists do receive so many emails the likelihood of them going to look at a video without being sent a link is slim.
If you are a new author or have never used a publicist– you might wonder what information you might need to provide or know when reaching out to a book publicist. Below are a few tips that will help you to make the right decisions for you and your book.
1) Not All Book Publicist Are The Same
Just as not all doctors are the same, not all book publicist are the same. They each have their own special niche in which makes them unique to the market. You go to a specialist when hiring a doctor and you should seek out a specialist when reaching out to a book publicist.
2) Marketing And Publicity Are Different
Marketing and Publicity are two different things. While they both are very important, they serve different roles in an author’s journey.
- Marketing is a plan that you have to launch your book and you will even have some paid advertising involved. You should have a written plan on how you will spread the word about your books and products.
- Publicity is opportunities that you receive. A book publicist will reach out to the media and seek opportunities for you to be interviewed and featured as well as seek out book reviews.
3) Follow The Guidelines
Every book publicist has their own set of guidelines that you must follow when working with them. 2 Dream Productions, Inc. always requests that an author sends a hard copy of their book for review. Other companies might request that you send the digital version instead. The reason 2 Dream Productions requests a hard copy of a book is because of the vast amount of emails that we receive daily.
In the past, we had an author convey to us that they thought we were discriminating against e-Book authors because we requested a hard copy. They went on to express to us how serious they were about their book, and expressed to us that they took offense to our thoughts of them not being a real author. We were in no way inferring the author was not serious about their work, nor did we imply they were not a real author. We simply conveyed that requesting a hard copy was a policy we set in place to be able to assure their book was read, and to better qualify if an author was serious in working with our company. We know how important e-Books are in the author world. We have a previous client who sold seventy-thousand copies of his book at $4.95.
We have also had authors who were totally committed to working with us; they went to Office Depot, Kinkos, or their own home computers, and printed out copies of their books to send to us. By making this kind of effort, it showed us that the authors were very serious about their book and our services. More than anything they respected our policy and would be the kind of author we would work well with in the future.
If you are serious about working with a certain book publicity company, you should be respectful of their specific guidelines.
4) Sending An Email
When reaching out to a book publicist you should send them information that will peek their interest and make them want to work with you. You are basically selling yourself and your book to them. You want to hire a book publicist that will be passionate about your book.
We suggest sending a short email like below. If you have an author site, social media pages or places you have been interviewed in the media also include those. You want to give them as much information as you can but in a small format. You also want to send them links to the places you are wanting them to look at. Don’t make them work to look for your information. You are contacting them. If they are contacting you, they have already researched you.
Sample Note:
Dear————-
My name is Mary Smith. I am the author of ————–. I am interested in possibly working with your company. I heard about your company from ——-. My book is about——————. Can you tell me what services you offer? I am looking for———————–. I would love to send you a copy of —————, to see if we would be a fit. Please let me know your preferred method of receiving books and I will have one sent to you either by mail or email.
Respectfully,
Mary Smith
We hope the information that we provided will help you make contact with the right book publicist company. Feel free to leave comments and questions below.
Have a Magical Author Journey!
-Michelle Colon-Johnson