How not to publicise your book (and a book that deserves better)
I know I am not the only journalist who gets incredibly frustrated with publicity departments. It is why I tell authors to take control of their own publicity if they haven’t been made a priority by their publicist ( before anyone says, there are some superb publicists out there. Don’t, I know, which is why I judged their awards for five years). But sometimes, books deserve to succeed despite all that a publicist does to hack off the hacks.
Take the example of Birds In Your Garden, published by Think Books/Macmillan. I met the publicist at an awards the other night. She is also working on several other authors at the moment and acknowledged that the demands of her Very Famous Other Authors meant that this book was not a priority.
But, I said, this is exactly the kind of gem that will sit atop the Christmas book charts and beat off all the bloated, over-paid celebrities a la Eats, Shoots & Leaves. So, I added, send me a copy and I’ll see what I can do. She took my card and a few days later I got the following round robin (natch) email headed, Superb New Book – Birds In Your Garden:
“BIRDS IN YOUR GARDENThink Books are publishing this beautiful new book on 12th October 2007, priced £12.99, in association with The Royal Horticultural Society and The Wildlife Trusts.
With the loss of gardens across the country to decking, patios and driveways, more and more bird species are finding their way on to the endangered list. It is vital that we take action to halt this decline, and this book will tell you how.
It answers all queries about how to make your garden bird-friendly, including advice on which plants to grow or avoid; when and what food to scatter; how to create safe habitats or birds away from predators and human influence; and how to adapt your garden.
The bird-by-bird guide is punctuated with several ‘Focus on…’ features; superb photography enhances the reader-friendly format, and each chapter includes a box of fascinating facts and ‘Did-you-knows?’ The combination of two specialist sets of advice results in a book that is both entertaining and hugely informative. Encouraging birds into your garden requires an understanding both of birds and of gardening; this book provides everything you need to give wildlife a helping hand.”
It was not from the person I had spoken to at the party, as I would have expected. It had no preface, no acknowledgment of the conversation I’d had with the publicist about this book – though they must have got my email off my business card.
It was the electronic equivalent of those homogenous press releases that are shifted out in volume to us hacks and rarely have any impact. Now I am sorry, but is it me? That seems pretty rude. If someone offers to help, you at least acknowledge it.
I am not going to make the author suffer for this apparent crassness, so I emailed back; please send me a copy. But still my email echoed into silence and I have heard nothing. Not a dicky bird (sorry).
I still think this book sounds like a little gem that could – thanks to the army of garden and bird lovers out there – surprise everyone on the bestseller lists this Christmas. So I hope a few of you buy it despite the publicity. I certainly will.
Comments
Posted by Maria McCarthy on 27 September 2007
Agreed!
Some publicists can be great, but an awful lot just don’t seem to have that ‘bloodhound instinct’ in that they get given a promising lead from a journalist and just don’t bother following it up. Weird.
Also is the issue that once books have been publicised for a while (I know that’s not the case here) they aren’t in the office anymore so it’s no longer possible to just shove them in a jiffy bag – they have to go ‘via the warehouse’ (a long and tortuous process!).
I’m a great believer in becoming as independent of your publicist as you can after the first ‘initial push’ (for example, was on Nick Ferrari’s LBC morning show today talking about learning to drive off the back of an email I sent on spec) – I keep copies of my own books so if a promising lead comes up I can shove it in the post and know it’ll be there the next day. It comes out of my pocket of course – but I’d rather that than wring my hands over the poor little things journey from the warehouse.
Also want to add that it’s one thing for me to go on about how easy it is to do your own publicity cos I’m the ‘not backwards in coming forwards’ type – but do appreciate it’s difficult for shyer authors.
Hope the garden birds book does well – it sounds fab!
all best
Maria
http://www.mariamccarthy.co.uk
Posted by Danuta Kean on 27 September 2007
Good for you Maria. That is really great.
A copy has now arrived in the post and it is a fabulous book that should do well. The RSPB is one of the biggest membership organisations in the UK, which is why programmes like Today on R4 do so many things – like Garden Birdwatch – with the RSPB. It is popular with listeners. I must admit this is the most accessible book on the subject I have seen.
Posted by Dr Blockbuster on 28 September 2007
Well (:smiles:) at 6.00am in the morning, Dr Blockbuster can tell you that I don’t work like that.
You just ask my site host Valentina, she’ll tell you >>> http://www.blockbusterbooks.co.uk/lazarusstrainpressrelease.html
As for this Christmas Birds in your Garden Book, I generally agree … as long as we don’t have avian flu first !!! And that’s publicity for you!!!
:roflmAo:
Dr Blockbuster
blockbusterbooks.co.uk
Posted by Chris Hamilton-Emery on 28 September 2007
It sounds crass writing it, but the first rule of sales and marketing is to follow up on your leads. All your leads. Some can seem unlikely, some plain crazy, but when someone asks for a book to cover it, you’d be barking not to follow up in person. The second thing about requests of this kind is that they’re very rare, and when you get them I’d normally try to forge a relationship, because the book business is driven by personal relationships — books are personal. Reading your piece Danuta, I really wondered who on earth is convinced by these formulaic press releases, and they’re not press releases are they, they’re product information. There’s no story there. I think all press releases have to be driven by a story, find that and you’ve found what interests the reader. So much PR is empty, template driven and it’s so ubiquitous it leaves one cold. People are smart. When it comes to PR, we’d better remember that.
Love
C
Posted by Jimmy Lee Shreeve on 28 September 2007
You’re spot on here Danuta… I’m a cult author and I’ve always publicised myself, regardless of what my publishers do or suggest. This comes really from playing in bands in the past – you had to crank up the action on the promo front to get people to your gigs.
But I’m also a journalist for national newspapers and magazines. So I see the horrifying, bland and useless releases the PR crew push.
As you say the best bet for authors is to do the exact opposite of what the PR people do.
All you ever need do is whizz together a 300/500 word story with a compelling headline/subject. And send it to journalists, but addressing them by name. No generic emails.
It’s so easy, it’s beyond belief that PR people haven’t cottoned to it yet…
I’ve fired out simple … and, yes, usually outrageous … releases that have got me in the Sun, and on radio and TV.
And it’s all down to a short, succinct, but compelling and personalised email. And sometimes a bit of mucking about on the web with longer stories and pictures.
Although I’ve been described as a “shameless self-publicist” I can reveal here and now that I only really do it for the fun of it. It’s all a schoolboy wheeze. Kinda like the band KLF used to do.
Maybe that helps. Not taking it all (or yourself) too seriously.
Posted by Danuta Kean on 28 September 2007
Amazing the power of a blog as well. A copy of the book was biked over late yesterday. And it is rather fabulous. It’s a perfect stocking filler for a few friends with gardens – especially those with children enthused by nature, and those, like me, whose knowledge of bird life is limited to blackbird, brown bird and “quite colourful, is it a blue tit?”
I don’t think an author is ever shameless when publicising their book. You write to be read and if no one knows our books are out there…..
Posted by Slim Palmer on 28 September 2007
As an indie author of some 5 tomes I have to do my own publicity so when one of the books was shortlisted for the 2007 Blooker Prize I went full out with the PR (having been in the biz I knew what to do).
What do I get out of all my hard work… a double page spread in a local ‘paper, 5 mins on local BBC radio and a couple of column inches in a free rag.
Ho-hum… must do better. Better than nothing though.
Posted by Jimmy Lee Shreeve on 28 September 2007
Let’s call on journalists and reporters everywhere to help make the bird book big for Xmas…
Let’s take down the celebs and make them beg for mercy over Yuletide!
Wouldn’t it be great to get all the media to refuse to even mention celeb books over Xmas? A revolution: Just say NO to celebs…
And it all began with a book about garden birds. Which, let’s face it, are 100% more important than any celeb.
Posted by Alistair Spalding on 28 September 2007
Telling authors to do their own publicity is irresponsible- very few authors are trained in PR or Marketing and are therefore twice as likely to hack people off as publicists.
The number of long meandering phone calls I’ve had from authors with no concept of PR that have left me seething means that I won’t deal with authors directly.
Posted by lorelei mathias on 28 September 2007
What a great post, Danuta. I couldn’t agree more.
I’ve also met Maria before and she does a great job of self-publicising her books – I must confess I’m a little in awe of her confidence and bolshiness – I know I should do more to promote my own, but it’s not that easy bigging yourself up to people you’ve never met. And, as much as I wish it didn’t, the DIY approach does always leave you feeling a little shameless.
What’s so disappointing about the story of the publicist is that the publicity departments are lucky enough to have the one thing us authors don’t have in abundance: contacts. But even better is having contacts that are actually interested and offering to help! To not give that the personal response it deserves is a real shame, as you say.
I think it’s great that you (Danuta) encourage authors to do more of their own publicity. My own publishers’ publicity department are very busy, and my imprint in particular has a policy of not promoting their individual authors; rather their time is spent promoting the list as a whole; (which they are very good at). As a result, I should be writing off myself to journalists – and I have done a bit – but the reality is that it is hard to go direct, and it’s expensive too. Buying up shedloads of copies of your own book, and then cold-calling people to tell them how great your work is (even if you don’t quite believe it yourself) – can after a while become disheartening.
Sadly, not all journalists are as friendly to the idea of self-publicity as you (Danuta) seem to be. And although this sounds like a lame excuse, I also work full time in another job so I haven’t got quite enough time to send off loads of jiffy bags and keep calling up to chase. But if I did, and I was blessed with the contacts of the publicists, I’d like to think that I would make use of them.
On the up side, I’ve been dabbling in a bit of self-marketing – ie, putting book trailers onto YouTube and MySpace to help raise awareness for my books. It’s worked for me, and luckily, it’s also lead to spin-off reviews and features. It’s helped me get through to journalists who otherwise might not have had time.
I have to say that I was surprised to hear about these generic press releases and emails not even addressed personally though – surely these are fundamental things to get right? And, perhaps they might have reached for a less hackneyed, generic word than ’superb?’ for the headline? I’ve worked on both sides of the fence – I used to work in the marketing dept at one of the big book houses before writing my own books – so I do know how stretched both publicity and marketing departments can be. In that way, it does make sense for authors to give a helping hand.
But what would be really great is if these publishers could give a helping hand back, by at least helping to fund the review copies. After all, they do benefit from any resulting reviews. With that small amount of support, we might then feel a little less out on a limb. And a little less shameless.
http://www.loreleimathias.com
Posted by Liz & Julie on 28 September 2007
Thank you Danuta, for this experience and indeed warning to all writers. Even though we are incognito with our book, we have taken the bull by the horns with our publicity, and just do what we can when we can.
This is a facinating world we are entering, but your wisdom is much appreciated.
Love,
Liz & Julie x
Posted by Dr Blockbuster on 29 September 2007
A great discussion developing, Danuta.
Alistair Spalding is quite correct of course, but I think he may need some medicinal irn-bru to assist with the blood pressure.
Dr Blockbuster thinks Jimmy is getting over excited about the birds, the garden ones. Schurely Schome Mischtake? Let’s not get too green.
Apart from new avenues like Myspace and YouTube that lorelei mentions there are fantastic forums out there that bind and guide authors in the process. I can say that authorsden.com is a “fabby” forum/network with 20 trillion visitors a week or more(:wink:), and I, myself, participate in many online discussions on Amazon, the .com (bigger) where marketing info can be easily pooled.
There are many facets to publicity and successful publicity. For example … Dr Blockbuster handed out 1400 bookmarks at the Edinburgh International Book Festival … how good an audience was that?
ALL PARTICIPANTS have their part to play, the enemy is A P A T H Y !
For stress relief, here’s a wee joke that Sean Connery told at his birthday BAFTA in Edinburgh last year:
Towards the end of the discussion with Shane Danielson of the Edinburgh International Film Festival, we have this-
Sir Sean: Did you know that Tony Blair and I both went to Fettes?
(For those who don’t know Fettes is a private school in Edinburgh AND is fee paying)
Shane Danielson: (looking puzzled) No ???
Sir Sean: Yesch, yesch, Tony Blair and I both went to Fettes. Tony went for the education …. and I …. delivered the milk!
:roflmAo:
Dr Blockbuster
Blockbusterbooks.co.uk
Posted by The Daily Square - The Medicine Show Edition | Booksquare on 29 September 2007
[...] How not to publicise your book (and a book that deserves better)A primer. [...]
Posted by Anne Brooke on 29 September 2007
The bird book sounds wonderful – having just got into birds this year, I’ll definitely look out for it. Wonder if she’s going to do one for those of us who don’t have a garden and have to sneak out in the middle of the night and plant birdseed in the neighbour’s garden instead??…
Marketing is a deep mystery to me, I have to admit. I’ve tried harder in the past with earlier books, but it seems to have no correlation to how many I actually sell. Mind you, as my books – no matter how good the reviews – are only read by about 100 people or so, I’m labouring in a very small (but of course completely discerning!) field.
A
xxx
Posted by publishing talk » Blog Archive » social media press release on 2 October 2007
[...] I’ve been thinking about press releases since publishing commentator and friend of the show, Danuta Kean, wrote about the publicity campaign for a nice little book called Birds in Your Garden. Which I also give a quick shout-out to on my personal blog. [...]
Posted by Rusmus1 on 9 November 2007
“The number of long meandering phone calls I’ve had from authors with no concept of PR that have left me seething means that I won’t deal with authors directly” Alistair Spalding
I work in publicity in publishing and have never come across this attitude. Yes, we may not fully enjoy an hour long conversation that appears to be going nowhere but frankly – that’s our job and a “trained” PR person should know that.
Relationship management, client care, call it what you will – if you can’t bear the thought of an author interrupting your schedule with possibly very useful suggestions about promoting their book, then you are definitely in the wrong job!
Publicists are there to follow up leads and be pushy on behalf of our authors – and take long “meandering” phone calls. I actively encourage my authors to supplement my work with events and any other promotional activity they can come up with and often this means a long phone call, trying to work out what this could be and how I can support them.
If you’re not prepared to go the extra mile, I’d get out now before you get really cynical!
Posted by Alisdair Russell on 11 December 2007
At the end of the day, a well written book should sell itself and indeed does. The da Vinci Code, Life of Pi, Curious Dog, Harry Potter and His Dark Materials all recent examples of the power of ‘word of mouth’.
I have learned not to trust blog, readers forums and review pages such as Amazon, as the reviews are largely written by the authors themselves who way over praise their own material in the greedy hunt for fame and glory.
These books, while drawing in a few suckers, will never sell because they simply will not be recommended by others.
No, if an author wants to be a household name then the best advice is to get a good editor. Thereafter the book should sell itself.
Posted by Alisdair Russell on 11 December 2007
There are two many people who fancy themselves as authors that just can’t cut the mustard. Publishers should be more discerning as should the likes of Amazon.
At the end of the day, a well written book should sell itself and indeed does. The da Vinci Code, Life of Pi, Curious Dog, Harry Potter and His Dark Materials all recent examples of the power of ‘word of mouth’.
I have learned not to trust blog, readers forums and review pages such as Amazon, as the reviews are largely written by the authors themselves who way over praise their own material in the greedy hunt for fame and glory.
These books, while drawing in a few suckers, will never sell because they simply will not be recommended by others.
No, if an author wants to be a household name then the best advice is to get a good editor. Thereafter the book should sell itself.
Posted by Teresa Hamilton-Jones on 11 December 2007
That is so true. I have bought about six books off Amazon this year that were ‘pinged’ to me from contacts off my-space. I checked them out on Amazon and Book & Reader and as the above reader says ‘Authors Den’ (far from fabby) and they all received favourable reviews so I naturally bought same. I attempted all six and can honestly say that all six were barely readable. The standard of the writing was atrocious, and how they got published at all is a puzzle to me but the only explanation for the favourable reviews has to be that they were composed by the author or the authors friends/relations. I have to say Danuta, you are one of the guilty reviewers!! And I demand recompense for the complete waste of time!
I think that it is only a matter of time before the discerning readers will learn not to trust the internet at all. I certainly will not be buying anything that is recommended to me by way of one of these forums ever again, and I am learning not to trust also some of the more well known internet reviewers such as you Danuta. When I checked you out on the various forums (Amazon, Authors Den) I notice that you have listed as friends some of these authors of the diabolical books that you have favourably reviewed and indeed recommended! In fact, I am so suspicious I am even beginning to suspect now that some internet reviewers are ‘paid’ or in some way encouraged to review books by friends of the authors. It is almost as if they have no talent of their own so wish to make their mark by reviewing books as favours for internet contacts, and yes Danuta, you are very guilty of this yourself!
It is not on, a well written book should be brought to the attention of readers and I would trust the appropriate PR people to do the business, the rest is up to the author to come up with a decent read. There is just not enough good material out there, or if there is, it is hidden among the mountain of cheesy mud that is overloading reader (and writer) forums.
‘The bird book sounds wonderful’ says Anne Brooke, oh come on! Of course it doesn’t sound wonderful, this is the kind of schmulz that is confusing people and taking up air space, it is just noise and doesn’t actually say anything at all about the book. The book acutally sounds like it isn’t concise enough to be of interest to an ornithologist, so in short, is little better than a book of pretty pictures of birds.
One of the marketing men above refers to dishing out bookmarks which frankly, is better as it is at least corporeal, plus the reader (I assume) actually gets to read extracts of the book and can get an idea of the standard of writing and plot.
No, get back to old fashioned marketing, get rid of internet reviewers except the experts (such as Danuta – normally!) and to the publishers stop publishing any old thing that comes your way. Fewer books on the shelves would mean the good writers would sooner or later have no trouble selling their wares.
Posted by Danuta Kean on 12 December 2007
Teresa, be very careful what you accuse people of. First, I hardly ever review books and if I do give a good review – and there are a fair few that I have given stinking reviews to (see Lavinia Greenlaw’s last and Plum Sykes’s in the Sindy)- it is because I LIKED the book, not because they are ‘internet’ contacts (whatever that means, you seem confused between people who claim to know a person online and a real friendship or acquaintance). I don’t review friends. It is unprofessional, and I have hated books by people I know. I have never written reviews for Amazon, though publishers may have extracted comments out of context that make a review look favourable. ‘Friends” on the internet means people they know online. As any fool knows, that ain’t the same thing as real life. If you are going to make libellous accusations, get your facts straight first.
Posted by SUSAN HILL on 15 April 2008
I must leap to Danuta`s defence. She is not primarily a blogger but a commentator on and independent journalist about the book trade, on which she is writes with some authority because she knows a great many facts. If she did not editors would not ask her for articles. The blog is a bit of a side-line but it is always thought-provoking, always of interest, though I by no means always agree with everything she says. Personal comments about Danuta`s age/sex/and motives are despicable as well as entirely irrelevant. If you do not like what someone writes, whether it is an author or a journalist or a blogger, then do not read it. If you disagree, say so in a civil manner.
And before you ask, I have met Danuta once, and we have exchanged a number of e-mails about book-trade related subjects over the course of 18 months. She has never reviewed a book of mine – for all I know she may not even have read one. There is no internet or non-interner back-scratching or mutual assistance involved. But she writes with integrity and is an informed and serious journalist and deserves to be treated as such.