What it Takes to Get Great Publicity for Your Self-Published Book

Posted on by Hillary

As a publicist, I get a lot of calls from folks who are interested in getting publicity for their self-published book.

The other day I got a call from a lovely older lady, we’ll call her Esther.  Esther is an 83-year-old Holocaust survivor who has quite a heroic tale of survival and rebirth in America. She had self-published a memoir at the end of 2012 with Createspace, and despite having lined up a fair number of library speaking engagements and getting a review in Kirkus Indie (a pay-for-review service), she came to me because she said she needed “professional help with publicity to create more buzz and sell more books.”

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It’s Time To Start Using “The Social Media Revolution” To Your Advantage

Posted on by Gretchen

Social media has become so popular that if Facebook were a country it would be the third-largest country in the world and 100,000 tweets were sent every minute of every day in 2012, according to a shocking infographic.

If you’re an author, you really can’t afford to miss out on harnessing the incredible power behind those numbers. Readers are sharing content online in record numbers and the best way to build a dedicated audience is to connect with them on the sites they’re already using.

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Here’s How To Successfully Use Social Media At An Author Event

Posted on by Gretchen

Last night, author Hilary Reyl read an excerpt from her new book Lessons In French to a packed room at McNally Jackson Books. The reading itself was a great event but February Media used social media, namely Instagram and related outlets, to really take user experience to the next level.

Pictures and video are a great way to connect with your fans, especially when you’re hosting an event that not everyone can attend. Posting pictures to Instagram, and then cross posting them to Twitter and Facebook, lets readers feel like they are experiencing the reading and signing right along with you, which creates a great connection between you and your readers.

Here are the tricks we used last night to make Hilary’s reading a social media success. Hopefully they help at your next author event!

–Create a personalized hashtag for the event. Last night, we tagged every picture with the hashtag #HilaryReylreading. A personalized hashtag lets readers easily search for pictures from the event.

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HuffingtonPost: What Authors Can Learn from Politicians

Posted on by Gretchen
Post originally appeared in the Huffington Post 1/27/ 2012. Here is the link.

As weird as this may sound coming from a book publicist, I’ve always looked to politics as the ultimate model for what I do.

Think about it. Politicians can’t get elected without a dedicated audience. Authors can’t sell books without a dedicated audience. Politicians must introduce themselves to their audience and do the hard work to keep their loyalty. Same with authors. Many of the tactics that politicians use to build their audience can be applied to selling books. Politicians know this: look how many of them have books for sale AT THE SAME TIME that they’re running for office. It’s an easy way to spread their message and pocket some extra cash along the way.

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How Authors Can Use Pinterest

Posted on by Gretchen

Pinterest, a year old social pinboarding site, allows you to create digital pinboards and share them with friends, colleagues, and strangers. I’ve become a little obsessed with it since a graphic designer friend sent me an invite about 6 months ago. If you’re anything like me and endlessly cut out pages from the latest Anthropolgie catalog or constantly email yourself images from Apartment Therapy -you’ll also love this site!

Along with Pinterest’s use in home design (at least for me!) it can be extremely helpful for authors when working with their publisher and/or graphic designer to concept a jacket design. Pinboards are an excellent way to organize your thoughts and see patterns in what type of covers and images appeal to you.

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