This past weekend, I was at the Texas Book Festival in Austin, Texas, signing at the Writers League of Texas booth. It was a great experience with great crowds – though it was mighty chilly in the tent!
An interesting thing happens when a bunch of authors get together. We all compare notes to see how we handled agents, publishers and the matter of marketing and publicity. We all want to know if we’re being treated fairly.
Of course, every author’s experience varies depending on the different people involved, the type of book, the kind of marketplace. I’m sure J.K. Rowling’s agent returns her calls and emails really quickly. A new author might have to wait!:) But the most common complaint among us all was about marketing and publicity.
We all want more marketing for our books. That’s no surprise. Walk into a bookstore or skim a book web site, and you see how many books, new releases or old, have to compete for attention. However, what was astonishingly creepy was that a number of authors I talked to at the Book Festival all complained about publicity.
As Christian’s former publicist, I decided to handle publicity for the book with my co-author and with my publisher directly. We made the decision to go this route after interviewing a number of book publicists who didn’t really convey interest or demonstrate any clear strategies. When a typical book publicist is asking for $2500 a month plus expenses (minimum 3 months), you can imagine that a newbie author wants to know what they’re going to get for their money!
So here’s the weirdest part of my weekend at the Book Festival – all of the authors I talked to had bad experiences…. with the same publicist! I’m not going to name names, but it is a local publicist who is very active in Texas, trying to find new victims (errr… authors!) I’m so glad I didn’t sign with that company, but it’s so sad and demoralizing to know that authors – who generally don’t make gazillion dollars like a Stephen King or J.K. Rowling – end up falling victim to a greedy publicity company that knows how to prey on the insecurity and lack of marketing skills most authors have.
This publicist wanted to charge for phone calls, charge for emails over a certain length, and, of course, would promise no results or deliverables. When she kept mis-reading an email, I offered a quick call to clear up issues, but she told me she’d have to charge – all of this before a PR campaign was even designed or launched! To put this in perspective, it’s like a receptionist charging you for answering the phone when you’re trying to make an appointment to see the doctor!
Publicity is not an easy thing to create – especially to launch a new book. It’s not just “PR for Dummies” or by the book. No, because each book is unique, PR has to be custom tailored to the target audience, the projected market, mining existing contacts and developing new ways to reach a crowded marketplace.
When I was creating a marketing campaign for Christian’s career, we had to look at a lot of variables – what did he want to accomplish, who was his competition, what was the goal. And because the Bales were penniless when they first moved to the US, it was really important to figure out how to run a campaign for the lowest cost possible.
So aspiring writers, when you’re not writing your book, think about marketing, imagine what your selling points are. Just like when you sell a book proposal to an agent, who in turn has to sell it to a publisher, you need to “sell” it to the press.
Before any book publicists get cranky out there – I absolutely believe in publicity, but I think there are some real sharks. An educated author has a better chance of getting the most out of their marketing dollar. (If anyone knows of an Angie’s List or BBB list for book publicists, let me know!) You could write the greatest book in the world, but if reviewers and press don’t know about it, how are they going to let their readers know?
As they say in Hollywood, you know what happens without publicity?
Nothing.
Christian Bale: The Inside Story of the Darkest Batman 