Have any of you hired publicists and have they been effective? Have they also worked with you with your online presence?
I am curious about this because I am now a micro publisher and have spoken with a few publicists about what they offer. One does a lot of work with self- published authors but I know that here are a lot of limitations. Self-published books will not be distributed in retail stores. And Create Space is not considered a publishing imprint for this purpose.
Have any of you had luck with taking this route?
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Looked at hiring some in the past,eventually struck me as a waste of money unless you're prepared to throw monies at them on a 'Kardashian' level, I even went to their publicist and was told that I would be ''looking at seven figures a year''.Best to be your own self publicity machine and keep the dollars where they belong,with you !!
I'm enjoying this conversation because hiring a publicist is a current thought of mine...
Hi Tamilyn,
Do you have a book coming out? At what stage is your project. It is an interesting discussion, isn't it?
My book came out last year, 'The Momentum Factor' (leadership). Through great effort it hit #1 on Amazon. The result of the book actually landed me a VP sales job, which is amazing in itself, but I haven't had time to promote the book further. I don't want it to fizzle into nothing so I thought to revive it through some help with a publicist.
I have used the same publicist for the past ten years for my business and when I wrote my non-fiction book (published through AMACOM Books) I used them for that. They were able to secure me a PBS television spot and several speaking engagements. I'm not sure just how much it translated into book sales, but I feel they were successful in their part.
Did the publisher also offer any publicity? At what point did you use the publicist? When did you engage him or her?
My publisher offer a very minimal amount of publicity. It basically fell on my shoulders, but I'm not sure I would have ended up being published overseas if I had self-published. By the time the book launched, I was in thirteen international countries, but I still feel that my efforts were critical. I know that many people google me before they purchase the book and the speaking, media spots, etc. give me the credibility so that they are comfortable making a purchase. I should add that my book is a very small niche and it's a difficult sell for the most part. The publicist has given me very valuable pieces I can use in my marketing efforts such as the television appearances and I am able to use them over and over again.
I have, and they were fabulously unsuccessful. But it was a learning experience and now I know what not to do next time.
Would like to know more details. I think there is a right time and a wrong time for this. How is your online footprint. And I love your attitude. It is a learning experience all around and definitely not an exact science.