Yes, book publicists can be a superstitious bunch. If it's raining and you've booked a national TV interview...then rainy days are very good days to make overtures to the biggest and most important media outlets. If it's the day before a long holiday weekend and you've booked an interview with National Public Radio, then holidays are the best time to contact NPR. Those superstitions are all part of the Book Promotion 101 course that we book publicists use to educate ourselves and keep the book publicity going.

But there's one superstition that I've never been able to decide upon, and it involves wishing someone well before an interview. It gave me pause this morning. One of my clients has two back-to-back radio interviews (he'll be appearing on both radio shows via telephone). I tried to decide, for seemingly the hundredth time, whether it's appropriate to tell an author who is about to do an interview to "break a leg." Is "break a leg" one of those superstitions that will lead to good things...or does that only work in theater? Does saying "good luck" have just the oppposite of the desired effect and, if so, should I avoid uttering that phrase to authors before their most important interviews? I guess that's something I'll have to ponder a bit longer....

Posted by Stacey J Miller at 9:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

CNN makes a book publicist's job tougher (and her day just a little bit rougher) than it has to be sometimes. Okay, other news organizations do it, too, but this time I have evidence that CNN is making this book publicist's job difficult.

One of the things a book publicist must do is convince the media to run a story as newsworthy or entertaining. A highly successful book promotion campaign usually involves a sure-fire news hook located somewhere in the author's life...preferably, somewhere reasonably close to the book he or she is promoting. A good book publicist has a better-than-average ability to predict which news hooks the media might go for.

Which is why one of today's top stories from CNN.com gave this particular book publicist a headache. Strange, puffy clouds were seen over New York City after a thunderstorm? A couple of people spotted Michael Jackson's face in the clouds? A meteorologist, when questioned, didn't deny that someone with a very keen imagination might be able to turn the puffy clouds into Michael Jackson's image? And that's news?

Well, okay. I can sort of see it. I mean, this is the first day in what seems like a month that someone famous, or formerly famous, hasn't unexpectedly met his or her maker. And, now that Michael Jackson's children are in the legal (if temporary) custody of their paternal grandmother, and autopsy results aren't expected back for several weeks, there isn't a front-burner Jackson story available. So I can understand how news organizations might be unable to resist the temptation to fill the glaring gap with -- a story about nothing.

But dang. For a book publicist like me, the world of book promotion gets a little bit harder every time one of our story pitches is brushed aside to make room for a non-story like strange (or not-so-strange, depending on your perspective) cloud formations over New York City.

Why isn't Hollywood Politicos, Then and Now by Greg R. Rabidoux (which talks about celebrities who seriously involve themselves in politics) on the front page of CNN.com today? Well, partly because New York City had a thunderstorm. In the summertime. And then there were clouds.

Gee whiz. This book publicist is getting a headache. And yet...book promotion is a fairly fun game, if you don't mind having one of your great pitches brushed aside, once in awhile, for no apparent reason other than the fact that, strangely, even non-news about recently deceased celebrities tend to trump everything else in a newsroom.

Posted by Stacey J Miller at 8:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Here's why we still need newspapers. Yesterday, I received the news via the Internet. I knew about Farrah Fawcett's death and Michael Jackson's demise (and the rumors of his demise) as soon as the major and minor news outlets broke the story. I got the news alerts. I found the full articles on the Web sites. I received the tweets. I even turned on my actual television set which is a rare feat for the news gatherer in me these days. I listened to the radio coverage (well, actually, to listeners' responses) to the stories all night.

But still...seeing the news and hearing the news and clicking on the news is one thing. Getting this morning's newspapers, and seeing the news on paper, in print, was something else.

It wasn't until I saw this morning's newspapers that I knew, for certain, that Farrah Fawcett had gone to her reward and Michael Jackson had gone to...well, his plastic surgeon in the sky, or whatever it was that he was aiming for (personally, I'm hoping that both Farrah and Michael graced the new-and-improved heavenly "Tonight Show" starring Johnny and Ed with their presence last night, because that would have been an unbeatable lineup, but maybe that would be rushing things just a bit).

Anyway, the news wasn't proven to be news to me until I held it in my hand and saw it in print and turned the pages for myself. Which is why we still need newspapers.

Or, in any case, it's why I still need newspapers. Maybe some media consumers have moved on. Me? Not so much.

Not yet.

I still want my newspapers in the morning, even when the news is as horrible as it was this morning.

And I think -- and trust -- that pitching stories to newspapers will be a part of book promotion campaigns for a long while to come, as long as there are enough people who feel the way that I do.

Posted by Stacey J Miller at 9:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Some days, the Internet overwhelms me. Its offerings become just so much background noise, and I can't wait to click away from Twitter, Facebook, and other Web 2.0 offerings so I can get back to work.

At other times, I appreciate the democracy of the Internet and, particularly, its chief benefit for those of us who care about book promotion opportunities: if the traditional media outlets are finding your book underwhelming, and they're not offering to interview you, then who care? You can broadcast your own interview online directly to your target audience, and given that, who needs an interview opportunity on someone else's traditional media outlet to promote a book?

A Publishers Weekly article of yesterday talks about a three-channel online network called "From the Publisher’s Office" that Penguin has just launched.

It will provide instant book promotion opportunities for Penguin’s authors. Also, because of the Penguin name, the site presumably will attract a huge audience. Penguin won't have to work hard to bring visitors to "From the Publisher's Office."

For the rest of us, developing Web 2.0 book promotion opportunities will be a bit more challenging. First, budget will be a factor. Even now, when publishing companies are feeling the economic (and technological) pinch, I presume it's still easier for Penguin to come up with a couple hundred thousand grand for Web site development than it would be for most of my clients. Second, whereas Penguin as a built-in Web 2.0 audience, most independent publishers and authors will have to work on bringing their targeted readers to their online offerings.

The latter can be done -- that's what book publicists and social networking experts are for (and many book publicists are quickly become social networking experts as well -- those who are behind the curve will quickly have to catch up, or I'm not sure what they'll be doing to earn their keep in the months ahead). The former -- raising the funds to develop Web 2.0 offerings -- can be trickier. But then again, there are already out-of-the-box solutions (BlogRadio comes to mind, and there are many others), and there will likely be many more of those to come. Using someone else's platform and, in essence, tapping into someone else's audience is an imperfect solution, but it is a solution...in the same way that print-on-demand publishing isn't quite going to eclipse getting a publishing contract from Penguin, although it can come close.

The opportunity to use the Internet -- and, specifically, Web 2.0 -- to create book promotion coverage is already there. Down the road, most of the barriers to entry will be lifted, and the benefits of participating in online book promotion campaigns will be evident to us all.

Posted by Stacey J Miller at 9:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Launching a Web site, in advance of a book's publication, is an excellent way to get your book promotion campaign started. The order of play is:

1. Find, and snag, a URL for your book's Web site.
2. Build your Web site. Ideally, you would hire an established Web design firm that specializes in creating authors' book sites instead of your 22-year-old nephew. AuthorBytes is a top choice that many of my clients have worked with.
3. If you must do the latter (see #2, above) because of budgetary constraints, at least have your designer look at book sites that have been professionally designed for inspiration and direction. A good starting point is to make a list of books in your genre and see the Web sites associated with those titles -- or go to the specialty Web design firms who focus on authors' books and look at their portfolios.
4. Once your site goes live, announce it via a friendly email to your personal contacts -- and, more formally, via a press release to the media and online press release banks.
5. Upload your initial press release, and all future press releases, to your Web site.
6. Keep adding content to your site. An easy way to do that is to make sure you include a blog as part of your initial Web site. The more content your site has, the more likely that your site will be found by your target audience and by the media -- thus, you've begun your book promotion campaign as soon as the media can easily find your site in Google and other search engines.

Starting your book promotion campaign really is as easy as creating and launching your book's Web site. For more thoughts on the topic, click here.

Posted by Stacey J Miller at 9:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Kudos to Elisabeth Eaves and her article, "Why Write Books? Notes on BookExpo America," published on Forbes.com."

Along with discussing the current state of the book publishing industry from a refreshingly optimistic perspective, Eaves makes a spot-on observation about the futility of trying to predict book sales. She says in essence, that "a team of blindfolded monkeys throwing darts" could predict book sales as well as any individual or philosophy or theory could.

Which (because I'm always on my soapbox about this topic)leads me back to the point I so frequently make: while book promotion may be tangentially related to book sales, it's impossible to predict how closely related even a highly successful book promotion campaign will be to an increase in book sales, nor is it reasonable to ask a book publicist to guess at the number of book sales that might be generated by a successful book publicity campaign.

That said (over and over again), authors and publishers are always asking me to "sell" my book promotion services by answering, to their satisfaction, the question of how many books they might expect to sell if they invest X, Y, or Z in a book promotion campaign. The question drives me crazy, as does the corollary, which is that certain unscrupulous (or inexperienced or naive) book promotion firms out there to attempt to answer the question -- which, of course, always has the effect of disappointing the author and publisher when the predictions made about book sales fall flat.

"I hired a book publicist, but I was very disappointed in the campaign," is the way authors and publishers typically open their conversation with me after such an experience -- and, as I've said, it drives me nuts, because it's so unnecessary. As Eaves says, books are a creative endeavor, and no one can accurately predict what the demand for creative output will be -- whether it's a book or a song or a painting.

I guess some people feel uncomfortable responding "it's impossible to know" when they're asked, point-blank, to predict the impossible. But I do have a favor to ask of the authors and publishers who set off book publicists to begin with. Please stop asking us to try to predict the effect that book promotion campaigns will have on book sales. We can't make that type of a prediction, because there's simply no science behind such a prediction. I can't answer the question, and my colleagues can't answer the question. Only time, and the book promotion itself, can answer the question of what effect the book promotion campaign will have on book sales.

And that, unfortunately, is that.

Posted by Stacey J Miller at 2:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

If Angelina Jolie is now a more powerful media personality than Oprah Winfrey, perhaps we should all shift our book promotion strategy. Perhaps now it's time to get Angelina Jolie -- and not Oprah Winfrey -- to feature our books in her internationally-respected book club and on her top-rated TV talk show, and maybe it's time to let Angie put her famed book club's imprint on our books and hope that she finds us worthy of granting us an opportunity to promote our books in front of our target audience.

Perhaps Oprah Winfrey is old news for authors and publishers who want to turn their books into instant bestsellers . Perhaps Angelina Jolie's support is what authors and publishers should now be seeking for their books.

Or...maybe not.

And please don't let the fact that I'm not an Angelina Jolie fan influence your opinion about how to proceed now that the stunning news about how Angelina's popularity has overtaken Oprah Winfrey's has hit the news. Seriously. It's all about grabbing Angie's attention now. Send your books to...well...just send your books to wherever in the world Angelina Jolie happens to be shopping for potential additions to her family these days. And good luck with that.

Posted by Stacey J Miller at 8:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)