Emma Noble is the director of Noble Words Communications and Book Publicity. She has nearly 20 years of experience in promoting writers of fiction and non-fiction in the UK and in Australia. The DIY Book PR Guide: The Happier Guide to Do-It-Yourself Book Publicity in Seven Easy Steps is her first book.
Planning and executing a full-scale book publicity campaign is a daunting prospect for most writers. I teach a detailed, step-by-step process that will help you secure some great media coverage. Here are a few professional tips to get you started.
Tip 1: Be media-read
Prepare a media kit, including a press release and an image of your book cover, as well as your ‘elevator pitch’: Can you describe your book and reasons for writing it in 30 seconds or less?
Tip 2: Offer genuinely valuable content
Your job as a self-publicist is to provide quality content in exchange for access to a media outlet’s audience. In other words, you will offer to take over the role of entertaining, educating or informing their readers or listeners for a few short paragraphs or minutes in return for a mention of your book. This, of course, means you must actually be entertaining, educational or informative! It’s worth keeping this basic exchange in mind whenever you’re talking to journalists. Spell out in your pitch the value you bring.
Tip 3: Think like a publicist
Actively look for opportunities to promote your book. For example, did you come across a page of reviews of titles just like yours in a magazine in a dentist’s waiting room? Rip it out and send them a book.
Learn the tricks of the trade in Emma’s course, Book Publicity for Self-Published Authors on Saturday 11 March, 10am-4pm at the NSW Writers’ Centre.