Discussion on marketing/publicity, part 2

Continuing our discussion on marketing and publicity for authors...

The question was raised about the pros and cons of hiring a PR person. M.J. Rose responded with this advice:

The press is not interested in fiction/fiction authors in general. Only the biggest/richest/most famous. In general, I'd say that 80% of us don't need big traditional PR people, but combos of other things.

So to beat those odds, you need to know:

1. What's the book about?

2. What is your goal in hiring someone? Reviews? Off the book page stories about you/book? Interviews?

3. Who is the publisher? What is the expected print run? How important is the book to the house? Is it a lead title? Are they doing anything for the book you know about other than review copies and coop?

4. Who are you, other than "an author"? Famous, infamous, background, specialty? (Meaning: Barry Eisler was in the CIA so he wrote a CIA novel - he'll have a better shot at getting PR than me, an ad exec, writing a CIA novel.)

5. What do you think someone would write about in the press when it comes to your book? Other than, "this authors wrote this good book." What's the news? What's the story?

6. What is your budget? $2000-5000? $5000-10,000? $10,000 plus?

7. Pub date of the book?

Once you have the answers to those questions, you'll be in a much better position to start making informed decisions about what to do with your promotional money.