Discussion on marketing/publicity, part 4

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

Allison Brennan, New York Times bestselling author, shares her views:

I considered hiring a publicist. As background, I have six published romantic thrillers all of which hit the NYT list, the last two the print list. I'm published in PBO and my publisher distributes my books well, with co-op, etc. The reason I was thinking of hiring one was to help push me to the next level, find non-traditional means of publicity like through working mom's magazines (I have five kids) and bookstores -- particularly indie bookstores since I already have a strong presence in the chains.

I made a list of why I thought I needed a publicist, then sat down at a conference with my agent. We went through all the things I wanted a publicist for, then she talked with others at the agency, and while she came back with publicist recommendations (and I also asked M.J. Rose for recommendations because I trust her about all this stuff!) she also said it really would be a waste of money. Basically, what I wanted was all stuff my publisher could do. We needed to tell them what was important to me, and then talk with them about each individual item and see if they would do it.

They agreed to almost everything, and even came up with some other ideas (like having two different covers for my next book, ala Greg Iles' True Evil. But some of my ideas weren't great, and while I'm sure a publicist would have happily taken my money and worked them, I don't know that they would have translated to more sales.

One other thing is that publicists can't guarantee anything -- reviews, interviews, radio, tv, etc. So it's a lot of money for a crapshoot -- unless like M.J. said you have some big meaty hook that would have media people salivate to get you in their magazine/on their tv show.

Also, good publicists are expensive. I would never recommend to anyone to spend their entire advance -- or half their advance -- on a publicist. Okay, if you're James Patterson and have made money in marketing and want to run your own PR campaign for your book, go for it, but for most of us we don't have that kind of money to spend. And remember -- anything you do had better be backed by your publisher in terms of distribution. For example, are your books going to be readily available for people to purchase? If you spend all this money on promo and publicity, and then your books are only available at select bookstores or online, then you've wasted a lot of money (IMO).

I'm sure some people will disagree with me. I'm sure some people have had success with a publicist and spending mega bucks on promo. But I still think writing another good book is the single best promo for your backlist.

So before you spend big bucks, first see if you can get your publisher to pay for any of your ideas. You might be surprised. For example, if you have an idea of putting ads in a specialty magazine -- like dog magazines -- because your series is about a dog walker, maybe they would do it. If you want to send ARCs to specific booksellers, maybe your publisher will print up another 50 and cover your list. I'm sure there are other ideas.