by Leah Paulos
Many authors would rather chew off their own arm than stand in the spotlight promoting a book. They say things like, “I don’t want to seem narcissistic,” “I hate being like, ‘Me, me, me!’” or “I just want to write.’” If this describes you, I am here to explain why — and I know this sounds a little harsh — you need to get over it immediately.
(An aside: I get it — finding language that bridges the gap between authentic and promotional can take some thought, and I empathize. But I also hate to see an author not get their due because they are nervous about putting themselves out there. All of this book publicity advice comes from a place of love!)
Below are three ideas that might help you think about leading a book promotion campaign for your book with confidence:
Conduct this thought experiment.
Conjure a smart and talented friend, and imagine they’ve been working on a creative project — maybe an indie film or an art show—for many years. They’ve poured their heart and soul and thousands of hours into bringing it into the world. It’s finally completed, and the premiere, opening, or launch is coming up.
Now, imagine they say to you, ‘Ugh, I don’t want to email my friends and family about it,’ or ‘I don’t want to look like a narcissist,’ or ‘I’m hoping people find out about it organically.’
You would likely tell them, correctly and emphatically, that’s wild, they must let their people and, if possible, the wider world know about their work. How will their ideas and talent be known otherwise? You and your book deserve the same championing you would insist upon for a loved one.
Put on your business hat when promoting a book.
Authors tend to bristle at this idea but once you have a publishing deal or pub date, you need to think of your book as a product. It’s a smart, creative, thoughtful, excellent product, yes. But it is still a new thing that you want people to know about and buy. No (successful) business in the world launches a product and just waits for people to stumble upon it.
Would a band release a new album and neglect to alert their fans? Would a playwright open a show and make a single social media post about it? Of course not. There’d be a launch party, emails to mailing lists, a website, many social media posts, media outreach — a slew of promotional efforts.
Authors need to do the same.
You might be thinking, isn’t that the publisher’s job? That would be nice, but in-house publicity and marketing teams have slim budgets and are way overstretched. They’re often handling an impossible workload. That includes managing every season’s soon-to-be and newly published books. Plus any longer-term interest in books published in past seasons. Today’s media environment, by and large, requires too much in-the-weeds research time for them to lead robust and highly personalized campaigns for all their books.
Publishers expect authors to be active partners in the promotion of their books — running their own social media (occasionally with marketing help provided), building and maintaining an author website, curating a broad contact list for personal outreach, and more.
No one will be paying as much attention to your promotional emails or posts as you.
Remember, people get hundreds of emails a day and see who-knows-how-many social media posts. It may feel like a heavy lift for you to hit send, but it’s going to land as just one in a ton of other messages. When you post about it online, the vast majority of your followers will miss it.
In this era of overwhelm — with the nonstop churn of social media posts, the proliferation of mailing lists, Substacks, and more clogging your inbox, the reduction in book coverage across the print and digital media landscape, and the pick-and-choose format of personalized news intake—you have to make as much noise as possible.
You need to post about it — and then post about it again! You have to email people — and then you need to follow up with them. I cannot tell you how many top national media hits Press Shop PR has landed for authors on a third follow-up. People miss emails all the time. Sometimes they mark them as unread and forget to go back to them. Sometimes, it just gets pushed down into the depths of the recipient’s inbox too quickly. Don’t let the success of promoting a book depend on other people’s email management skills!
First Steps
Now that you’ve hopefully gotten into a promoting a book mindset, you can start the work.
In the first session of all our Book Publicity School workshops, I tell writers to open up a spreadsheet and start throwing in all their book promotion ideas. Create separate tabs/pages for different types of brainstorming. Make a tab for people you will include on a pre-order email announcement. This should be an expansive list including friends, family, colleagues, former colleagues, neighbors, former neighbors, and your favorite local barista.
Create another for podcasts you’d love to be interviewed on, another for local media contacts/outlets that could potentially write about you and your work, another for book festivals to submit for, and on and on.
Now go forth and tell the world about your book! Getting to publication is a huge accomplishment that many people — even dedicated and talented writers — never reach. Something else to keep in mind: traditional publication of a book means that a group of experts have faith in your book’s ability to bring something new and broadly engaging to the public. So highlight what it offers readers, the value it brings to the conversation, the fun, the informative, and the fresh. That is very different from saying ‘Me, me, me!’
by Leah Paulos (@PressShopPR) April 14, 2024
What about you, scriveners? Do you feel “icky” promoting a book? Which of the promotions Leah suggests are hardest for you to do?
Leah Paulos
Leah Paulos is the Founder and Director of Publicity at Press Shop PR — where she’s led media campaigns for over 300 books, including multiple #1 NYT bestsellers. She leads workshops and coaching programs for authors at Book Publicity School.
Leah has spoken about how to promote a book in many venues, including the Columbia School of Journalism, CUNY Graduate Center, and on The Writer Files podcast. She began her career as a magazine editor at Condé Nast, then worked as a freelance writer and editor for dozens of national magazines and newspapers. She graduated from Cornell University in 1998.
Press Shop PR
Press Shop PR offers independent book publicity campaigns to authors and publishers. We have worked with a wide range of authors and publishers on serious nonfiction, memoirs, literary fiction, and academic and lifestyle titles. Among the books we’ve promoted: MARCH, the #1 bestselling and National Book Award-winning graphic memoir by Representative John Lewis; Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s final book JUSTICE, JUSTICE THOU SHALT PURSUE, #1 NYT bestseller ON TYRANNY by Timothy Snyder; SECRET CITY by James Kirchick; and Louise Aronson’s Pulitzer-finalist ELDERHOOD.
Leah—Thank you for a sensible & essential perspective. No one can buy a book unless they know it exists. Right?
Glad it resonated! It pains me to see how many authors don’t fully promote their books because it makes them feel uncomfortable.
Great post — & so true. As to the ick level of promoting a book, yes, I definitely feel uncomfortable promoting anything associated with me — even asking folks to consider contributing to a fabulous social cause I support. At the same time, I fully agree, when we’ve worked our muses to the bone to get a novel out into the world, we need to step up to the plate (no matter how icky it feels) & let the world know about it.
It’s really common! I hear it from writers all the time in our workshops. It can be hard, but as much as possible, you have to override that hesitation. Like you said, you worked so hard on your book. Why? Because it’s important and you think it needs to be out in the world. Every book needs help from its author to get out there! 🙂
Great post and yes, I don’t feel comfortable promoting but I have a virtual assistant who takes care of all of that. It’s still very hard to find something that works and we’ve tried everything!
“Highlight what it offers readers, the value it brings to the conversation'” I like it. Thanks for an interesting and encouraging post, Leah. And it’s like Ruth said – you can’t sell a book no one’s heard of.
This was a timely post for me and a good reminder of what I have to do. I am getting more comfortable with reading in front of people. The more we do that (and blow our horn) the better we get and I have to keep reminding myself (as someone told me) I’m not selling snake oil!!!
Having been in the self-publishing business for over 30 years and having sold over 1,100,000 copies of my books (mainly self-published) in 22 languages in 29 countries, I have done quite well.
Here is the advice I give to others:
First: Create a damn good book. And disregard the over-emphasis on perfect editing and a great book cover. (This is advocated by editors and cover designers who want to make money off authors whether the author has a viable book or not.)
Second: Once you have written the “damn good book”, then put in more time and effort to promote the book than 99 percent of writers are willing to do.
My motto is: “Content may be king but promotion is the supreme ruler.”
In this regard, I have developed 75 to 100 unique ways of marketing my books that 99 percent of authors, publishers, and so-called book marketing experts are not creative or smart enough to come with.
I first started self-publishing in 1989, with my role model being Robert J. Ringer. He is the only person to the best of my knowledge to write, self-publish, and market three #1 New York Times bestsellers in print editions. His books sold several million copies in the 1970’s and the 1980’s. Not so long two of Ringer’s self-published books were listed by “The New York Times” among the 15 best-selling motivational books of all time.
Robert J. Ringer was a 1-percenter in terms of book promotion. That was the key to his success. It’s the key to my success as well.
Ha! Absolutely—it’s not snake oil. It’s a book you’ve poured (I’m guessing) a huge amount of time and effort into. And now it’s time to spread the word.
Thanks for spotlighting that line, Garry! Any time you are promoting something, it’s helpful to think of the target recipient and what they will find valuable.
Thanks, Leah.
Pundits say that something must be seen at least five to seven times before it’s committed to long-term memory. So that means potential readers must be bombarded by a promo before they even remember it — never mind commit to a purchase.
Who hates promoting? Put up your hand. Ah … nearly everyone! An unfortunate but necessary distraction from writing.
Definitely! And social media moves so fast. Most of your followers miss most of your posts, so just announcing your book or an event one time won’t cut it.
Excellent points, Leah. I don’t enjoy marketing my books, but I do it anyway. Goes with the gig. Thank you mentioning the speed of social media. It’s easy to miss posts. I forget that at times.
You can get others to promote and sell)
Once upon a time, it was my job to cold-call prospects and try to encourage them to buy our product. Introvert that I was (am), this was one of the worst possible jobs I could have held. For those who may not know, cold calling is the hardest form of selling. Its name derives from the fact that the “cold call list” consists of all the prospects with whom you or your company have no direct connection. “Cold Call” prospects have never heard of you or the firm you work for. For these people, you could have any number of unimpeachably honest and trustworthy people working for your company. If George Washington had contacted them with the very best widget ever created, the First President’s name and reputation would not be enough to overcome that client’s objections.
If the above revelation gives you the willies. congratulations! You’re normal. As a people, Americans love to buy, but selling is a very different story, Most of us would rather dive into a swimming pool full of sharks than try to make a sale.. This fear is not so easily overcome UNLESS… Selling VALUE is way easier than any other method. If you have a product or service that provides real value to the customer, and if you fervently believe that your product or service will fill some great need your client has, selling is nof difficult in the least.
Hi Sue,
Thoughts regarding what you’re selling:
1. Is is a book that you would buy willingly?
2. How much value (in terms of writing, characterization, plot, etc. did you include to hold your reader’s interest?
3. Are you selling an item that you find worthwhile?
Forgot to add, if your answer to each of the three questions I posted on May 22, 2924 at 3 a.m. is “YES,” then you are on the road to a lot of successful sales!