7 Ways to Get Your Money’s Worth from Your Publicist

By Kim Dushinski - Jun 08 , 2007

When you hire a publicist, you want to get your money’s worth. Here are some tips and strategies to help ensure that you do:

1. Choose the Right Publicist for You and Your Book

It all starts by choosing the right publicist. First, look for a publicist who works with books in your genre. This will mean they already have the right contacts and know the angles that work. If they tell you they are not the right firm for you, don’t push it. Ask them if they know who might be a better match.

Work with a publicist who has a pricing strategy you like. Some people like retainer pricing where they get as much publicity as possible for a set price per month. Others prefer to have a guaranteed number of placements for a certain amount of money. Or there is the pay per placement model. None of these are right or wrong. Go with the strategy that feels right to you.

2. Let Your Publicist Decide the Pitch

Your natural inclination will be to share the message of your book with the media. The right way to get media attention is to give them a “hook.” Here’s an example: We publicized an author whose book was the universal blueprint to parenting. The solution to literally any problem a parent faced could be found in this huge book.

Instead of leading with “Parenting Book Solves Every Parenting Problem,” which the media would ignore, we pitched a series of stories about, “How to Stop Your Kid from Whining” and “Are You Teaching Your Child to Lie?” and other specific issues about parenting. The response was tremendous. The media loved our hook.

You will be way too close to the situation to choose the story, and you don’t work with the media on a daily basis. Let your publicist choose what to present to the media.

3. Be Flexible and Accommodating

If your publicist knows they can book you on the spot, and you’ll do whatever you can to make it work, they will be able to book you more easily. If they have to call you first to check your schedule, bookings will slip through their fingers.

Be the client they know can talk about anything even remotely related to your topic. Many times the media will ask, “Can they go into this particular subject from this angle?” If the publicist can confidently say yes, you will get booked more often.

4. Have Everything Else in Place

Your publicist’s job is to get you in the media. Your job is to make sure that everything else is handled. Make sure the book is readily available to be bought before publicity hits.

This seems obvious and simple, but on numerous occasions, we would get media placements for a client. The client would complain that there were no sales. Upon investigation, we’d discover a website with no order button, books not listed on Amazon.com and/or no distribution to bookstores lined up.

Do your part in the sales process so that when your publicist does their’s, you reap the best reward.

5. Stay in Touch

As things happen with your book – you get nominated for an award, you make a big special sale, you get a local media placement, the bookstore you did a signing at said you had the most people there all month – share them with your publicist.

If they know what’s happening with your book, they can share it with the media. It helps them to know there is momentum on your project.

6. Be Grateful

When your publicist gets you booked, thank them. I know this is what you pay them to do for you, but you have no idea how much more appealing it is to get another booking for someone who thanked you for the first one.

Often, a booking will be hard to arrange. To hear, “That’s nice. What else have you got for me?” is just disheartening.

7. Leverage Your Media Exposure

When you get coverage, use it to your full advantage.

Next Week’s Column:
Using Publicity You’ve Already Got, to Get More