How to Avoid the Six Most Common Mistakes in PR

By Michael Drew - Jun 13 , 2007

So you’ve sold your author on the importance of a serious Public Relations (PR) campaign prior to the release of his book. Congratulations. That’s no small feat.

Now that you’ve convinced him it’s time to get busy, let’s address the six most common mistakes he needs to avoid in order for his PR efforts to pay off big in terms of book sales:

Mistake #1: Chasing Instant Gratification

Online banking. Pay at the pump gas. Movies on demand. We’ve grown accustomed to having our desires met instantaneously. In fact, we’ve come to expect it. Unfortunately, successful PR doesn’t work that way. There are too many people wrestling for journalists’ attention these days. The number of books written each year has skyrocketed from a 100-year average of 40,000, to 190,000 in 2004. It seems everyone has a story to tell, and they’re all grappling for media assistance to get the chance to tell it.

Blast-fax press releases are proving less and less effective. Your author needs to establish himself as a reliable source for the group of journalists he determines can help him when it’s time to release his book. He needs to make contact with these individuals months in advance and offer insights and observations that help them with the stories they’re currently working on. This will help get him noticed when he calls for their help to get his story out.

And despite all that, consumers still won’t respond immediately. People need to hear your author’s message an average of three times a week for a period of several weeks before they’ll seriously consider a trip to the bookstore with his book in mind. Prepare your author for this reality and encourage him to stay patient when people don’t respond as quickly as he’d like. Help him devise a PR plan that encompasses a long-term strategy focused on recurring book sales.

Mistake #2: Over-Reaching the Budget

Without an unlimited budget, there’s no possible way to reach everyone your author would like to reach. That’s okay. Help him fight the temptation to spread his dollars too thin. It’s far more important to reach a portion of the target audience with sufficient frequency than it is to reach all of them once.

As legendary advertising exec, Bill Bernbach once quipped, “Would you rather reach 100% of the people and convince them 10% of the way, or reach 10% of the people and convince them 100% of the way?”

Your author’s rule of thumb should be to reach as many people as he can afford to reach with sufficient repetition. I encourage authors to institute a PR plan that has them reaching their audience three times for every seven night’s sleep.

Mistake #3: Failing to Give People What They Want

Human beings are selfish creatures. We’ve always been that way. Your author needs to be aware of this as he embarks on his PR journey. People don’t care about what he wants. They’re not interested in what he would like them to do. The way to get them to respond is by being the person that helps them do what they want to do.

How does your author help people satisfy their wants and needs? If he answers that question, he’ll find the central focus of his campaign. They need to be the subject of whatever story he tells. He can’t make them buy the book. But he can send a message that communicates his ability to provide something they’re looking for—something that, in some small way, makes their lives better.

Mistake #4: Making Unsubstantiated Claims

People have been burnt by declarations of a “huge selection” and “low-low prices” so many times that such claims are just not believable anymore. After all, only one person in a category can truly be the low-cost provider. Just like only one person can offer the largest selection. Everybody else who makes those claims is opening themselves up to the ultra-sensitive B.S. Meter that consumers have adopted over the years.

It gets even more dangerous in the world of Public Relations. Not only is your author making a claim, he’s also asking media professionals to help make those claims on his behalf. The last thing your author wants is to be called out in the media for sensationalizing a point or exaggerating a fact. Refer your author to the James Frey, A Million Little Pieces story (of Oprah fame; boy, was she mad when she found out!) if he needs further clarification on just how wrong things can go when you try to build your story into something it’s not.

Mistake #5: Using the Wrong Media

Encourage your author to do his homework ahead of time. His choices on which media outlets and channels to contact need to be the result of strategic planning and research. Is his message and story similar to the messages and stories a selected publication or station has profiled in the past? Do those publications and stations cater to his target audience? A little forethought and understanding going in will help him avoid a lot of wasted time and effort down the road.

Mistake #6: Engaging in PR Instead of Working a PR Campaign

It’s not hard to intellectualize the difference between a series of discombobulated, scarcely connected ads and a well-thought-out advertising campaign. Historically speaking, those companies that have employed the latter approach have enjoyed much better results.

The same rule applies to Public Relations. Your author must think of his PR campaign as more of a marathon rather than a sprint. The plan he creates should ration important information and fresh perspectives over the long haul. If he front-loads all his best stuff, he’ll have nothing interesting to share later on. Each promotional activity he engages in should be a part of an overall strategy.

Each of these gaffes tempts hungry authors with a scenario that’s difficult to resist. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t appear on the list of most common mistakes. Do everything you can to help your author avoid them, and his PR effort will have a much better shot at piquing the kind of interest that leads to the kind of book sales you both want to see happen.

Questions about how to avoid the six most common mistakes in Public Relations may be directed to Michael R. Drew at the Austin, Texas, headquarters of Promote A Book: 512-858-0040. Contact him online at Michael@promoteabook.com.