Something Book Publicists Love to Hear: "Will It Sell Books?"

[From The Huffington Post]

The life of a book publicist is undeniably glamorous and exciting, except for about 98% of it. Mostly it consists of trying to extract useful contacts from outdated media lists and shoving books into Jiffy bags. Sure, sometimes you get to deal with Oprah and Colbert and the Today Show and NPR. More often than not, though, publicity opportunities come in the less sexy form of a local-market radio interview, a short item in a hometown paper, a bylined article in a small journal, a podcast or a guest blog.

When presented with this sort of comparatively modest publicity opportunity, some authors become finicky. They'll hesitate before committing. They want to be sure their efforts will be effective, so they'll ask their publicist: "Will it sell books?"

Book flacks have developed several sophisticated strategies for dealing with this delicate question. "Yes!" is one popular response. "You bet!" is another. "We've had luck with them in the past," is a good one too, a bit more mature and cautious. But when you get right down to it, the only truly honest answer to the question "Will it sell books?" is: "How the %&#@ would I know?"

Wanting to do only those publicity activities that are guaranteed to sell books is understandable. It's a grand strategy, logical and efficient. It really has only one significant flaw, but it's worth mentioning: There's absolutely no way to know with certainty what is going to sell books.

To be sure, an appearance on Oprah or Colbert or the Today Show or NPR or any of a handful of other top-tier media outlets will dramatically increase an author's chances of moving a ton of copies. But there are no guarantees.

That's because interviews don't happen in a vacuum. These shows can provide an audience, but it's up to the author to connect with that audience, and that involves a lot of intangibles. For example: Does the author come across as appealing, informed, entertaining? If so, there's a good chance of seeing some results. Smug, long-winded, drooling? No sale. Does the interviewer appear to be receptive and open to what the author is saying? Great. Dismissive and skeptical? Not so much. Did the host hold the book up to the camera? Perfect. Leave it lying face down on the desk? Not ideal. Use it as a coaster? Uh-oh. Did the segment allow enough time for the author to state some key points? Terrific. Did they cut the interview short to cover Lindsay Lohan's sentencing? Nuts.

Media interviews should come with the same disclaimer as investment opportunities: "Past performance is no guarantee of future results." Just because one author hit the big time on Oprah doesn't mean you will. I know of an author who appeared on Ms. Winfrey's program four times and never saw a significant bump in sales.

Just as you can't be certain the big national shows will sell books, you can't be sure the smaller outlets won't. Thanks to the magic of syndication and the Internet, even the most modest media outlet has the potential to reach consumers beyond its initial audience, if not actually go viral. So if an author performs well on a relatively obscure Internet radio show, who knows what the results might be?

Looking for assurances that an interview will sell books is a trap. For one thing, you'll probably never know if it did or not--generally speaking, there is no practical way to accurately measure the sales impact of any particular publicity hit.

For another, it almost doesn't matter. Yes, the ultimate goal of book publicity is to sell books, but it's not always the immediate goal. Sometimes you just want to break the space and make the impression. That way, if some lunkhead hears you on the radio and sees you quoted in the paper and reads your article in the journal and stumbles across your blog, then--if you're lucky--he might say to himself: "Gee, I keep hearing about this book--maybe I should check it out."

My advice to authors is, don't get hung up about whether a specific interview will generate sales--just take advantage of every opportunity to get the word out. And try to resist the temptation to ask your publicist "Will it sell books?"--maybe it will and maybe it won't. The only thing you can say with certainty is, it won't if you don't do it.


For more things book publicists love to hear, see:
Six Things Book Publicists Love to Hear
Something Book Publicists Love to Hear: "How Can We Leverage This?"
Something Book Publicists Love to Hear: "Did We Know This Was Coming?"

Something Book Publicists Love to Hear: "Did We Know This Was Coming?"

[From The Huffington Post]

When a publishing company's publicity department announces that a major media break has occurred, many an editor, publisher, and sales director will exhibit a unique two-stage reaction. The stages occur sequentially. Stage One is usually along the lines of: "Yay!" Stage Two, which follows just milliseconds later, is invariably: "Did we know this was coming?"

It's a fair question. If a publisher knows about a big media hit in advance, they can consider their stock situation and perhaps push a few more copies out to retailers in anticipation of the crushing demand they hope the publicity will generate. They might even have a discussion about whether going back to press is warranted.

But paranoia lurks deep in the heart of the book publicist, who may think the question is accusatory. "Did we know this was coming?" can sound like "Are you doing your job, or did we just get lucky?"

Book flack--relax! The question almost certainly isn't meant that way, but even if it were, there are just three possible answers:

1. Yes, we knew it was coming and we knew it was coming today.
2. Yes, we knew it was coming but we weren't sure when it was coming.
3. No, we had no idea it was coming.

Any of these answers is acceptable. If it's number one, you're obviously in the clear. If it's number two, chances are you gave everyone some kind of advance notice that something was coming at some point, date TBA. You can't reasonably be expected to know the exact date every publicity break will hit. Media outlets are notoriously squirrely about alerting publicists to run dates, and boy do they hate to be nagged about it.

If it's number three--congratulations! It means your campaign has taken on a life of its own. You've got it right where you want it--bubbling along just beyond your direct control. You don't want to have to work for each and every break--you want the publicity to develop some momentum and generate new publicity for you. That's how publicity works, ideally.

Your colleagues may still pull long faces about the surprise factor--that there was no time to think about getting out more copies or going back to press. So what? The truth is, media outlets with the potential to move the dial to that degree can be counted on one hand--one of those four-fingered cartoon character hands. Or, you know, the Hamburger Helper hand. And you still have to sell through the copies that are already in the marketplace, right?

By the way, if anyone ever does ask you "Are you doing your job, or did we just get lucky?" be sure to tell them they don't know what they're talking about. Anyone who thinks luck doesn't play a role in a successful publicity campaign is out of their tiny little mind.

For more things book publicists love to hear, see Six Things Book Publicsits Love to Hear and Something Book Publicists Love to Hear: "How Can We Leverage This?"

Enter the Book Flack

I am, in fact, a book flack at large. I'm not at large by choice, though, and if I weren't at large I probably wouldn't be blogging.

I spent a lot of years publicizing books and authors. If I were to name some of them--and I may--you would almost certainly recognize a few. Most recently I was a senior director of publicity at a large publishing company, the name of which you would also know (OK, it was HarperCollins). After working there for more than five years, I was laid off in February when they folded Collins, the division that employed me.

I thought hard about how to respond to this layoff. I came up with the notion that I could apply my publicity skills to my situation, and essentially publicize myself into my next position. Instead of telling people what I've done, I'd just show them what I can do, and see if perhaps some opportunities might find me instead of the other way around.

This approach has yielded some interesting results, which I'll describe in future posts. I'll probably also digress into commentary, random musings, and occasional name dropping, much of it book-related. So be warned.