(Michelle Blankenship, Kirker Butler, Mitchell Jackson, Angela Pneuman, Christine Sneed) You've sold your book, only to find out that the independent press, the university press, or even the traditional New York press has limited resources dedicated to its publicity. This panel of publicists and authors discusses how best to coordinate efforts between in-house publicists and independent publicists and explores the measures you should - and should not - take on your own behalf. Discussion includes traditional media and social media, as well as how to use events to your advantage.

Published Date: July 6, 2016

Transcription

Speaker 1 (00:00:04):

Welcome to the A W P podcast series. This event was recorded at the 2016 A W P conference in Los Angeles. The recording features Michelle Blankenship, Kirk Butler, Mitchell Jackson, Angela Newman, and Christine Snead. You'll now hear Angela Newman provide introductions.

Speaker 2 (00:00:33):

Thanks for coming out. This panel is called the Changing Face of Book Publicity. I'm going to make a brief introduction, then I'm going to introduce the panel. We have a panel of four novelists, including myself and an independent publicist on the end, Michelle Blankenship. She'll do a brief presentation. The panel will answer a couple questions for me, and then I'll open it up to a q and a in case you have any questions. So as you're coming up as a writer, a book contract can seem like a dream no matter how much of a purist you are in terms of your art. Most of us want to be published so that we can be read or we wouldn't be doing what we're doing. The book contract can be a confirmation that the sacrifices you've made to be a writer have not been in vain, and I'm sure everybody in here has made their own sacrifices, but publishing is a rapidly changing industry.

Speaker 2 (00:01:22):

Technology has challenged the traditional roots to market for books, and there's good and bad to that. Writers have more ways to see their words in print from traditional New York houses and serious independent presses to university presses and self-publishing. We also have more ways than ever of getting attention for those books in print and online. But the downside is that with so much more going on, it's harder to get attention. It's harder to stand out and the resources that have traditionally introduced your book to the world, the marketing and publicity machines of publishers are stretched thin both time-wise and money-wise. It's a painful intersection of art and business with the majority of a company's dollars going to the books that they will gamble will make a profit. It's a different picture than that of years ago, maybe 30 years ago, when an editor might invest in a young author with the intention of growing together as the books matured and when it mattered a little less if your first couple books sold.

Speaker 2 (00:02:19):

Well, everyone understood the relationship was there for the long haul. As a result of these shifts, authors are now expected to take on many of the tasks of getting attention for their own books, and I've tried to draw a distinction here between marketing and publicity. Many of you're expected to handle marketing on your own, and marketing involves anything that can be paid for any kind of social media and what you can do for yourself. Publicity is a different story. Some people are really good at marketing, they're very good at self-promotion and they are active on social media. They're already blogging and this comes very naturally to them. Some authors are more introverted and have trouble with self-promotion. I am one of those people, but more importantly, it can be really hard to try to develop a marketing sensibility when you really want most of your extra time to go to writing.

Speaker 2 (00:03:10):

Most of us have day jobs and do something else, but publicity is a whole different story. Even from marketing. The goal of publicity is unpaid third party endorsements, which carry a lot of weight. So we're talking reviews, invitations to events, interviews, anything that doesn't have to be paid for and depends upon the relationship of media to a publicist. So the difference between marketing and publicity is marketing. You can do yourself or you can pay for publicity. It's very hard to do for yourself because unless you already have been involved in publicity, you don't have the relationships with media that open the door.

Speaker 2 (00:03:48):

Media look to publicists, not authors to help them find relevant material for the venues. Media is operating under their own set of priorities, and a publicist's job is to maintain the kind of relationships with media so that when publicists reach out with a story, the media person trusts that the publicist is not wasting their time. They're realistically matching the venue to the author and book, which is a winning situation for everyone. We have four novelists, as I said, including me who've used an independent publicist. Many of us have used Michelle, so that's why I've asked her to join us today. I've used Michelle and she was my in-house publicist when my first book came out, and she was the independent publicist I used when my second book came out. So I'll introduce myself briefly. I'll introduce all of you and then I will turn it over to Michelle for her presentation.

Speaker 2 (00:04:38):

My name's Angela Newman. I'm a fiction writer. I teach creative writing at Stanford and I run the Napa Valley Writers Conference with my co-director. My first book came out in 2007 with Har Court. That's where Michelle was my in-house publicist. My second book came out in 2014. It was a novel came out from Houghton Mifflin. I'm a bit of a cautionary tale. I'm one of those orphan authors who ended up with an editor that didn't choose my book and a publicity machine that was sympathetic to me, but whose resources went to other places. So I supplemented the in-house publicity machine with Michelle and I was very happy with the result. That's probably enough about me. This is on the far end, is Kirker Butler. Kirker is a two-time Emmy nominated writer and producer who's written for the Family Guy, the Cleveland Show, gallivant and Life in Pieces.

Speaker 2 (00:05:28):

His debut novel, pretty Ugly, was published in 2015 by Thomas Dunn, an imprint of St. Martin's Press. He's also the author of the graphic novel Blue Agave and Worm. Additionally, Ker has contributed to the Huffington Post the Academy Awards and E-News Daily. He lives here in la. This is Christine Snead, Christine's fourth book and second story collection. The Virginity of Famous Men will be published in September by Bloomsbury, her first story collection. Portraits of a few of the people I've made Cry won AWPs 2009, grace Paley Prize in fiction and was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book award. Her novels are Paris he Said, and the Little Known Facts. This is Mitchell Jackson. His debut novel is The Residue Years, and it was published to wide critical acclaim. He's received numerous awards most recently, the Whiting Award, so congratulations. The Residue Years was also a finalist for the Flaherty Dunn First novel Prize, the Pen Hemmingway and the Hurston Wright Legacy Award. His work has appeared in the New York Times book Review Salon in Tenhouse, and he has a collection of essays, right, survival Math coming up from Scribner in 2017. And here we have our superstar independent publicist, Michelle Blankenship. Michelle has worked as an in-house publicist for 16 years at John Wiley and Sons Picador Har court trade in Bloomsbury, and she has represented fiction writers, poets and nonfiction writers. Some of her in-house authors were Gras Jman, ward, SLA and Boka, Umberto Echo, Kay Gibbons, Roger Angel, Charles Simic, URS, Lule, Guen, Rory Stewart and me.

Speaker 2 (00:07:13):

She served as director of publicity for HAR Court and also associate director of publicity at Bloomsbury. In April of 2013, she went freelance and in that capacity she's worked with Jess Ward again, Rebecca Walker, a McBride, Judy Foreman, Mitchell Jackson, and Barney Frank. I'm going to turn it over to Michelle who's going to address you briefly, I think from the table. You can stand up here if you'd like, and then I'll ask the panel a series of questions and then open it up. Thank you.

Speaker 3 (00:07:39):

Okay, can everyone hear me okay? Okay. I talk loudly as it is, so let me know if I'm going too loud. So just when you thought you had completed 95% of the work you needed to get done by finishing writing the book, you suddenly find out that you're not even halfway done. Your job has really just begun of the many well-meaning suggestions that your fellow writers, agents, editors or friends may offer. Often you'll hear that you need to consider hiring an outside publicist or we sometimes say outside publicist, freelance publicist because the person that you're working with at the publishing company is the in-house publicist. So people are going to, some of your friends are going to suggest that maybe you hire someone, but do you really need an outside publicist? How can they help you if you already have an in-house publicist and if you're self-publishing, can a publicist really do anything for you?

Speaker 3 (00:08:40):

Ask 20 people in publishing and you're going to get 20 different answers. But much of what each person will say will be just a variation on a theme. So I'm going to give you my thoughts from what I call my school of publicity. This is how I learned things and this is how distilled my 19 years of experience in publishing. First of all though, I want to hand out what I call two doses of tough love. Number one, no matter how many people you have working on, put the publicity front for you. There's always a chance that you will get nothing at all, not even something from the trades, the trades being publishers, weekly library journal book list. Did I mention Circus Reviews choice? So that's just to keep that in mind because this is not a return on investment game. This is a complete crapshoot, and it's the sad, sad reality.

Speaker 3 (00:09:33):

There are thousands of books published a year. The media are getting thousands of emails a day sometimes, so it's tough. Number two, if you're self-published, your chances are even slimmer for getting any kind of significant media. That doesn't mean it's impossible, it's just that I always tell people, if you're self-publishing, your money is better spent on hiring someone for marketing to help you identify your audience on social media, getting to perhaps book clubs. There are just other ways to connect that. I think if you're going to use your hard earned money, that's the better way to go. So if someone is such a great publicist, why aren't they working? So I can't speak for everyone, but I'm going to paint you a picture. Going freelance is very appealing because the idea is that rather than working on upwards of 30 books or more a year, and don't forget when you work in-house, you never lose your backlist authors, so they're still contacting you as well, and sometimes they win awards and there's just a lot of stuff going on.

Speaker 3 (00:10:37):

So the longer that you're at a company, the bigger your stable is. So you've got this big workload going on and you're trying to help a lot of people all the time. So here's the deal. You've got all this going on, and many times when you cry out about your workload in-house management will tell the publicist that they need better time management skills. So to help you prioritize, they might say that the mid-list novel or that history of a medieval priest that you've been working on that you really love is not so important and that maybe you don't need to just do any follow-up for that. You can get the books out, maybe someone will just email you randomly because they got your press release and got your name on there, but you need to focus on the lead fiction that you're assigned to or the top nonfiction that you're working on that's on the list that they've put a lot of resources into.

Speaker 3 (00:11:36):

So we are all in publishing, not for the money because there is no money really, but we are doing this because we all love books, and so it kind of takes the joy out of the job when you're kind of just become a mailing service for the majority of the books you're working on. So therefore, many in-house publicists are not able to go above and beyond, and if we do, then we're punished for that and we're told, well, if you think your workload's so bad, then maybe you shouldn't do so much for all your books. So therefore, I decided to go out on my own as have lots of other people, and that way we can actually focus on the stuff that we're working on and do a very limited number of books throughout the year. So how can you take advantage of your freelance slash outside publicist?

Speaker 3 (00:12:23):

I have 14 points. I'll try to do them quickly. Number one, plan early. Don't wait until the last minute to decide that you're going to hire someone. I think that you should start 10 to 12 months before your book is going to go on sale. Even if you're self-publishing and you insist that you're going to hire someone and spend your hard earned money on a publicist, you still need to plan out. I think you need to have your timeline to reflect a traditional publishing timeline because it's going to be in the best interest of your book 10 to 12 months. Start asking your friends for recommendations. Number two, don't think of you yourself and your publicist, your freelance publicist as being an us versus them situation. Collaboration is key and there is no need to alienate your in-house publicist or your publisher. No one is trying to make you fail.

Speaker 3 (00:13:15):

Sometimes it feels that way to the authors, but no one is plotting against you in meetings. No one is saying that we don't want this book to succeed. Yes, there might be the conversation of don't put so much time into that book, but it's not personal. It all comes down to numbers. So anyway, so this is not us versus them. It's a let's work together and see how we can cover as many bases as possible. Sometimes that outside publicist is going to pick up a lot of pieces and you guys don't need to know every little detail of who's doing what. You just need to know that it's getting done. I worked in-house for 16 years, so I'm very in-house team. They're working really hard. Let's see, what else can I tell you about Number two, strategize with your publicists about other angles, those little things that your in-house publicist isn't going to have time.

Speaker 3 (00:14:04):

So maybe horses are involved in your book. Well, your in-house publicist didn't have time to research horse publications and blogs and podcasts, so your freelance publicist could do that kind of work for you. Number three, think about your connections and then let your publicity team know that your in-house and your outside publicist let everybody know what those networks are who do sit down and make yourself a goal of, I'm going to try to come up with 500 people that I know. You might not know 500 people, you might only come up with 10, but maybe those 10 are all bars of gold. So just think about who, and then you look at that list and think, oh yeah, they live next door to Nicholas Christophe, or they know Ka pollett or their son writes for Buzzfeed. Just think about what those connections are and then talk with your publicist and then they can help you strategize on how to capitalize on that.

Speaker 3 (00:15:01):

Okay? So number four, ask your publisher very early on about how many galleys and finish copies they're going to produce for your book. I have worked with one too many authors who have been gutted because they found out that their publisher was only going to be doing 50 galleys, and they found out like a week or two before that mailing was going to go out. So you need to know ahead of time. Sometimes authors have the ability to say, Hey, well, I have enough money to buy 50 more galleys so we can send out a hundred galleys. Sometimes you don't, but you need to know that ahead of time. And then also your outside publicist needs to know so that they know what parameters they're working within. We're all used to working with limited resources, so we find other ways, but we need to know and you need to know, and you don't need to be surprised.

Speaker 3 (00:15:50):

Number five, five to six months before pub date, start contacting the people that you know who are from the media or who are affiliated with someone in the media to let them know your book is publishing, okay, but not so fast. First of all, you're not pitching your book to them. You're just saying, Hey, I have a book coming out. I know that you work at gq. Who do you think I should have my publicist send the book to? You're not trying to foist yourself on them. You're not trying to twist their arm and make them feel guilty. They're still not going to be able to do anything for you if they can't do it, but you just want to let them know and to use them as that resource, as a research. Like research. Think of it as doing a Google search, but with a live person.

Speaker 3 (00:16:36):

So you're getting the information from them. Never contact the media directly yourself. They don't want to hear from you unless you know them personally. Do you go golfing with them? Do you go to the sports bar? How do you know this person? So if you don't know them well, then don't contact them. Let your publicist do that. Plus it's a good cop, bad cop situation. They're going to feel guilty, number one, because they're not going to have an answer for you or they don't want to answer you, or they're going to say no, and they're going to be forced and they're not going to do that. I get rejected every day either silently or explicitly by them saying no to me, and some days I get lucky and they say, yes, but I'm used to being rejected and you guys can, we're here to pad you from that a little bit to lessen the sting.

Speaker 3 (00:17:28):

Number six, consult with your publicity team about possible essays and op-eds. You can write, this is the one exception where there are times where you might be able to contact the media directly because sometimes they'd rather hear directly from the writer. If it's a magazine article, if it's an op-ed piece, it just depends. It's all on a case by case basis. But do that with your in-house and your outside publicist. Have that conversation with them because they can tell you, oh, no, it's better if I send it. Or they'll say, no, you should send it and this is who we think you should send it to. Number seven, write a self q and a in consultation with your publicist. No more than five to seven questions. The media when they even look at the press materials, because half the time they don't except to see who is the contact.

Speaker 3 (00:18:13):

They're really reading your jacket copy, by the way, but they're not reading the press materials very often, but if they do, they do not want to see a bunch of words and paragraphs. They want it short, they want it fast. So three to five sentences are your max for the answers and not run on sentences. So be succinct. Think about those five to seven questions that you wish. If you had a press junket, this dream press junket, and everybody was asking you questions, what are those questions you want them to ask you? Think of five to seven of those. Write 'em down and answer them and give them to your publicist. Number eight, watch and read the news. What are the current lead stories? What are the news outlets fixated on at the moment? What stories are on the front page? What do the op-eds sections focus on?

Speaker 3 (00:19:01):

What is trending on social media in terms of news? Pay attention because you may have something to say that's relevant to that, but your publicists are not able to read or watch or listen to every single thing out there. So you're your own expert. You know exactly what you need to be listening for. We're doing that too, but you're focused on yourself. You're allowed to be narcissistic, and we have lots of other people to also be thinking about. So we're relying on you to come to us with information. Number nine, keep tabs on pop culture, which goes hand in hand with current events. Does your book speak to anything that is all the rage at that moment? Unless you're keeping your finger on the pulse of what is current in hip, you are not going to know what's happening, and I might not know either.

Speaker 3 (00:19:52):

So pay attention because you may have something that's relevant. Number 10, read multiple articles by the same journalists. I have lots of authors that come to me and say, oh, I really think that Kaha Pollett would love this book, and really, I think she should talk about it, and we should send it to her, and you should pitch her and blah, blah, blah, blah. Well, that's great, except I might be more familiar with what Kaha writes, and I might think that there's no way. I think we need to focus our energies on something else. So it helps if the author is well-informed about, it's not just a fantasy. You want to be realistic. You might have to make yourself cry sometimes, but you just have to really think about what's realistic. Does John Stewart, who's not on the air anymore, but say someone like John Stewart, is he really?

Speaker 3 (00:20:36):

Do you really think this is possible? It never hurts to pitch, but just in terms of how much you're pushing, because sometimes the authors get very anxious and they're really pushing us to try to make something happen, and you want them to be spending their energy in the right places. So think about that. Read what they're writing, read a lot of their articles. You like Nick Christophe, great, but make sure you read more than one or two pieces that you found really inspiring. Read 30 of those pieces to find a pattern. Listen to Terry Gross. Listen to Terry Gross on Fresh Air and really pay attention to the kinds of things that she tends to bring on the show. Again, we can still pitch Sam Brier at Fresh Air, who's Terry's producer for books, but in terms of how much you're pressuring yourself and getting yourself worked up and then getting us worked up, just think about how, again, think about the energy and where it needs to go.

Speaker 3 (00:21:31):

What is your backstory? Number 11, what's your backstory? Is there anything interesting, anything unique about how you came to write the book? Now, you might find it interesting. I might find it interesting. Not everything is going to be interesting to the media, and I'm going to know that. And so you also, not just any outside publicist, any in-house publicist is going to be able to tell you, well, it's interesting to me, but they get these kinds of stories all the time. This triumphing triumphing over hardships or this, that and the other. There has to be more. And so sometimes we can help you tease that out. But come to us. Don't be afraid. Don't be timid about it, but also don't come to us thinking that it's going to definitely be a great idea. We know how to work with the media, so it may seem unique and exciting to you, but still think about your backstory.

Speaker 3 (00:22:23):

Maybe you wrote your book in a barn or wrote it in a box. I don't know. But it might be something interesting that we can use as a story. Number 12, are you an expert? Broadcast? Media is always looking for the talking heads who can speak directly to topics that are in the news, that are part of what we call the news cycle. So let your publicist know when things hit the news. Again, as I said, we can't watch, see, read, listen to everything, so we need your help to, and that's again, this is not just your freelance publicist, your in-house publicist team too. We just need to know you are the expert. Number 13, is the book going on sale on any particular anniversary or designated days, weeks or months, like African American History Month, breast Cancer Awareness Month, earth Day, et cetera, et cetera, world War ii, history, anniversary of some kind, that sort of thing.

Speaker 3 (00:23:14):

And then I swear I'm almost done. Number 14, do you have access to documents, photographs, sources that no one else can get to? Don't tell us at the last minute or like, oh, as an afterthought of right before the book goes on sale, let us know ahead of time maybe. Maybe the Diane Arbus estate decided they were going to let you have access to something. Well, that never happens, so that's a big deal we need to know. So think about that kind of stuff, especially if you've written or if you've written a fiction book that's based on something that was a real event that could be very appealing to certain types of media outlets. So in closing, remember that publishing a book can often be an exercise in humility. So surround yourself with professionals who have been through the ups and downs of publishing and can guide you through the highs and lows. There is no magic wand that makes a book a big success, but beefing up your publicity team by bringing on a freelance publicist can be instrumental in the life of the book and the writer.

Speaker 2 (00:24:24):

Thank you, Michelle. I'm going to open it up to the panel and I'm going to go question by question. And first, let's start with what factors went into your decision to hire an independent publicist? Because all of us on the panel had a fairly, I mean, with fairly different stories, we all had similar roots to publishing New York houses, an in-house publicist, but we all, for some reason or another, one reason or another went with an independent publicist. So let's hear what circumstances led to that decision? Can we start with Kirk? Sure.

Speaker 4 (00:24:56):

Okay. Hi. My book was also an orphan book. I had an editor who was very excited about it, and then he was phased out and it was given to some guy. And my book is about children's beauty pageants in the south. It's a novel, and the editor had just written a book about wizards and shit or something, I don't know. So he did not care at all about it, and he gave me one note once, and I didn't really agree with it, and then he never spoke to me again. Really, he never gave me another note. He never helped in any way. And so the in-house publicist really enjoyed the book and really liked it, but it was obvious that they were not going to put any time or any effort into it. And so I knew that if anybody was going to see this, I was going to have to find somebody else to do it, and I did, and she was great. Yeah, it helped tremendously. But yeah, it was because I knew that there was no one there who cared enough to really push it the way it needed to be pushed.

Speaker 5 (00:26:03):

My first book was the Story Collection and portraits of a few of the people I've made Cry. And it actually was first published in hardback by University of Massachusetts Press because it won the Paley Prize in 2009 from a W p. And then Bloomsbury eventually reissued it in paperback four years, about four years later. But I knew that University of Massachusetts press produced beautiful books, and they're very devoted staff, but being a small press, they only had a certain number of hours of the day that they could and resources that they could offer to each title that they published every year. And at that point, I knew absolutely nothing about publicity, but I had a good friend who'd worked with the publicist that I hired who's based in Chicago, and she said, just call her and find out if she would be interested in looking at your work. If she likes it, then she'll probably represent you if she's not too busy. So I did, and she did end up representing me, and it was a very good investment because that book went on to get quite a few reviews, but that was serendipity. As Michelle said, I've learned with each of my books that the previous book or any successes you had with it, that does not mean that your next book is going to do as well. So it really is an exercise in humility, but we could talk about more about that later.

Speaker 2 (00:27:15):

Like I mentioned, I was orphaned and I had a pretty sympathetic editor pick me up, but before I hired Michelle, she said, let's just pose a question to your editor, ask to see the marketing plan. And so I did, and I have a background in corporate marketing in the wine business, so I was like, lemme see the marketing plan. And she was like, oh, I don't really have it ready yet. And three days later, I get this marketing plan and the headliner is mommy blogs. That was the height of what they were reaching for with my book, and it's a book of literary fiction. And I told Michelle and Michelle's like, I think we need to intervene here. And so that's when I brought her on board. I was lucky enough to, I've had a long-term relationship with Michelle, and so both my agent and Michelle both worked with the in-house team to make sure some more things were happening and we had to end up pushing back a little bit. And it was discouraging, but it was also better to know than not know, because if I hadn't asked Michelle just as my friend before I hired her, I wouldn't have known what the marketing plan was. Even with my background, it didn't occur to me to ask what the plan was. So I brought Michelle on board and we wallpapered the world with the book and got more reviews than I would've had otherwise.

Speaker 6 (00:28:29):

Hello? Oh, you guys can hear me? Yeah. Okay, good. I guess I should go back to when I met Michelle. It was a reading that Jasmine Ward did at N Y U, and I don't know if she had just got, maybe she was already nominated for the National Book of War. But anyway, I was like, well, if Michelle is hanging with Jasmine Ward, then I was like, my book's coming out on I want you. And she was like, oh yeah, sure, Mitch, you can be with me. Sure. I know she really didn't believe it, but then I was like, can I have Michelle? And so I did get Michelle when I finally got to Bloomsbury and they got my marketing and publicity, and then we were rolling a couple months and everything was going good and we were playing, and I had these really big plans and I'm like, yo, let's call Oprah.

Speaker 6 (00:29:11):

You got her cell and all those things. And Michelle's like, nah, nah, I think she changed the number on me, but let's wait on that. And then right before my book is about to come out, Michelle leaves, she's like, leaves Bloomsbury. I'm like, wait, Michelle, we were about to take over the world. What are you doing? And then she called me back and she was like, I'm going independent, but I still want us to work together. And so that's how we ended up working. So I got orphaned by Michelle. I was orphaned by Michelle, but then she came back and adopted me. And so here we are together.

Speaker 2 (00:29:52):

Alright, what about the navigation between the in-house publicist that's assigned to your book and the outside this that you hire? I was lucky that my in-house publicist was a friend of Michelle's and had worked with her before. So that came together kind of at the last minute because she was a substitution as well. My agent was at a new agency, my editor left ship and my publicist quit the book, so not because of me. So Michelle ended up being very friendly with my publicist and they worked together as a team. But I'm wondering about what happened with everybody else. And the reason for the question is that there does exist sometimes a little testiness between in-house and independent publicist that can be smoothed. So it doesn't have to be testy, but if you decide to go this route, you might encounter that initially. And so there are some ways to manage that.

Speaker 4 (00:30:46):

Yeah, it was very smooth for me. My experience was great. Katie Bassell at St. Martin's was fantastic. She really liked the book, but she knew that there was no way she was going to be able to give it the attention that it deserved. And they worked great together. I mean, they knew different people, but they knew enough of the same people to where they could really give a push to in those certain areas. And it was, it kind of seamless. It really worked well.

Speaker 5 (00:31:17):

I had a good experience too, and I've worked with the same independent publicist. And after University of Massachusetts, Bloomsbury published my next books, but not

Speaker 2 (00:31:25):

Michelle.

Speaker 5 (00:31:26):

You didn't work? No, Michelle actually, it was another publicist in house at Bloomsbury who was assigned Sarah Mecurio, who actually is based in the West coast. Her husband works, I think in TV here in la. But the one thing that, I mean, fortunately Sarah and Cheryl, the publicist I hired get along very well. But I have heard from Cheryl that occasionally it might take the in-house publicist a long time to share media lists. So the reason why they need to share them is so that they don't submit or they don't carpet bomb. Like the New York Times, you don't want to send 50 copies of your galley to the New York Times because your publicist in-house sent 20 and then your independent publicist sent 20. So they have to share information. And if you find an in-house publicist who's either too harried or for whatever reason is just not willing to do the share, then that can be tricky. But I think mean generally, as Michelle said before, I haven't had to be that neurotic, but I do think it's easy to think that, oh, they don't want to, the in-house person is just busy with other books or they don't like me or they're mad that I hired an outside publicist. I don't think that's the case. I mean, your house needs to sell your books so that they can keep publishing other people and maybe future books by you. Yeah, I mean it's been smooth for me.

Speaker 6 (00:32:45):

It went smooth, but I don't know really. I think I had the benefit of I had a new publicist and you get a new job, you want to make good on your job. So I think I received the benefit of having a new publicist who was trying to make a good impression. And then also I feel like Michelle probably extended herself to the, I feel like the outside publicist probably needs to extend themselves to the in-house publishers to kind of smooth out that relationship and make 'em not feel threatened, especially when they're coming into a new position. So I think if I had it to do over again, I might've said, let's go out and eat so that we all like y'all going to have to get together. Look, we trying to sell a book here, but I didn't do that. But I do think that Michelle probably extended herself to my publishers and Summer Bloomsbury since we shout now publicist. She's great. If you ever get her, she's a really good publicist. That's it.

Speaker 2 (00:33:41):

What about the kind of plan that your independent publicist produced for you and how the two of you together determine the kinds of things that you could do on your own Facebook and Twitter and some of the marketing things we touched on at the very first and what you shouldn't do on your own? So if any of you talked that way, Michelle provided for me. She didn't manage Twitter and Facebook for me, but she provided a list of guidelines and said, go do it this way, which was very, very helpful. And then don't do it this way. So I'm just curious about if any of the rest of you work together on a plan that way.

Speaker 4 (00:34:16):

Well, I've been on Twitter for a while, but I've just put out dumb jokes and I was never really one to self-promote that way. So that was just difficult for me and trying to get over that and being the guy who's like, Hey, buy my book. But it was not something that I was comfortable with. But Michelle said, you got to do that. And so Facebook I did and Twitter, I don't really recall putting together a social media plan. It was just, you've got do what you can on that. And she did the rest of the stuff that actually I think sold the book. I don't think a single person bought a book because I was tweeting about it. It was all of the other stuff that she was doing.

Speaker 3 (00:35:02):

And just to jump in for a second, that often at houses, the marketing team, they're the ones that will talk to you about your social media strategy, how to work that and what some of those guidelines are. It's just that some authors will come to me and they want a little bit more. I just give them my 2 cents from my little personal peanut gallery. But it doesn't, the marketing team is much more of an expert on that side.

Speaker 4 (00:35:33):

And just St. Martin's, I think they sent out a tweet about my book. So they were not really the day it came out in their list of 50 tweets, I think I was in there somewhere. I don't know what their marketing plan was, but it was not extensive.

Speaker 6 (00:35:51):

One of the things that I think, and I don't know if everyone has this opportunity, but to go into the publishing house and meet the people who are going to be on your team and develop a relationship with them. I mean, I remember I used to come to Bloomsbury and I would be sitting in the hall laughing and people would come on, is that Mitch in there laughing? And so when that happened, I knew that I had a certain relationship and it's a lot harder to say, we're not going to send out this tweet for you, Mitch. And the other thing is, I probably have sent Michelle, I don't know how many six plans or something. Every time something happens, I got a full plan like, all right, look Michelle, we going to do this and that and let's do this and that, and let's call this person and that person. And she sometimes will say like, no, we can't do this, Mitch. We're not, this isn't reasonable, but you have to tell me no. And so I think one of the other thing is just to be ambitious and let them not to go and reach out to the New York Times every day with coffee, but to have a plan in effect and to share it with your publicists and then let them tell you what is realistic and what is not realistic, but don't necessarily just depend on someone to give you a plan to execute.

Speaker 5 (00:37:00):

Well, one thing that you guys are all talking about in one way or another is just be a kind person. So thank people for doing things for you and read your friend's books if they're writers and tweet about them and put posts on Facebook. But then as far as the practical details related to the publicity plan for my books, Michelle mentioned trying to write on spec, some essays and getting them published if possible with a glossy or a big market newspaper. I had a piece published in the New York Times the month before my last book, Paris, he said, came out in private lives that column, and I don't know if it sold any books, but at least maybe a few more people were familiar with my name. And also one thing that I did on my own was I scheduled some of my readings and I had relationships already with a number of bookstores from my previous couple of books.

Speaker 5 (00:37:55):

And in that case too, thanking them. And in a few cases I brought little presents if I had the energy and the time to buy a coffee mug and some tea or something like that and give it to the bookstore owner or his staff. So that was stuff that they remembered and it really, I think has made them loyal to me. I've noticed that most of my sales are in the Chicago area, in part because I live there, but also because I have good relationships with those bookstores. And the hand selling is actually the key to a lot of books, especially literary fiction, that success is often based on these independent booksellers telling their patrons that your book is good and they should buy it.

Speaker 2 (00:38:34):

And I can speak to Christine's influence in the Chicago area because when I was living there, when my second book came out and she set up contacts with all the bookstores for me. So I wanted to ask you after I finished about being a good literary citizen, she's a fine example when you talk a little bit about writing collateral material around the book. It's wonderful if you can get something placed in the New York Times, but if you can do it for free, there are venues that we all know, salon and the Rumpus who are hungry for content and they're going to put up what you write and the struggle for me. So I started writing things for salon and doing interviews with other authors for the rumpus. And the struggle for me is I don't really want to write the kind of articles salon wants to put up.

Speaker 2 (00:39:20):

So I wrote a few, they wanted to know what sex was like growing up evangelical or what. I mean, it was like they wanted me to kind of expose, expose, expose, and then the trolls would get on and say things. So there's a comfort level too. But if you can get out in front of that so that someone's not just calling you at the last minute saying, Hey, salon wants something for you from you, put it together. But if you can think about that before your book comes out and have some pieces ready, that could be really helpful. And kind of like I said, I'd love to write something for the New York Times and be paid for it, but there is tons of exposure online for free, pretty well respected venues that we'll look for. But anyway, talk a little bit about being a good literary citizen. Christine has a blog and she interviews authors and she's very promotional for all kinds of people who come through Chicago and everywhere else. And anyone else too, who's on the panel who's, go ahead.

Speaker 5 (00:40:14):

Okay, I'll just say something quickly. I mean, most of you guys probably have friends who are also writers. And so when I know someone's got a book coming out, I ask them, do you want to do a q and a for my blog? And usually I've read the whole book or I've read most of it and I can write maybe five or six questions and then they get it back to me within a couple of weeks and I post it. I mean, I probably get 50 people looking at it. It's not a big deal. I'm not sort of an obsessive blogger at all, but I think that helps and they appreciate it. So I post links to the q and a on Twitter and Facebook, and I have an author page on Facebook as well. It's a personal page, which if you don't have that yet, you should probably set it up and then just invite your friends to click.

Speaker 5 (00:40:58):

And then I do go to events. I think if you want people to come to yours, you really have to make an effort. And it's exhausting. And my partner's like, are you going out again? You go out every night, why are you actually, it's not that bad. But he's like, well, wow, you're home tonight. So I mean, you do have to bust your ass basically. And maybe, I don't think you have to do it into perpetuity, but being present and doing things for other writers, buying their books, when you go to their readings, even if you already bought it on Amazon, it's a good idea to buy another copy and just give it to a friend or family member. So I think that will build you friends and keep those friendships. And then also just appreciative readers probably. And it doesn't have to be calculating. I actually really like most of my friends' books a lot, so not going to love everything that your friends write. And they certainly don't love everything that I've written, but I genuinely want to help them. And I think they know that. So that sincerity is a good thing too.

Speaker 2 (00:41:54):

And the reading series that

Speaker 5 (00:41:55):

You run? Oh yes. I used to. I don't do it anymore because I've been dividing my time between Urbana and Evanston. But I used to help curated and directed a reading series in Chicago called Sunday Salon Chicago for two years. And I would invite a lot of people, Angela's Red for the series and we can't pay people, but I mean most of the people are local or they're passing through doing a book tour so they're happy to read and they can sell their own books. And I met a lot of other writers and I was also able to help friends get more exposure for their books. It just, it's fun. It's a good thing.

Speaker 3 (00:42:30):

One thing that I've told people who self-publish is because sometimes they get frustrated and they feel alienated because they can't get a reading at a local bookstore or something like that. And I always tell them, it's easy to get completely self-absorbed when you're, you feel like it's you against the world. But if you try to create a community with your fellow self-published authors and try to come up with a reading series or maybe work with your local library, I think that's being a good literary citizen as well. If you are pro self-publishing, then you need to support your fellow authors who are also self-publishing and creating venues for them so that for the future, for their future of self-publishing, it's easy to be very self-centered on the self in any arena, but especially on the self-publishing

Speaker 2 (00:43:19):

Side. I dunno what you mean. I don't think any writers are self-centered for artists in general.

Speaker 2 (00:43:26):

I think part of being a good literary citizen, and Christine touched on this, is not just to show up at the independent bookstores when you need something from them, but to have been a community member and a support of them all along the way. In my community, I live in Napa Valley and there's a great store in Sonoma called Reader's Books. They often feature given me a reading every time I've published a book. But they've also, they do like every Wednesday night is community night and there are memoirist people who've published a cookbook, people who've published picture books, they're really supportive of writers in the community, self-published or no. And I think the smaller the community obviously and the more present you are in the community and active supporting all kinds of writers, even if you just run a workshop or even if you just create a local blog, I think that can paint it forward. That way comes back to you in really valuable ways when you have something out there to promote. Is anything else the panel would like to add before I open it up to questions? What questions do you have? I'll repeat it so everyone can hear.

Speaker 7 (00:44:35):

Talk about the cost of having an outside publicist.

Speaker 2 (00:44:38):

Yes. The cost of having an outside publicist,

Speaker 3 (00:44:40):

It's a really good question. It's expensive. I would say the range would be on the low end, 10,000 on the high end, 30,000 depending on what it is that you're wanting to hire the person to do. If you're wanting to go on a tour, that's going to cost a lot of money, very time consuming, or if you want them for an extended long, long period of time or something like that. So it's a lot of money. It's a big chunk of money and there's no guaranteed r o I return on investment for that. So you have to make sure that you find someone that you feel really comfortable with and that you can establish a level of trust with that they're going to do everything they can with your hard earned money that they're trying to earn a hard as well.

Speaker 2 (00:45:24):

Some people say if you publish that a small press and your amount is around $10,000 if you're lucky, which is a great book deal. Some people spend all of that on a publicist, especially a debut author. You're only a debut author once, and there tends to be a special kind of attention for debut authors that's never available to you again. So it might be the time to invest.

Speaker 3 (00:45:49):

Oh, go ahead.

Speaker 4 (00:45:49):

I was, that's what I did. I gave my entire advance to Michelle.

Speaker 5 (00:45:52):

Oh no, God,

Speaker 4 (00:45:54):

She had literally and

Speaker 2 (00:45:56):

Your third child every penny. Yeah,

Speaker 3 (00:45:58):

Like rumpel stilt skin or something.

Speaker 4 (00:46:01):

But it was worth it. It was completely worth it, and I would do it again. Yeah, I know that I wouldn't have sold as many books if I hadn't done that. So it was, in my mind, it was completely worth it.

Speaker 5 (00:46:10):

And I've seen people handle it in creative ways, getting the funding. They've done Kickstarters. I know writers who've like, I'm going on a book tour. Or if you do, I mean there you can do stuff like that. You can do sort of the crowd rise funding and then, I mean, you could claim it on your taxes. So there are definitely claim, you can get arts grants from states too. Sometimes they'll have small amounts of money that they'll disperse maybe like a thousand dollars that you can put toward the publicity of your book. So you just have to be resourceful and you have to be obviously energized to do this. But there are some sources to help you pay.

Speaker 3 (00:46:47):

Mitchell. I know I don't want to belabor this too long, but just Mitchell mentioned something else important that when you're talking to freelance publicists, you need to talk to 'em about what their timeframe is. Some of us work longer than others. A lot of publicists will only do two months before pub date and one month after. So three months, you pay anywhere from 10 to however 25, $30,000. Whereas there are some publicists like me who you can sign on with me a year before the book goes on sale. I'm going to work with you that same flat fee from the day you come and say, let's work together through one month past the publication date. So that is just something also to keep in mind

Speaker 8 (00:47:28):

As you're researching a publicist, what are the things that you would want us to ask? What are the right questions? Things more like that. What are the options? Not just pay structure, but also how do you identify someone who really has relationships?

Speaker 2 (