With offices in New Jersey and Toronto, Smith Publicity represents a wide range of authors, both traditional and self-published. Clients include authors of business books, fiction, children’s books, self-help, and more. Company president Sandy Smith has more than 15 years of experience in marketing, communications, and public relations, and has placed clients on the “Today Show,” on CNN, and in the pages of “Parade Magazine” and the “Wall Street Journal.”
In this conversation, Sandy shares:
How publicity differs from advertising and other forms of promotion
What an author should expect from a publicist
What a publicist should expect from an author
Quite frankly, the media really doesn’t care that an author wrote a book. There are thousands of books that come out every day. So what we have to do is make the book newsworthy.
Part 1: How is Publicity Different from Advertising and Social Media?
Part 2: “Will You Get Me on the ‘Today Show’?”
Part 3: When Is Too Soon–or Too Late–for a Publicity?
LISTEN TO THE EPISODE
Click here to subscribe to our mailing list and get your free download of the PDF and MP3 of this interview!
PART 1: HOW IS PUBLICITY DIFFERENT FROM ADVERTISING AND SOCIAL MEDIA?
DIY AUTHOR: Smith Publicity is a big company, with a big team, and offices in two cities. Would you give us the 30,000 foot view of the company?
SMITH: It’s interesting when people call us a ‘big company’—and you’re absolutely right, in the book industry we are considered a big company. I think we’re the largest book publicity agency in the world.
But we’re still pretty small, there are about 20 of us. We’re focused 100-percent on books and authors. We have a diverse range of book publicists from all different kinds of backgrounds, from behind the cameras producing TV shows, and reporters, and the publishing world. We have a great group of hard-working individuals who have a passion for books and, really, a passion for making good things happen for authors.
Our main office is in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, which is outside of Philadelphia. We also have an office in Toronto, because we have lots of Canadian authors.
We work with self-published authors who come to us directly. We also work with traditionally published authors whose publishers may not have the funds or the staff to really help an author. We work with authors worldwide. We have fun with what we do, and we hope our authors enjoy this part of the publishing process.
DIY AUTHOR: You are president of the company. What does that entail?
SMITH: Because of the size of the company, it could mean anything—from making sure that our light bulbs are working in the office.
But, more importantly, I do a lot of consulting with potential and current clients. I’ve just written a business book, I want to be a thought leader—what type of media would help me get my platform to the next level? And we will brainstorm ideas. I’ll visit their website. I will look at their back cover copy.
From a fiction perspective, often I’m working with authors to help develop their platform. Publicity is one small part of an author building their name and building his or her reputation—especially with social media and all the platforms. I’m looking at it from a publicity perspective, which means interacting with the media—television, radio, newspapers, magazines, the online outlets, and blogs.
So, we’re looking at the complete package of an author. I’m usually advising and educating. Depending on what stage we start talking, sometimes I work with people for a year before they actually sign on with Smith publicity. After they become clients, they are assigned a publicist who is really on the forefront and pitching every day.
But I’m also going in and brainstorming strategy calls to make sure that we are really covering every opportunity possible for our authors.
DIY AUTHOR: When an author is thinking of promotions, there are several different directions they can go—including social media and paid marketing. What is the specific role of publicity?
SMITH: That’s a great question. Now there’s a big difference between advertising and publicity. Some people, when they come to us, kind of lump it all together.
Advertising is paid, like you see in a magazine. You’ll see perhaps a book cover and, if it’s a good ad, might have some positive review copy. But for advertising the client picks where it’s advertised, how much, and controls a budget that’s paid. Advertising a book is very controllable from a publicity perspective.
TV Interview with Smith Publicity client Dr. Domenick Maglio
Publicity is credible—what we’re doing is making the author and the book part of the news. It’s not controllable. We can pitch to a newspaper, a radio station, a TV station, a blogger, but it’s really up to them if they choose to cover the author in some way. When they do, when they are interviewed, when the book is featured in some way, whether it’s a review, a recommendation, or expert commentary, it’s priceless. You can’t pay for publicity coverage because it’s part of the news.
Social media comes into play with the author taking the traditional publicity placements, whether it’s a radio interview and rebroadcasting it, and amplifying that message through their social media channels. It’s a wonderful complement, social media with traditional publicity placement.
You don’t have to have social media. You don’t have to have publicity. But it’s really nice when it all works together, with social media complementing a traditional media campaign.
There are usually three reasons why an author does social media: 1) to connect with fans; 2) to connect with fellow writers in their genre, which is a wonderful way of getting more followers and fans and recommendations, especially when it’s done authentically; and 3) connecting with influencers, whether it’s bloggers, reviewers, and media. Social media in conjunction with publicity or other marketing efforts can really help an author take their platform to the next level.
DIY AUTHOR: Is the strategy to promote the author or an individual book?
SMITH: It depends on the book and the author’s goal. For nonfiction authors who want to be known as an expert or a thought leader, the book often is not that important. They’re using the book as a business card. So, while promoting the book is important, often it’s really more about promoting the author.
For fiction, it’s typically more about the book. No one buys a book because of an author unless they’re already well known. They’re really going to buy a book because the storyline is intriguing, or the genre is something they’re interested in. So when we promote a fiction project or a fiction author we often lead with the book.
But then an author can really differentiate that by having a fantastic back story, or personality. If the book is set in a exotic location, and the author lived in that place, we can really tie that in.
Or if the content is about some kind of serious topic, and the author has had some either personal or professional experience in that field, that’s when the author’s voice really comes into play with promoting a work of fiction.
DIY AUTHOR: Are there unique challenges for different kinds of books, or is it as simple as you just promote them to different kinds of outlets?
SMITH: A little bit of both. I would say the best media-friendly campaigns are where the author is willing to talk about their background and their passion for the book. Whether it’s fiction or nonfiction.
Nonfiction books lend themselves a little bit easier for the media, because quite frankly, the media really doesn’t care that an author wrote a book. There are thousands of books that come out every day. So what we have to do is make the book newsworthy. For nonfiction books, that can be a little bit easier.
From a fiction perspective, what can be challenging is when the author has a pen name, and they don’t want to necessarily share their full background. I have two authors—one is now a CIA executive, and he cannot talk about his background, which would be wonderful because the book is a work of fiction and it talks a lot about government intrigue. But he’s not allowed to talk about it so that can be a challenge.
Another book we’re starting with next week is going to be—it’s hysterical—the inside world of being a flight attendant. And this flight attendant has absolutely hysterical, eye-opening, knee-slapping stories. But she cannot use her name or credentials, because she needs to work.
Those can be a little trickier to do. So, when an author really has that passion, and the credentials to back up their story, those are the ones that are typically stronger. The ones that are a little bit weaker are people who really can’t talk about their background or are using pen names—that can be a little more challenging for the publicist.
PART 2: “WILL YOU GET ME ON THE ‘TODAY SHOW’?”
DIY AUTHOR: What are the appropriate expectations for an author to have when working with a publicist?
SMITH: One of the biggest things we deal with is helping authors set expectations. It takes a long time to break into the media—it’s more of a marathon than a sprint.
Smith Publicity promoted children’s book “Hide!!!” by comedian Jeff Foxworthy
If they already have 20,000 followers on Twitter like Jeff Foxworthy, for example, his expectations are a little different than someone starting out from scratch. So, it depends on the author where they’re coming in.
What’s hard is when an author is a first-time author, self-published novel—they’ve never been in the publishing industry before—and they come to us and say, I want to be a New York Times bestseller, or I want to be on the ‘Today Show’. While that can happen—and it has happened to our clients—it’s typically not going to happen. But it won’t happen if we don’t try. So, setting those expectations can be challenging.
For a novelist coming out with a new book, what we hope for is some good local press, and some press within their genre. If it’s a science fiction book, there are science fiction blogs, science fiction publications that could be of interest. If they are a new business person coming out, we ask them what type of geographic markets are of value to them, and make sure we hit those hard, if that’s where they’re looking to drum up their business.
So, expectations are really challenging. All authors should think their book is the most important thing, because it is to them—it’s their baby—but it’s hard when the rest of the world doesn’t necessarily see that. We work very hard to explain, giving some campaign examples of what you could expect versus the crazy great scenarios.
We just had someone on their second week of campaign who just got on national television—while someone could work with us for four months and not get that type of coverage. A lot of it is luck, what’s going on in the news, and if the book and topics ties in, that puts them to the top.
It’s important for any author working with any publicist to have a really frank talk about expectations. Publicists cannot guarantee who is going to be interested in the book, and when and how it would be covered if they are interested.
People new to the publishing industry don’t realize the vast competition out there. A good publicist will be brutally honest about what would be likely to happen, and what is kind of the ‘outrageous, but possible’ media coverage for their project.
DIY AUTHOR: When an author is looking for a professional publicist, what are some factors to look at when comparing publicists or agencies?
SMITH: Well, price is always out there. Some authors, if they don’t have a budget, that’s going to knock out a lot of different options for them.
Money is definitely something to ask about. Like any other service, you get what you pay for. I’ll be very frank about pricing—you can probably find a publicist that would work for you for $500 or $1000, you can get a publicist a book publicist that will charge $8000 or $10,000 a month, and ranging anywhere in between.
At Smith Publicity, for a comprehensive full-time publicist, our prices range anywhere from $3200-per-month to $4000-per-month and up, depending on goals, geographic markets…we have all kinds of options—and we do have price points that start at $295—but for a true, comprehensive campaign, that’s the price range.
Once they have found someone in their price range, authors should look at experience. Has this person worked in my genre before? You don’t want someone testing out a children’s book when they’ve traditionally done business books. You don’t want to be their guinea pig.
Ask the publicist what else they’re doing in their day. If you get a freelance one-person shop, that could be a good fit, but also this person is dividing their time by drumming up business, doing invoicing, doing all kinds of things in the office, and might not be a full-time publicist actually pitching to the media. When you’re hiring a one-person shop, you might just ask, What happens if you get sick? What else are you doing during your day?
Another question to ask is about communication. Will you have approval of your press releases before they go out to the media? I’ve heard so many authors say, I have no idea how my publicist is pitching me to the media.
At Smith Publicity, we always have our clients approve their press materials. That’s just the foundation of the campaign.
Another factor in the communication is, how will they let you know what they are doing for you? How will they communicate their activities, their results, so you know what’s going on?
We’ve come up with a really nice communication strategy that helps our clients understand what we’re doing, by detailed written weekly updates. What we did here is a cumulative list of results. This is what we’re doing next week. That communication is essential.
Finally, I would ask, How are we going to brainstorm? A publicist is an expert at contacting the media, pitching a book—the author is an expert on their book, on their platform, on their topic, the expertise. The best campaigns are the ones when the author and the publicist brainstorm on creative angles and ideas and current news stories. So, an author should ask their publicist what the collaboration process should be there should be ongoing communication for in our experience, the best results.
DIY AUTHOR: For authors who have a book deal—some publishers have an in-house publicist. If someone has a traditional deal, should they consider hiring outside publicity?
SMITH: We work with many authors who do that. Again, this has to be a frank conversation between the author and the publisher: What are you going to be doing for me? What is the timeline? What can I expect?
Some publishers give fantastic support, and an outside publicist may not be needed. Other times, they would just send out a galley or an advanced reader copy six months before, and maybe do one round of radio pitching when the book comes out, which often is not nearly enough for a book to take off.
If possible, get in writing from the publisher exactly what they’re going to do. When we work with authors who hire us and have a traditional publishing team behind them, we copy them on our weekly updates, and include them in our strategy calls, so that we’re maximizing the coverage, rather than overlapping each other or fighting for the same media contacts. It’s a very collaborative process with the publisher.
Often, people who hire us who have a traditional team are looking for really a brand campaign, a personality cultivation campaign. The book is part of it—but the author might be looking for speaking engagements; they might be looking for new consulting projects; they might be looking for a new publisher. The publisher often is only looking at book sales. We’re looking at the author as a whole.
PART 3: WHEN IS TOO SOON–OR TOO LATE–FOR PUBLICITY?
DIY AUTHOR: When an author decides to come to say, Smith Publicity, how close to having a final book should they be before even contacting you?
SMITH: We love to hear from authors as soon as they’re thinking about marketing. I like to talk to authors even when they’re writing the book, just to get them thinking about marketing well before the launch of the book. If they are just writing a book—give us a call and we’ll talk to you.
Sometimes authors aren’t thinking about marketing. They’re so wrapped up in the writing process that they’re not necessarily thinking about their author platform or their author brand.
So we kind of instill a little bit of reality and non-creativity into the writing process: Who is your target audience. Why is your book different? Why should someone read your book? What is the timing of your book? Does it make sense to launch your baseball-themed book in November? We can talk about some of the bigger-picture things.
From a hiring perspective—if we’re doing advanced reader copies or galleys, we get those out to the media usually between four-to-six months before the publication date, so we want to start conversations long before then.
If we’re working with a book that’s coming out soon—as soon as the author is interested, we can talk to them. If the author is not doing an advanced reader copy or galley, we like to start working about two-to-three weeks before the publication date, so that we’re not getting great media coverage and then people can’t buy the book.
If the book is evergreen—if it’s a topic that is still relevant, or the author has credentials—we can work with authors even long after the publication date. We worked with an author who wrote a fiction book about teenage runaways. His background was in support groups, he had awards from the governor of the state for helping runaways, and bringing awareness, we worked with him for years after his book was published, because we were able to get him good coverage. So the timing really varies depending on the project.
DIY AUTHOR: As you’re talking about how far ahead a person could start working with you, it occurs to me that you haven’t seen the final book, you haven’t seen the cover, you haven’t read the final edit. How much does that matter if they have a good story?
SMITH: It depends on the book and the topic. We turned down many books because, exactly what you said, it’s not professionally edited; the cover is blurry; the author photo is a cutout from a wedding picture, and you can see the people in the background.
We don’t want to take their money, because we know the results are not going to be positive for them. Any type of media is going to be scathing. So, we gently tell people that you really want to put your best foot forward and that the book needs to be professionally edited.
Now if we’re working with a platform where the book is a bit inferior, but the author has fantastic credentials, we downplay the book, and promote the author as a spokesperson.
It’s harder with fiction. If the only thing we’re promoting is the book, and there’s no real substance to the authors—they’re just, you know, wonderfully creative people—if the book is inferior, we’ll let them know gently that we are not a good fit for them, and that the media is not going to be kind. If their book is riddled with typos, that’s not the type of publicity they want.
DIY AUTHOR: In a recent interview, you mentioned that your team will reject a fiction title that’s ‘too old’ for publicity. What should an author in that position do to build interest in his or her back catalog?
“Goodreads is a fantastic way to get awareness for an older book.”
SMITH: Goodreads is a fantastic way to interact with people within the genre to get that awareness of an older book. I highly recommend it to authors to take a look at their author information section and interact within the Goodreads community.
If it’s in the eBook format, play with the pricing—offering the book for 99-cents or free for a time to get people interested. If they like the book, they’re going to recommend it—to their friends, on Goodreads, in book clubs, or on blogs.
I have known authors who come out with a new edition—give it more of a fresh feel, a new look, a new pub date—that can help, too.
DIY AUTHOR: If an author comes to you with, say, the fifth volume of a series, would you take that on?
SMITH: That’s a great question. If it’s a good book series, and book 5 is coming out, we will promote the whole series. We will often send the media all four or all five books, highlighting the last in the series.
We’re doing a really great children’s series right now, and we’re on the fourth book of that. So we give background on the other books, and give the media a chance to catch up. But often, series books can stand on their own as well. You don’t have to read all of them, although certainly the goal is to read all of them.
So, we absolutely can promote a series as a whole, highlighting the latest one. That has been successful for authors, especially if they can do some pricing discounts for the first books and get people hooked on the series.
4 Simple Steps to Market Your Books on Amazon from Smith Publicity Inc.
DIY AUTHOR: What are some common mistakes you see authors make?
SMITH: Let’s see, some of the common mistakes–
Putting the book out there on Amazon and thinking that’s enough. There are several thousand books coming out every week in the United States—simply putting your book up on Amazon is not enough.
Another mistake I see authors make is they don’t put their book up on Amazon. They just want to sell it directly from their own website because they think Amazon takes too big a cut. I try to explain to authors that you need to have your book available on as many retail platforms as possible.
The biggest mistake I would say is not having a professional editor. If you’re a serious author, and you really want to make money from being an author or you’re developing your author brand, bring in an expert. Hire professionals.
Hire a professional book cover designer—not a graphic designer, not your niece, who took a graphic design class in high school or college. There are awful covers out there, and people, unfortunately, do judge a book by its cover.
Hire an editor. Whether it’s the content and helping you build the characters, to really looking for grammatical errors, you really, absolutely need an editor.
Have strong back cover copy. I often say to self-published authors, go to your bookstore, go to where your book would be shelved, and see what those books look like. You want to make sure that your book would fit into this category.
The story could be fantastic. The nonfiction book could be life-changing. But if those things are not in place, no one’s going to give your book a chance.
DIY AUTHOR: For authors who feel like they’re just spinning their wheels, what’s the best thing they can do today to start building awareness?
SMITH: Get your name out there. Blogs are fantastic, whether it’s part of your website or just a blog.
Link your blog into your Goodreads profile. I can’t stress enough how important Goodreads is becoming in author discoverability. Network on Goodreads, comment on other books in that. Give your book away. Get people talking about your book.
Collect email addresses from people who are interested in you, so you can contact them regularly with updates. Have them subscribe to your blog so you can announce your next book when it’s available.
If authors feel like they’re spinning their wheels, I would say the No. 1 thing for them to do is to look at Goodreads.
Find Smith Publicity online at http://www.SmithPublicity.com
Got feedback? A question? An author tip?
Several ways to get in touch:
Speak Pipe: http://www.DIYauthor.com/tips
Voicemail: +1 (615) 669-8724
Email: info (at) diyauthor (dot) com
Get your free copy of our checklist!
Sign up for our email newsletter and receive a free download, “Before You Contact the Media”
http://www.DIYauthor.com/media
The post You Have to be Newsworthy, with publicist Sandy Smith appeared first on DIY Author.
