One of the great things about book promotion is there's no single "right" way to do it. Different book publicists have different strategies that have worked for them, and that wouldn't be of any value to me -- and vice versa. So I like to read interviews with other book publicists, or with authors and publishers who are conducting book promotion campaigns, to compare styles and successes.
I just came across an interview at Authorlink with Alan Gratz, author of a children's book called Samurai Shortstop (Dial, 2006). Please read the interview for yourself. The author is promoting his children's book, and -- because he's promoting a children's book -- his experiences are different from mine would be. (I've promoted several children's book, but my focus is on books for adults.)
Perhaps because his genre is different from the ones with which I'm most familiar as a book publicist, Gratz's strategies involve spending far more money on a print media kit than I would. For ecample, Gratz uses folders for his media kits. I would never do that because it's far more labor-intensive, and expensive, to include folders with media kits in all media mailings. Also, for me, it would be far too limiting. I'd be far more interested in sending out more media kits, and spending far less money on each of them, than in sending out fewer media kits that cost too much to be "wasted" on secondary media outlets. Also, I use ekits quite a bit. Gratz says this strategy hasn't worked for him. Again, I suspect he knows what he's talking about. Since he's promoting a children's book, his press releases may read like advertising copy for the book -- and, yes, that would be considered spam by many media outlets.
One-size-fits-all book promotion tactics do not exist. Book promotion strategies do need to be adjusted to suit the project, the stage of the project, and the preferences/proclivities/talents/schedules/budgets of those conducting the book promotion campaign.
Next time I promote a children's book, I will go back to this Authorlink interview and see how many of the tips in it might apply to the project. In the meantime...the world of adult book promotion awaits.
