An author visited my site last night and was impressed by this book publicist's list of services. He just had one question before he asked me for a book promotion proposal: Do you take any responsibility for attaining any actual sales volumes for books?
No. As I told him, I'm a book publicist, not a salesperson. Book promotion is only tangentally related to book sales. Selling books is the publisher's job, not the book publicist's job.
I might have said that when book promotion campaigns are successful, and when the stars line up (that is, when you have top-notch distribution and a high-quality book), then media hits can drive traffic to book-selling venues which may result in book sales. And I might have added that, without a book promotion campaign, your book will undoubtedly languish in obscurity, unsold and -- in these days of P.O.D. -- perhaps unprinted.
But that would have served no purpose. An author who thinks that a book promotion campaign is a turnkey solution for selling books would be better off not hiring a book publicist. And an author who expects a book publicist to produce increased book sales would be difficult, if not impossible, to please...so I'll take a pass on this project. This book publicist likes to please her clients, and she can only control what she can control.
This book promotion project would be a lose/lose proposition.
