Don't Frustrate This Book Publicist or Yourself!

By Stacey J. Miller, Book Publicist
S. J. Miller Communications
bookpromotion@gmail.com

Don't frustrate this book publicist or yourself! If you're seeking traditional book reviews for your novel, then approach book publicists between four and six months before your book's publication date.

A new novelist just approached this frustrated book publicist to let her know about her upcoming novel. It will be published at the end of July, the author told me with great excitement. And could I work with her to get magazines and newspapers to review her book?

Well, I could have worked with her to get magazines and newspapers to review her book if she'd approached me four to six months ago. Now all I can offer this novelist is my sympathy and other options for promoting her book -- none of which are the book reviews she's been dreaming of and imagining she could garner. And, this, because she didn't know her book promotion strategy of garnering book reviews for her novel required more lead time than what she had in mind.

So, yes, I'm a frustrated book publicist at the moment. I now have to get back to a hopeful, hard-working novelist and tell her that, because she thought about garnering traditional book reviews just about the time the book was slated to be published, that plan just isn't going to work out for her. Next time she publishes a novel, she will know the drill, and she will reach out to book publicists in plenty of time. But, for now, the novelist just can't get what she wants, and that's not what this book publicist wants to tell her.

I really, really wish I could start my day over again.