Can you allot too much lead time and too many of your resources to the cause of advance book promotion? Or is advance book publicity the most important effort you can make to ensure your book promotion campaign is a success?
It’s true that the best time to begin a book publicity campaign is before the book’s publication. As a matter of fact, it's never too early to think about book publicity. Even before you begin to write the book, you should be thinking about news hooks and media angles. Every author and publisher knows that. But this is where confusion can set in.
Advance Book Publicity Options Can Be Perplexing
Iit can be difficult for authors and publishers to know how long before publication a book promotion campaign should begin. How would you know how much time and money you should invest in advance book publicity? Is advance book promotion critical, or is it a waste of time?
Independent book publicists may have an incentive to claim that authors need six months’ lead time before a book’s publication. In fact, as an independent book publicist myself, I’ve often had indie authors share with me the fact that they’ve hired other book publicists as long as a year before a book’s publication at the urging of — you guessed it — the independent book publicist they hired.
How Should Indie Authors Decide When to Begin Advance Book Promotion?
Why were they talking to me then? I mean, if they’d already hired a book promotion specialist, and they’d stuck with his or her book promotion program for as long as a year, why were they looking for a change?
Three guesses, and the first two don’t count.
The reason indie authors often contact other book publicists (and seek additional book promotion opportunities) after enduring a fruitless long-term relationship with another book publicist is because, when a book’s about to be published, an author and publisher’s common sense seems to kick in. They begin to realize that they have been steered in the wrong direction.
While advance book promotion is important, it’s only the beginning of a book promotion campaign. It’s not the entire book publicity campaign. Spending too much time on advance book promotion is probably as bad of a decision as spending no time on advance book publicity.
Is There Book Promotion After Advance Book Publicity?
When a book is about to become available, indie authors and indie publishers usually realize that, while advance publicity important is important for a book’s visibility and recognition in a crowded marketplace, it’s not the only part of a book promotion campaign that matters. Advance book promotion efforts include, primarily, efforts to garner book reviews and build a social media platform. Those efforts are critical components of a book’s success.
But book publicity opportunities do not end with advance publicity efforts. In many ways, when a book is about to publish, book publicity opportunities are just beginning. More about that tomorrow….
By Stacey J. Miller, founder of the Massachusetts-based book promotion firm, S. J. Miller Communications. For more information, please visit www.bookpr.comwww.bookpr.com. Follow me at @bookpr.
