Book Promotion via Radio Shows for Authors

Are you an author? Here's how to ensure that your radio show appearances turn into book promotion opportunities rather than time spent away from writing.

Here are 5 ways to turn radio shows into book publicity opportunities to promote yourself as an expert and let potential readers know about your book:

• Be a reliable radio show guest. Make sure you have a meeting of the minds with the radio show producer or radio show host when you schedule the interview. Know who's calling whom and at what time. Also, double-check time zones. Provide your main contact number and a backup phone number, and get the radio show's studio line as your backup. Clarify all of the booking information when you're booking the show, or ensure that your book publicist does. This is the time to be super detailed. Never be too excited about booking an interview on a radio show to think straight! Overnight radio shows can be tricky to schedule. If the show airs at 2:00 AM on evening leading into Monday, does that count as Sunday or Monday? Be clear about your understanding of when you're supposed to be available for the phone call, and don't be embarrassed to check the producer's understanding of the time/date until you're certain the two of you are on the same page. You can't do a fabulous radio show segment unless you're on the air!  

• Keep it interesting. The radio show host depends on you to fill air time, and to keep listeners tuned in. So save your shyness for another time. When you're on the air, be animated, opinionated, and articulate. Warm up your voice before the interview starts. Stay upbeat and authoritative, and don't shy away from controversy as long as you can take a position with credibility and integrity.

• Remember that you're a guest. You're on the radio show to promote your book, but you haven't paid for an ad. The radio show host did not invite you to do a commercial. So refrain from offering information -- such as your book's title, the name of any coauthor or illustrator, publishing information, where you can buy the book, your book's web site, and the like -- until you are asked for it. Upon an invitation from the radio show host, have the information all ready to go, and speak slowly and clearly.  

• Stay cool. Some radio show hosts' styles involve combative interviews, at worst, or playing devil's advocate, at best. It's always helpful to know ahead of time if your radio interview is with that type of host (check with your book publicist and also study the radio show's web site and listen to past broadcasts). But if you are ambushed, keep calm. You lose credibility if you engage in an argument, so do your best to bridge back to your message points. Never repeat an accusation or a negative comment the host makes. You'll only reinforce the idea in listeners' minds.

• Follow up with an offer. When you write the radio show producer or host a thank-you email, see whether you can turn the one-time radio appearance into a series of book promotion opportunities. Provide additional media angles. Showing that you have other story ideas makes you an appealing prospect for ongoing radio show guest appearances. Also, letting  the radio show producer or host know that you'd be available as a last-minute guest could be a great way of scoring points, too.

Treat every radio interview as if mattered, because it really does. Every radio show interview is a book promotion opportunity in the making!

Stacey J. Miller is a book publicist and founder of S. J. Miller Communications, a Boston-area book promotion company. Visit her online at www.bookpr.com. To read more about articles like this one, click here.

Advance Book Publicity for Indie Authors

 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.

Promote a book, win a wedding?

Some authors are brilliant when it comes to creating book promotion campaigns.

For example, Mary Alice Monroe is picking up the $40,000 tab for some lucky couple's wedding to promote her upcoming book, A Low Country Wedding. Here's the story of how the book promotion campaign will work from WSPA.com.

For a chance to win a free wedding, who wouldn't become a Mary Alice Monroe fan? As an independent book publicist who's always planning ways to garner book promotion opportunities for the authors and publishers with whom I work, I'd say Mary Alice Monroe's book publicity strategy is brilliant. I hope her book, A Low Country Wedding, sees a huge surge in book sales from this book promotion strategy!

David Brock's Book Promotion Opportunity

Although this book publicist hasn't yet read David Brock's new book, Killing the Messenger: The Right-Wing Plot to Derail Hillary Clinton and hijack Your Government, she does know an amazingly fortunate book promotion opportunity when she sees it. Wow! Brock's book was featured today on CNN.com in an article called David Brock's new book takes on GOP, New York Times.

Even someone who's jaw isn't on the floor when she sees book reviews unexpectedly achieve the prominence in important venues such as CNN.com, and who doesn't think of "book promotion opportunities" before all else when she's reading the news , would be impressed with David Brock's good luck.

Then again, it took more than good luck for David Brock to score this book promotion opportunity. It took a combination of factors. It took a strong, opinionated, and credible voice tackling a timely and controversial topic (that made the book newsworthy), and it took reaching out to the right reporter at the right media outlet at the right time.

Good work, David Brock, and congratulations. I hope the numbers on Amazon reflect this book promotion coup, and I hope your book sales continue to benefit from it for a long time to come. Also, I hope this book promotion opportunity is just the beginning of many book publicity opportunities for you. And I predict that it will be.

Can a Name Help Your Book Promotion Efforts? Yes!

By Stacey J. Miller, Book Publicist

S. J. Miller Communications

bookpromotion@gmail.com

I'm a long-time advocate for self-published authors and independent publishers, because I appreciate the autonomy and empowerment that comes with self-publishing books. But even I have to admit that there are times  when a book publisher’s imprint can vastly increase a book’s promotion potential. 

I just found an example of a name that's really going to create a book promotion sensation. 

Rob Gronkowski, of the New England Patriots, has written a book that will be published by Jeter Publishing. That is about as perfect as book promotion potential can get!

For those who are wondering what’s so special about Jeter Publishing, does the name Derek Jeter ring a bell? Yes. Derek Jeter. He has his own publishing imprint, Jeter Publishing, and it’s owned by Simon and Schuster.

So, yes, as biased as this book publicist is in favor of independent book publishing, I must admit — how could I not? — that, at times, book promotion success can be greatly enhanced by having the right mainstream publishing company (and the perfect imprint of that mainstream publisher) behind the book.

Rob Gronkowski, I think you've written more than a book here. I think you've written yourself a bestselling book (It’s Good to Be the Gronk), and I wish you all the luck in the world with reaching sports fans in Boston and all of New England -- and, surely, far beyond. Derek, I might have a couple of sports-related questions for you (well, hey, I am from Boston!), but I'm so proud that you know how to use your name and your brand. Derek Jeter and Rob Gronkowski. You can find It's Good to Be the Gronk at Amazon, of course!

The Trajectory of Book Promotion

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


What does book discovery mean to authors and publishers? Everything, obviously. Book discovery is the whole purpose of book publicity and brand building: when authors and their books receive media attention, build their brand, and expand their online footprints, then they can differentiate themselves from competing authors and books (and videos, blogs, and the like), and they can persuade potential readers to purchase their books. Book discovery, then, is tied into book promotion and brand building which, in turn, directly affects book sales.

So what does Trajectory, a Boston-based firm, have to do with book discovery? According to an article in ThoughtCatalog, Trajectory will change everything about book discovery. Through Trajectory, authors and publishers will be able to match their books' content, setting, mood, and more to books that readers have already bought and enjoyed. Think of Trajectory as -- potentially -- the Pandora of books. "If you love Neil Diamond, you might want to listen to Barry Manilow" (which is Pandora's territory) becomes, "If you loved The Giver, you'd probably enjoy The Hunger Games" -- which Trajectory would base on algorithms about all of the elements that make up a book's content rather than on strictly sales information.

Just as authors and publishers currently consider it critical to get their books into the search engines, and to allow their book discovery to happen both organically and through concerted book promotion efforts, they may -- according to ThoughtCatalog -- soon be focusing on book discovery through Trajectory. Trajectory, it seems, is already forming partnerships with the major players in the world of book publishing.

So what will the trajectory of book publicity look like once the DNA of books can be scanned to see whether or not they're a match for books readers have already bought and loved? Authors and publishers: stay tuned to find out!

A Year of Books and Mark Zuckerberg, Part 2

Yes, Mark Zuckerberg, famed founder of Facebook, has launched an online book club. Now, what does that mean for book sales? Take a guess. Go ahead.

Sales of the first Mark Zuckerberg selection, The End of Power, have soared. The Telegraph's Rhiannon Williams provides these details:

* Since Mark Zuckerberg chose The End of Power, its sales have increased 775 per cent.
* The paperback version of The End of Power was, as of the Telegraph's writing, the 8th bestselling book on Amazon (and it was a number one category bestseller in several categories). At the time of this writing, however, it's number 49 (it's ranking as a number one category bestseller, however, is undiminished).
* Again, as of the Telegraph's writing, Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook book club had 189,000 members. That's up to 215,884 members as of now (and this book publicist is one of them).

So, if you guessed that Mark Zuckerberg's endorsement of a book would boost its visibility and increase its sales, then you're right on the money. Come to think of it, I always thought Mark Zuckerberg and Oprah Winfrey had a lot in common. Both of them have global influence and the respect of millions of people...and both Mark Zuckerberg and Oprah Winfrey are incredible people to have behind your book promotion campaign!