Book promotion campaigns face new challenge

If your book promotion campaign revolves around book reviews in the traditional media, you'll be facing an increasing challenge. Major market newspapers have already begun checking in with their financial woes. We know that the Christian Science Monitor is only publishing a "real" newspaper once a week now, and is solely publishing online the rest of the time. We've heard about cutbacks at major newspapers all around the country. Now we can add the financial troubles of two more newspapers to the list: the Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times.

According to an Associated Press story that I just read on MSBNC.com, the parent company of the Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times -- Tribune Co. -- may be planning to file for bankruptcy-court protection. Here we are, book publicists, publishers, authors, and others who are in the midst of book promotion campaigns, asking newspapers to review their books. And there are the newspaper publishers, telling us that they just can't afford the editorial space we're asking them to provide.

No one can predict how deep the recession will get or how profoundly it will affect the publishing industry. Even without the recession, no one can predict from one moment to the next the ways in which the publishing industry will evolve, and the ways in which book promotion efforts will need to change. But we can say, with certainty, that online book promotion efforts will grow increasingly more important.

Editorial space on the Web is virtually free and unlimited opportunities exist for gaining online visibility. On the other hand, real-world newspapers (and, of course, magazines) are fighting for the opportunity to publish every single page now, and our book promotion needs don't fit their business plan at the moment (unless we're willing to pay for advertising, which is a whole other discussion).

The broadcast media is there, and radio and television shows will have airtime for authors for the foreseeable future. But, if the print media was at the core of your book promotion campaign plan, this would be a good time to re-think your approach to book promotion.

Book promotion opportunities still exist, and they always will, no matter what happens with regard to the economy. But a shift toward online book promotion strategies makes sense now, and it will almost certainly make an increasing amount of sense as we move forward.

Steve Wasserman isn't happy, and neither am I.

Steve Wasserman, a former editor of the Los Angeles Times Book Review, isn't happy. According to a July 21 article in Publisher Weekly's online edition, the Los Angeles Times is cutting out its standalone book review section. Two book review editors will lose their jobs, and countless of publishers and authors will lose yet another opportunity to have their books reviewed by a credible daily newspaper.

As a book publicist whose clients' works range from mainstream to self-published, I've never relied solely on book reviews. I've always sought book promotion opportunities from a wide range of broadcast, print, and online media outlets. And, these days, the reviewers with whom I've having the most success connecting are Amazon's top reviewers -- lay people, if you will, who have become top authorities on "what's hot and what's not" in the literary world.

Okay. Times change, and the media must change, too.

Top daily newspapers have their business considerations, just as authors and publishers must watch their own bottom lines. If standalone book review sections aren't producing profits, then they must be sacrificed, along with the editors who were the lifeblood of those standalone book review sections and the authors and publishers who relied upon those standalone book review sections for book publicity.

I understand that this is all about money and not a statement about the worthiness of book reviews or a statement that literature doesn't matter anymore. I understand that.

But that doesn't make me any happier about the whole thing.