Oops! She picked it again!

Oprah's Book Club strikes again. Yes. Once again, the good folks at the Oprah Winfrey Show decided to choose a book that didn't need any more publicity with its book club logo. The offering? Love in the Time of Cholera. Granted, it's a nice, cheerful title (as usual), and will certainly provide Oprah fans with hours of light entertainment (which is what we've all come to expect of Oprah Book Club selections).

But why doesn't Oprah choose fresh, new authors who could benefit from the book promotion that her endorsement would provide? Why doesn't Oprah choose to introduce her audience to books they wouldn't hear about, if it weren't for Oprah's recommendation?

In days of yore, Oprah's book club catapulted unknown authors -- say, Jacquelyn Mitchard -- to the top of bestseller lists. (Remember The Deep End of the Ocean? That was worthy of Oprah's magic book club logo, and many of us wouldn't have had the pleasure of discovering it if Oprah Winfrey hadn't pointed the way to it.)

But Gabriel Garcia Marque, the latest recipient of Oprah's endorsement, won the 1982 Nobel Prize for literature, for pity's sake! He's already a luminary in the literary world. Why does he need the visibility that Oprah Winfrey's book club offers? Well, for the same reason that Tolstoy, Pearl S. Buck, and John Steinbeck needed it, I suppose.

But just once ... just once! ... I wish Oprah and her book-loving staff would harken back to their beginnings find a wonderful, budding novelist whose work is worthy of our notice, and whom we haven't yet discovered for ourselves, and that they'd grace that novelist with all the book promotion potential that her book club logo would provide. I know a book publicist or two who would help Oprah's producers find these gems.

Audio Book as Book Promotion Tool?

Would you buy a book after you've listened to the audio version of it? Stephen Colbert seems to think you will. He's selling an audiobook version of I Am America (And So Can You!) as a book promotion vehicle. In other words, he's hoping that people who pay $17.49 to download his audiobook from Audible.com will be so enchanted with the book that they'll spring for an actual copy of it ($16.19 for a new copy at Amazon.com).

Hmmm.

In the spirit of full disclosure, I have to confess that I'm not a huge fan of audiobooks. But, if I wanted to use an audiobook as a book promotion vehicle, I'd probably want to give the audiobook away at a discounted price. Yes, I know that audiobooks usually cost more than their hard copy counterparts. But if your goal is to sell the hard copies and the audio copies of your book, then something has to give. Are you really expecting your potential readers to be so enamored with your book that they'll pay for it -- twice?

Well, maybe Stephen Colbert can expect that of his fans. But for the rest of us? I think I'd stick to other book promotion vehicles, such as media appearances and blogging, and keep readers purchasing hard copies of the book.

Blogging for Book Promotion

Here's one of the best articles I've seen on how to promote your book by using a blog. It's key message is that you should create a blog as a first step in every book promotion campaign, which is what I've been saying since the advent of blogs. People read blogs, and search engines love blogs. If you want people to hear about your book, and you want Google to recognize your book...yes...create a blog for it.

If you want some guidance on how to create a blog for your book, you might check out an ebook called Blog Your Book to the Top. At $29.95, it could be a worthwhile investment and give you some ideas to launch your online book promotion campaign. Disclaimer: I haven't yet read the book, but it's on my list of reference materials to get to "in my spare time."

Blogging for book promotion...it's not as sexy as getting a call from Oprah Winfrey's producer, but every little thing you do to promote your book adds up. So why not give it a try?

Why crime pays and presents a book promotion opportunity

Nearly anything can be a book promotion opportunity. A longtime fugitive from justice (and, allegedly a mass murderer) named Whitey Bulger may have been spotted, and photographed, in Italy.

The Boston Herald boasts a columnist by the name of Howie Carr who apparently once got on the wrong side of Whitey Bulger and his gang, and as a result, was threatened by them with bodily harm. Which would tend to make one like Carr, except I don't know very many Bostonians who can stand him (his arrogance and intolerance for everyone and everything shine through every one of his Boston Herald columns), but that's a whole other story. Anyway, it turns out that Carr wrote a book about Bulger called The Brothers Bulger (for those of you who live outside of New England -- yes, Whitey Bulger is one of several siblings, although he seems to be the only brother who was overtly involved in organized crime).

Today's Herald printed a Howie Carr column that talked about the potential Whitey Bulger siting in Italy and...yes. You guessed it. Howie Carr managed to mention his book twice in his column. Both times, he got in there the complete title of the book.

The column closes with a conversation that Carr had with someone who had heard that Bulger may have been spotted in Italy. Carr's conclusion: "I hope he’s right. Think of my book sales."

Yes. Nearly anything -- even the potential capture of a mobster who has been on the F.B.I's Most Wanted List for years -- can be turned into a book promotion opportunity. I'm glad that Howie Carr sees this thug's potential capture as his big break.

To others, Bulger's capture would mean that he can finally be tried and, hopefully, convicted of multiple murders and terrorizing on of Boston's neighborhoods. To Carr, Bulger's capture would mean that book sales would soar.

Hmmm.

Book Promotion via Blog Tours

Do you want some quick and easy visibility for your book? Ask bloggers to provide it.

Yes, blog tours represent a book promotion opportunity that most authors, publishers, and book publicists have known about for awhile. But now blog tours have made it into the mainstream press. The New York Times published an article about Amy Cohen's blog tour for her book, The Late Bloomer’s Revolution.

A Times-reading colleague sent me a link to this article and asked, "Yes, but how do they do this?"

It isn't rocket science. To arrange a blog tour, you contact bloggers and request that they review your book (or publish a Q&A, or that they come up with their own idea for featuring your book). How do you find bloggers? Use a blog search engine. Technorati's blog search engine gets all the press, but I prefer Google's. Make a list of prospects, draft your pitch, and then start making those overtures.

Arranging a blog tour isn't as easy as, say, buying a media list, and sending out your media kit and book to everyone on it. There don't seem to be an prefabricated list of bloggers who might participate in blog tours. There hardly could be, given the fact that most books would need to be promoted on blogs that are narrowly focused on a particular topic and reach small numbers of highly targeted readers.

Nonetheless, arranging a blog tour is worthwhile. Even the New York Times says so!

Well, at least Barnes and Noble has a good reason for its reversal.

Barnes and Noble has decided to stock the O.J. Simpson book, If I Did It, which is now owned by Fred Goldman because "enough customers have expressed interest in buying the book to warrant stocking it in our stores."

At least Barnes and Noble isn't making an arbitrary decision. The bookstore chain has clearly thought this through.

That makes it okay.

Bye, Bye P.O.D. Stigma

Sorry about the informal title of this post, but -- dang! -- I heard Don McLean's song, "American Pie," a few hours ago, and I haven't been able to get rid of that earworm ever since. Oh, well, there are bigger challenges in life than earworms, although I can't think of very many at the moment.

While my head was wrapped around Don McLean, I decided to look him up on the Net and see what he was up to these days. And, much to my delight, I discovered that he's just used a P.O.D. publisher (Lulu.com) to release an autobiography -- well, sort of an autobiography. Actually, technically, it's a biography. The Don McLean Story: Killing Us Softly With His Song (it seems McLean was the inspiration for Roberta Flack's song, "Killing Me Softly" -- who knew?) was actually written by Alan Howard, but McLean claims the book tells his (McLean's) side of the story. You can read all about the book at MaineCoastNow.com.

No, it's not a review in Publishers Weekly or Library Journal. Maybe the mainstream book reviewers will avoid Don McLean's life story, even though it is Don McLean's life story, because it has been released by a P.O.D. publisher. Maybe, to that degree, McLean's book promotion potential is limited.

But you know what? This is Don McLean we're talking about. I can't think of a newspaper or magazine in the country that wouldn't mention the book as part of a feature/lifestyle/entertainment story, and I can't imagine a radio or television show that would turn down the opportunity to do an interview with this particular personality and let him promote his book.

It's always wonderful to see "name brands" such as McLean (and, yes, even Amy Fisher, although I'm sorry to use those two names in the same sentence) choose to publish through a company such as Lulu.com. Each time that happens, the old P.O.D. stigma gets more and more difficult to justify. I, for one, would like to see it fade away completely, and I'd like to see all members of the media offer the same book promotion opportunities to P.O.D.-published books that they do to mainstream-published books.

One day, perhaps, that will happen. For now...does anyone know how to get rid of an earworm? I love Don McLean dearly, but after listening to him sing his trademark song in my head for the last five hours or so, I am ready for a change. Perhaps I can just switch tunes. No! No! Not that! Starry, starry night.... No! No! No!

Hold onto book publicity interview information!

When you're in the middle of a book promotion campaign, every interview opportunity is precious. Make sure to capture the details of every book promotion interview you have planned, and then have a backup of that information in another place, and then -- for real security -- back up that information again, in some other way.

The book promotion interview will probably go on, as planned. The interviewer probably has your phone number, and he or she will probably call at the appointed time, on the agreed-upon date. But you know what? Sometimes, not so much. That's why you have to take careful note of the name of the interview, and how you can contact him/her in the event that you need to. When you're scheduling the interview, or your book publicist is scheduling the interview, ask for a backup line (explain that you'll be using it for "Plan B," just in case there's a mixup the day of the interview). Then write down that information so you'll have a hard copy of it. Compose an email with that information, and send it to yourself. Type the information into the calendar section of your email client, and into any online calendars you might use. Write it down in your appointment book....

You get the picture. Make sure to memorialize the details of the interview, and then make sure you have as many copies of that information as you'll need to ensure that, if you should need it, you'll have it.

And don't expect your book publicist to act as your only repository of this information. Book publcists are human. We do our best to hold onto information, but our computers crash. We misplace things. We try not to, but it happens. And even a theoretically perfect book publicist has to heed the call of nature (or take the calls of other clients) sometimes.

Therefore, when you get the information about the book promotion opportunity, capture it, and guard it carefully. Don't count on somebody else, however well intentioned, to do it for you. It's your book promotion campaign, and you can keep it on course by being the best data keeper imaginable.

Will ignorance save books?

Sometimes, this book publicist questions the scientific method. Take the example of according to an Associated Press-Ipsos poll that was released yesterday. It claims that Americans are reading fewer books than ever before. Well, okay. We've been hearing that Americans' interest books has been diminishing every year since I was old enough to read.

That sort of reminds me of a friend's mother who, whenever I run into her, greets me with, "Oh, you've lost so much weight!" If I'd lost weight every time she said I did, then I'd long since be buried. But I digress.

Here's what interests me. It's the paradox that less educated people read more books than, well, better educated people. (After rereading that sentence, I'm not sure which camp I fall into, but I'll nonethess keep going. Please bear with me.)

See, according to the survey, two-thirds of the population (or, at least, the surveyed population) read religiously-oriented books when they read books at all. And, to quote from the Associated Press article about the survey, that subset of the population includes "...lower earners, minorities, lesser educated people, Southerners, rural residents, Republicans and conservatives."

Hmmm. Okay. So, according to this survey, book publicists ought to think about gearing their book promotion campaigns to those Americans who are ill-educated enough actually read books. I can handle that.

I'm just wondering: is there any way we could do this survey over again? This time, I'd like to see the survey questions. First on my list of hoped-for questions would be, "Which Harry Potter book do you think was the best of the series?" Because I don't know a person who hasn't read, or doesn't plan to read, at least a few books lately. People I know may not admit to being Rowling's fans, but my guess is that, while their kids are asleep, they're dipping into Potter #7, regardless of what they're telling those AP-Ipsos pollsters. I'll bet you they are. I'll betcha ANYTHING!

No book promotion by Borders.

According to an Associated Press story, Borders Group Inc. will be carrying If I Did It, the abomination written by a ghostwriter for O.J. Simpson. Borders, however, won't be promoting the book.

The real hero, for my money, is Barnes and Noble which just announced that it will be neither stocking nor promoting Simpson's (well, actually, Fred Goldman's) book. Apparently, they don't want to dirty their bookshelves with this hurtful trash. And I deeply respect, and admire, their decision.

Way to go, Barnes and Noble. And a secondary nod in the direction of Borders. At least, as you say, you won't be actively promoting the book. We won't be seeing Fred Goldman or, worse, O.J. Simpson at a book signing at any of your stores.

At this point, I'm grateful for small favors.

Instant book promotion

Want some instant book promotion opportunities for your next title? Then get it published by the new house that's opening up at -- New York City's Bellevue Hospital.

That's a possibility because the Bellevue Literary Press opened its doors in the spring of 2007. Nope, I couldn't make up something like that. Well, okay, I could, but the proof that I didn't is here.

As I think about potential headlines for this publisher's hypothetical press releases ("Readers Are Insane for This Title" and "Publisher Goes Crazy Trying to Keep Up With the Demand"), it occurs to me that a place like Bellevue is an ironic venue for a new publishing company. Yes, its locale with generate instant book promotion opportunities for its titles, and yes, the media will have a joyful time of it, playing with gleefully insensitive story angles and irreverent headlines. But, in an ecomomic climate where you almost do have to be certifiably nuts to decide to launch a publishing company, is this book publicity dream-come-true going to sell enough books to keep this company in the black, or will the publishing executives be ready for straitjackets within another season or two?

You can't say there aren't any surprises, or any book promotion opportunities, left in the world of book publishing! Stay tuned for further developments from Bellevue, and beyond.

Here's the good news.

As an author, publisher, or book publicist -- or perhaps all three -- you're a charter member of the book publishing industry. You have a bit of power in your hands. You can use that power wisely or unwisely, and sometimes, good people do both. (The latter, we hope, they do inadvertently.)

We'd all like our balance sheet to be positive, at the end of the day. We'd like our good deeds to vastly outweigh our bad deeds.

The good news for all of us who sometimes fail is this: regardless of how we mess up, we will never, ever do anything more hurtful than to publish O.J. Simpson's confession to a double murder. Nor will we ever tape an interview in which we try to justify ourselves.

If this interview makes you ashamed to be a part of the publishing industry, take a deep breath. I share your feelings. I just celebrate the fact that choices of this sort are seldom made by people in our industry and that this is an anomaly. Hopefully, we'll never see anything like it again in our lifetimes.

Don Imus? Back again?

I fervently hope Don Imus stays off the airwaves. Here's a news story from MSNBC.com that seems to indicate that Imus might return to do his show.

To any authors and publishers who are grinning right now about the potential of pitching the new (and, undoubtedly, not-improved) "Don Imus Show" as part of future book promotion campaigns, this book publicist has just one question to ask: haven't you moved on yet?

Don Imus is soooo over. Book promotion opportunities remain (trust me -- they do), but Imus's insults and epithets are gone.

Can't we leave well enough alone?

Natalie Jacobson

For anyone who's been watching television in the Boston area for the past 35 years, Natalie Jacobson's final WCVB-TV newscast last night was bittersweet. New England is losing a familiar, trusted face on its nightly newscast.

But, on the positive side, Natalie Jacobson -- as all the journalists have pointed out -- retained her grace, credibility, and charisma to the last phoneme of her final world on her last local television news broadcast. She didn't go into details about Lindsay Lohan's post-rehab plans or about Paris Hilton's post-prison earning potential. No. She talked about the news and then said a quiet, understated, heartfelt goodbye.

Natalie Jacobson's familiarity and predictability has meant more to me than I understood until it struck me that she'd no longer be there, reporting the news, and helping me to understand what was happening in my world, night after night. Natalie, I'll miss you. Have you ever thought about writing a biography? If so, I know a local book publicist who might give you some book promotion tips.

New Book Promotion Strategies Level the Playing Field

In a recent American Chronicle article, publisher Valerie Connelly raises a good point. With so many books out there -- 80,000 more books were published in 2006 than were published in 2005 -- it's growing more and more difficult for authors to get their books noticed.

For a mainstream publisher, getting media attention for a new title can be as easy as saying, "We're behind this book. Interview the author, please."

Authors who have enjoyed relationships with major publishers know this good fortune only accrues to A-list authors. The rest of the authors whose books are published by even the most prestigious houses have to wait in the line like everyone else for the media's attention. It doesn't help you to have a huge publishing brand name stamped on your book if you're not one of that publisher's favored authors.

Authors who are working with small- to mid-sized publishers, or whose work is self-published, can't topple Rowlings from her perch while Harry Potter is everywhere -- in movie theaters and in every nook and cranny of the media -- all at the same time. Regular authors won't get the media attention that Rowlings is enjoying using traditional book promotion techniques alone. So what are they to do?

News hooks. That's this book publicist's trick of the trade. Find news hooks in what you've written. If you're in the process of writing -- and this applies to whatever you're writing, whether it's fiction or nonfiction -- build news hooks into your book.

You'll be able to promote yourself, as an expert, in connection to news stories using cutting-edge book promotion techniques and tried-and-true book promotion strategies. The twist is that, instead of setting your book up to compete against other books, you're setting yourself up as an expert who doesn't even have to compete against other experts. After all, you're the expert! That makes book promotion a snap -- as long as you find, or build in that news hook, and as long as the media believes that what you're calling news is, indeed, topical and worthy of media attention.

Book Promotion and July 4

Yes, it's a holiday week. Everyone seems to be taking some days off to celebrate July Fourth, and this might not be the most productive time to put forth book promotion efforts.

Still...there are all sorts of book promotion activities that you can engage in that do not depend on real humans being at the other end of their email accounts or telephones. Those are the book promoton activties that this book publicist will engage in this week. Those book promotion activities include, but aren't limited to: lining up book blog tours and publishing book promotion press releases online.

So...if everyone seems to be off for July Fourth, but you're still working, know that there's plenty that you could be doing to promote your book. What are you just sitting around staring at your monitor for?

technorati claim

Technorati Profile

Why should you care about search engine placement?

You've written a book, and you're launching a book promotion campaign. You want to be on "Oprah," in Family Circle, and you want the Associated Press wire to run a story on your book. Plus, you want to do twenty or so major market radio shows in your spare time. That would make for the perfect book promotion campaign.

Sure, you have a Web site, but you don't really see that as an integral part of your book promotion campaign. So why should you care about its placement in search engines?

An WashingtonPost.com article, reprinted by MSNBC.com, called Calling in pros to refine your Google image: Search engine has given rise to the online identity management industry offers a persuasive argument that, if you don't control what search engines "see," then others will control it. The Web sites and blogs of your competitors and, if you have them, your detractors will show up in the search engines, and they'll never go away unless positive news about your book and you -- the news you generate yourself -- push them out of the top of the search engines' rankings.

Spin control, these days, means making sure Web surfers see what you want them to see. It means getting visibility for your Web site, and making sure that your visibility stays optimized for the Web. You may not be able to get others to delete their mean-spirited contributions to the Internet, but you can make sure that you balance their views with a positive portrayal of who you are, how you treat others, and what you have to offer.

By all means, focus on your book promotion campaign. Just make sure that part of your book promotion campaign is focusing on your Web site -- creating it, maintaining it, promoting it, and optimizing it for search engine placement.

A Saturday Treat

This afternoon, when I heard the mail truck roll by, I happened to be gardening. (I call it gardening. Some might call it the legalized torture of hapless flowering plants, but that's another story.) Anyway, I chased the truck like a puppy to retrieve my mail a few moments before the delivery guy would have put it into my mailbox. (Saturdays in the New England summertime can be laid-back and lazy.)

What did the delivery guy hand me? Among other non-bills (somehow, bills never get delivered on Saturdays in the summertime), he gave me a promising manila envelope addressed to -- one of my clients. Hmmm. Well, it's the book publicist's perogative to open such envelopes(particularly, when the return address lets her know that the envelope is from Going Bonkers magazine).

A package addressed to Deborah Collins Stephens from Going Bonkers magazine? That's fun! I thumbed through the magazine and, indeed, found her bylined article, "Dealing with Life's Unexpected Turns: 7 Ways to Keep Your Head Above Water During Difficult Times," on page 43. Great article, and a great placement for it (her byline mentions her book, This Is Not the Life I Ordered: 50 Ways to Keep Your Head Above Water When Life Keeps Dragging You Down and her Website, www.ThisIsNotTheLifeIOrdered.com"

But here was my real Saturday treat. I continued to thumb through the magazine, and on page 58, I found another client's bylined article. It's called "Bing Eating Disorder: Are You at Risk," and, again, the byline references Trisha Gura's book, Lying in Weight: the Hidden Epidemic of Eating Disorders in Adult Women. Lucky Dr. Gura: the byline also cites her publisher, Harper Collins, the book's publication date, and her Web site, www.trishagura.com.

Two clients, two bylned articles, great book promotion opportunities, and nice, breezy July hours to spend outside messing around with a spade and pulling weeds. That's what I call a Saturday treat. Of course, the biggest treat is yet to come: emailing Deborah and Trisha, and letting them know their bylined articles have been published!

Are you using video for book promotion?

Are you using videos, such as multimedia book presenters, as part of your book promotion campaign? One of my favorite vendors for multimedia book presenters, by the way, is AuthorBytes, which designs sites for many of my clients and a whole host of bestselling authors, fiction and nonfiction, whose names you'll recognize.

Anyway, if you are using multimedia book presenters or video of any kind as part of your book promotion campaign, you'll want your book publicist to send the links to media contacts. In addition, you've already thought of using YouTube (along with your own Web site) to house your video. But you may be wondering: where else should I upload my video?

The answer, according to a WebProNews article, is that, once you've uploaded your site to YouTube, you can consider your task done. At least for now, YouTube has crushed the competition. Its videos show up ahead of every other site's videos in the search engines, so if you want to upload your video to the place that most people will go to by default, that place is YouTube.

At least until the next big video site comes along.