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When I delivered the luncheon keynote about platform-building for authors at the UW-Madison Writers’ Institute several years ago, I recommended that attendees secure book publicity with tip sheets.

I explained that a tip sheet is a type of press release that offers tips or advice in a bulleted or numbered format.

Like a press release, it’s written like a news story so that a media outlet or blogger can run it as is. No  additional research or writing is necessary.

“We love tip sheets”

After lunch, an attendee thanked me for recommending tip sheets to the audience. He was a features editor for the largest daily newspaper in the Midwest, he explained, adding, “We love tip sheets. We’d like to receive more of them.”

He’s not alone.

Media outlets, especially newspapers and magazines, like tip sheets because they can pull just one or two tips to fill space. They also run them  as submitted or use them as a starting point for longer feature articles.

Tip sheet success story

That’s what happened recently to Sandi Schwartz, author of Finding Ecohappiness: Fun Nature Activities to Help Your Kids Feel Happier and Calmer, when she took advantage of current events — a heat wave across the U.S. — to create and distribute a tip sheet titled, “How to Enjoy the Benefits of Nature Inside During a Heat Wave.”

Her advice was included in an article in the Palm Beach Post that was then re-published by USA Today, Yahoo, and The News Sow.

It’s a great example of how publicity begets publicity.

Monthly book publicity tip sheets

“I am grateful that Sandy suggested this tactic for book publicity because it keeps my book marketing active. I had no idea that my tip sheet would be used in a local paper that would ultimately get syndicated to USA Today. That was a huge hit for me and something I can use in all future marketing,” Schwartz says.

She has been sending out monthly tip sheets since April to a handcrafted media list consisting of her local media, national outlets covering parenting and environmental issues her publisher provided, and a few parenting bloggers as well.

“I have been happy with the results given the minimal effort it takes to tweak existing content into the tip sheet format that Sandy provides. It is simple and can lead to great results as I experienced with the USA Today article. Other tip sheets have resulted in articles in Women.com, Mothermag.com, Kiddos Magazine, and Embracing Change blog,” Schwartz adds.

Radio, TV, podcasts, bloggers use tip sheet advice

Radio stations like to share the advice in snippets or, like podcasts and TV talk shows, build author interviews around the tip sheet topic. In fact, my tip sheet on how to get a good holiday gift from a man was the basis of my appearance on the national TV talk show, “Home & Family,” which ran then on the The Family Channel.

Bloggers run them as posts because tip sheets save them the time it takes to write something helpful themselves.

When done right, tip sheets showcase a nonfiction book’s content or a novel’s theme or message while getting the book title in front of the book’s target audience. That’s what book publicity is all about.

Book publicity tip sheet topics

For many, the hardest part of writing a tip sheet is coming up with a topic.

For nonfiction, start by making a list of the most commonly asked questions you get from readers or others. Each can be turned into a tip sheet.

Your chapter topics are a goldmine of ideas, too.

For fiction, begin with your book’s themes, messages, and lessons. A novel that deals with grief and loss, for example, could yield a tip sheet on how to recover from loss.

When Irish children’s author Avril O’Reilly sent a tip sheet to media outlets throughout Ireland, she had immediate success that included newspaper and television exposure for her fiction book, Kathleen and the Communion Copter.

In her tip sheet, O’Reilly offered parents advice for selecting just the right Communion gift for girls. While her book is fiction, she was able to find a nonfiction nugget she could use to create a tip sheet that offered the media useful information they could use immediately.

You can do that, too.

Tip sheet elements

Successful book publicity tip sheets include specific elements:

• An attention-getting headline that includes the number of tips.
• An opening paragraph that describes the problem.
• A quote about the problem from the book author.
• A sentence that introduces the tips.
• Short, helpful tips in a list format.
• A concluding paragraph about the author and book.

Breaking it down

Let’s look at each element.

Headline

The best tip sheet headlines mimic those you see on the cover of women’s magazines – “5 surprising ways to get a beach body fast” or “6 tips for keeping your email inbox at zero.”

Include the number of tips and the tip sheet topic.

Opening paragraph

When writing the opening paragraph to describe the problem you’re solving, use statistics whenever possible to give your content weight and credibility. Using statistics isn’t required, but it’s effective enough that it’s worth doing a little research for studies, surveys, and reports.

For example, the author of a book about family caregiving writing a tip sheet about how to avoid caregiver burnout might use this first paragraph: “The National Association of Family Caregivers reports that self care is one of the biggest problems among caregivers today. The association says that nearly three quarters (72 percent) of family caregivers report not going to the doctor as often as they should and 55 percent say they cancel their own doctor appointments.”

Author quote

The author quote amplifying the problem should always add something new, rather than repeat what was stated in the opening paragraph. Use this opportunity to share an opinion.

Provide quote attribution with the author’s full name and book title.

Here’s how Schwartz did it with her heatwave tip sheet:

But nature is so critical to our health and well-being. “Nature calms us, reducing feelings of stress, anxiety, and anger. It has also been shown to improve focus and attention, as well as reduce blood pressure, heart rate, muscle tension, and the production of stress hormones. It even makes us friendlier and more apt to reach out to others in our community,” explains Sandi Schwartz, author of Finding Ecohappiness: Fun Nature Activities to Help Your Kids Feel Happier and Calmer.

This part: [explains Sandi Schwartz, author of Finding Ecohappiness: Fun Nature Activities to Help Your Kids Feel Happier and Calmer.] is the attribution.

Sentence introducing your tips

The set-up sentence for the tips is simple. Use this formula: “Here are (author’s last name) (number) tips for helping (audience/group) (topic).”

For the caregiving tip sheet, this sentence could be: “Here are Smith’s six tips for helping family caregivers take better care of themselves, too.”

Short tips

Use bullets or numbers for your tips. Start each tip with a verb to encourage action and keep each to no more than three sentences.

Remember that your goal here is to offer advice, not talk somebody into buying your book. Focus on providing helpful advice.

Concluding paragraph

The final paragraph ties everything up with two or three factual sentences about the author, the book, and where readers can purchase it.

Again, don’t be overtly promotional. This is a news piece, not a sales tool.

Here’s what a book publicity tip sheet looks like

I wrote “Nine tips for writing an op-ed that gets published” to publicize my book, Publicity for Nonprofits: Generating Media Exposure That Leads to Awareness, Growth, and Contributions. It was widely picked up and used in full, as is, by nonprofit trade journals.

Here’s the finished version:

sample tip sheet from Build Book Buzz

(Click on the underlined text above to view or download the PDF file.)

5 common author tip sheet mistakes

When teaching authors how to create and use these media relations tools, I see these mistakes repeatedly:

1. Confusing a tip sheet with an ad. A tip sheet is a subtle book promotion tool. It doesn’t shout “buy my book.” Instead, it communicates, “If you think this information related to the book is interesting, imagine how much value you’ll get from the actual book.”
2. Forgetting to study newspaper and magazine articles before writing the tip sheet. News writing style is informal and factual. There’s no hyperbole.
3. Not understanding that a tip sheet is designed to help people solve a problem. State a problem . . . offer your solutions.
4. Offering a list of reasons to buy the book instead of a list of tips.
5. Avoiding tip sheets because you write novels and don’t see the connection between advice-giving and fiction. It’s true that it’s harder to generate tip sheet topics for fiction, but it’s do-able for every book. I’ve taught many, many novelists how to do this — you can do it, too.

How to use book publicity tip sheets

Distribute tip sheets to media outlets that would be interested in the content. For mass distribution, I recommend eReleases. Do not rely on free press release distribution sites as they won’t send your tip sheet to the press. It will just sit on their site, hoping to be discovered.

Email your tip sheet to a handful of media outlets you’ve researched by copying and pasting your tip sheet into your email message form. Or, use the email list management service you use for your author newsletter.

Add them to your book’s online press room.

Turn them into fiction and nonfiction lead magnets designed to entice people to sign up for your mailing list.

Use them as the starting point for future blog posts.

Include them with article pitch letters sent to journalists.

Add tip sheets to your book marketing plan and you’ll have many new friends among media editors, reporters, producers, podcasters, and bloggers. You’ll also get much more exposure than your competition.

And that’s exactly what you want.

Want help brainstorming a tip sheet topic? Share a brief description of your book here and let’s get people thinking! 

(Editor’s note: This article was first published in December 2015. It has been updated and expanded.)

Author website tips

By Avril O’Reilly

Creating a website to promote your work (and yourself) is scary! There’s no doubt about that.

Authors worry about the cost, the content, the how, and the when – there’s a lot to consider.

We might take a look at author websites in the interests of research. That’s when panic sets in, Looking at the huge, sprawling sites belonging to the likes of Lee Child, James Patterson, or Karin Slaughter can be downright intimidating.

I have been speaking to the people at Frequency Designs, the firm behind Anthony Horowitz’s very smart website. Based on Ireland’s scenic South coast,  Frequency Design created this and many author sites.

I picked up some insights from designer Liam Fitzgerald. He talked me through Horowitz’s site — you might be surprised to learn how much you have in common with this published author. Fitzgerald shared some lessons for authors at all levels.

First the bad news

I was shocked to discover that writers have to pay for their own websites. The publishing houses do not pay. An author, if lucky, might get a page on the publisher’s site.

And what about updating a site? I imagined the PR company would add news about events and new titles. Not so. And Fitzgerald says that publishers offer no help with “the technical nonsense.”

“There has been a transition over the past 7 to 8 years,” he explains. “In the past, the publisher would have done a marketing-led site for the duration of the book launch, and then abandoned it. The strategy was ‘Hit ’em hard, hit ’em fast.’ The site was never updated then it would be abandoned. Now writers are left to their own devices.”

So, Horowitz has to shell out for his own site and update it himself. Not so different from us self-publishers then.

Now the good news

A few years ago, authors showed how professional they were by the quality of their book covers. Writers had to decide between paying an expert or having a DIY cover. Now it seems that we are facing the same tough choice again when it comes to how we look online.

Still, websites are much easier to develop and manage than they used to be. Website platforms such as Weebly, Wix and Wordress allow people with no design or coding skill to use ready-made themes to put together something good-looking.

You might decide to go it alone with a WordPress theme. Themes determine the design of your site. Spend some time seeing what is available and what it will cost you. Quality costs.

If you can afford a web designer, they can show you how to maintain the site yourself. They can also offer a wider range of themes.

What are the costs?

Google local prices for these costs:

• Hosting (monthly or annual fees)
• A domain name
• WordPress themes
• A designer

First steps

If your mum is launching her knitting book in the library, then a free Weebly site might be acceptable. Long-term success demands more.

Think about how you would fill these pages well:

• Home
• About (with pictures)
• Contact
• My books

Register your name

Once you have a sense of where you want to go with your site, you need to register its domain name — your site’s URL. There are many good reason for registering your author name as a domain – quickly.

• It looks professional.
• It is what the big name authors do.
• It makes you easy to find when journalists or buyers look for you. They will check Facebook, Twitter, and online. Be ready.
• It will last longer than a site based on a single book title.

Fitzgerald describes a worst case scenario when a writer becomes known and an online casino, or worse, steals the name before the author can reserve it. Then the writer ends up having to buy an alternative address — avriloreillywritesbooks.com or something similar.

He says, “If you do nothing else, at least buy your name as a domain. Spend on that.”

Hiring a web designer

Authors have to think about how they want to spend their time and as Fitzgerald knows, “Time gets eaten up on website learning.”

He advises hiring an expert. “The free themes can all look the same. That adds to the home-made look.”

You do want to stand out from the crowd — and always in the best way possible.

Ask your questions about author websites by commenting below. 

Avril learned how to create and distribute a tip sheet, a type of press release that offers tips or advice, in my Book Marketing 101: How to Build Book Buzz for Fiction E-course.

Using the prescribed format for this powerful publicity tool, Avril offered parents  advice for selecting just the right Communion gift for little girls. She made that bridge between fiction — her book — and nonfiction — the advice she could offer as a result of her book’s research — to create a tip sheet that offered the media useful information they could use immediately.

Article shows you how to write one

I’ve shared the steps Avril and others students in the course use with success in a magazine article, “Tip Sheets: An Author’s Best Publicity Tool” (see pages 24-25). It explains the concept, how you will use it, how to write one, and mistakes to avoid.

Save yourself a lot of time, and enjoy the resulting exposure, by mastering the tip sheet writing process outlined in the article. (Or, if you prefer the fill-in-the-blanks approach that a template offers, check out Build Book Buzz Publicity Forms & Templates. It includes a fill-in-the-blanks form with a sample.)

I know from experience that tip sheets are incredibly hard-working tools that help authors, especially novelists, get media exposure their books might not otherwise enjoy. But tell me, what book publicity tool do you use with success? What’s working for you? Please comment here!

Using surprises to get media attention

By Avril O’Reilly

I am kind of old-fashioned when it comes to press packs. I like when a product or book lands on the desk accompanied by a goodie bag. I’m not greedy. When I worked on newspapers a nice biro or a bag of sweets was more than enough to earn my good will.

The BIG idea

When I was sending out copies of my book, Kathleen and the Communion Copter, I wanted the book to have that “feel good” factor. My original idea was to bake cookies in the shape of little girls making their communions. I would decorate the cookies and place each in a pretty paper box that I would buy from Etsy. These would be delivered by, I dunno, courier/winged messenger/mum, to the relevant newspapers and magazines. Journalists on a sugar high would write warmly about my book.

Bad idea

I’ll stop there and explain why that didn’t happen. The idea was time-consuming, expensive, and possibly a threat to the journalists’ health. It might have been a magnet for desk mice. And this approach was insensitive to the different lead-in times of mags, papers, and radio stations.

Better idea

The idea I ran with in the end was to make necklaces. My book is about Holy Communions and helicopters so I felt it might lend itself to jewelry. I decided on a silver chain with a cross and a helicopter. Crosses on chains are a well-known aspect of communions and are quite ageless. I was lucky to find a little helicopter that looked not unlike the drawing on my front cover.

Here’s my advice for doing something similar for your book:

• Determine your audience. Mine is little kids and their mums, aunts, and grannies. And initially it is female journalists. Jewelry has feminine appeal. Chains and bracelets might also work for tween, teens, or romance books.
• Set a budget. Decide how much you are willing to invest in this stage of your book. Books, stamps, and envelopes all cost.
• Keep it cheap. I originally thought that charm bracelets would be nice but a bracelet needs at least six charms while a necklace needs only one or two.
• Keep it light. A small gift that fits in an envelope will keep your shipping costs down.
• Keep it simple. I knew I would be sending about 50 of these so my design used just two charms on a chain. There was minimal skill involved. I learned on YouTube how to use jump rings or split rings to attach the crosses and copters to the chain.
• Head for Etsy. Look for what you want and then get Etsy to show the items ranked by price. Go for the cheapest. I used Bohemian Findings.
• Head for China. A surprising number of usable things are available from from Asia. I got my very pretty chains from a polite and skilled chap called Cheng. (His Etsy name is Predestination.) Allow time for your package to arrive. Allow 6-8 weeks or pay for quicker delivery.
• Give yourself searching time. It can take a while to find exactly what you want. Enjoy seeing what is out there that might complement your book. Etsy and eBay are creative places and clever ideas are plentiful. Use them.

A few extras to consider include:

• Add chocolate. Female journalists love opening a package and seeing chocolate inside. I paid a professional company, Lily O’Briens, to make up small boxes of two chocolates with the name of my book embossed on the cover. They do this service for couples getting married.
• Add stickers. I got large and small stickers made by Moo.com. I was going to stick them on the envelopes but instead I put them inside. That way the recipient can put them onto their iPad, notebook, or phone.
• Make it look pretty. Keep the feminine appeal going right through your press package.
• Check eBay. Paper bags and fabric bags can be had cheaply. Again, allow time for international deliveries.

The end result

Very few people ignored my press packs. One website used my book and necklace as a competition prize. I have been getting a lot of press coverage and even one TV appearance. The Holy Communion season peaks at the end of May so I have yet to see all the returns from my efforts.

And because little girls like the necklaces, I have a few mini-ambassadors for the book going around.

I am told that people wait until the last minute to buy Holy Communion gifts so I will let you know if all my efforts lead to sales.

What appealing goodies could you send to the media to entice them to open and read your book’s press kit?