Book publicity is free, it gives you and your book a huge credibility boost, and it’s not too hard to get when you know what you’re doing.

To “know what you’re doing,” you just have to spend a little time educating yourself. You’ll find lots of how-to content on this site that will help with that. (Use the search box on the right in desktop view, at the bottom with mobile.)

Where are the book publicity opportunities?

A key piece of that education process is familiarizing yourself with media outlets and what they cover.

You’ve probably noticed that the media landscape has changed fairly significantly in recent years. For example, there are fewer daily newspapers, and those that are still with us are understaffed.

But there are many other content-based platforms now, including blogs, podcasts, and brand sites that use reported articles in ways that educate and serve their target audiences.

Insights from ExpertFile webinar

With that in mind, I recently watched the “Beyond the Media Pitch: How to Secure Better Coverage in Today’s Noisy Market” webinar hosted by ExpertFile, a company that helps connects journalists with sources and research data. Veteran former network journalist Wilf Dinnick, founder of Mission A, was the presenter.

Even though the webinar was geared more toward PR people at organizations with lots of subject matter experts on staff – think higher education and healthcare organizations – I knew I could find a few “ahas!” to share with you.

Here are some takeaways that are relevant to authors.

About journalists

• Many are young. That means you pitch them (try to sell them on an article or segment idea) differently than you’d pitch me.
• Younger journalists are often socially conscious.
• On average, they cover four beats (topics), file five stories a week, and their stories are presented in more than one format.

What do journalists want from you?

• Ideas that are relevant to what people are talking about today
• A good story that is:
  • Fresh
  • Visual
  • Offers exclusive and/or surprising data
• Data
• Expert sources
• Pitches that show you understand their target audience
• Short pitches with quick facts
• New angles for COVID-19 coverage
• Feel-good stories
• Ideas that help further diversity, equity, and inclusion

Ways to make your story idea a little more unique

• Localize a national story
• Broaden a story to a larger audience
• Be counter-intuitive

What does the “perfect pitch” look like?

• Arrives on a Tuesday or Wednesday morning
• Subject line that’s 25 to 30 characters long
• No more than 200 words
• Includes no more than two links to more information

“Owned” media can help boost book publicity

“Owned” media is content you control – your website and blog.

Having lots of relevant content on your website will help you show up higher in search engine results when a journalist is looking for a source like you.

Quality owned media can also boost your credibility.

Think in terms of:

• Blog posts
• Articles that you write about your topic that you can add to your site, separate from a blog (or in place of it). Mimic newspaper style.
• Press releases
• Q&As
• Video
• Infographics

One more book publicity tip from me

I’ll add one more tip from my experience as a freelance writer: Zero in on a few media outlets, study what they use, and show that your idea is a good fit for them when you pitch.

Publicists pitch me all day, every day. Most come to me because I’m in a media database with a few broad topics such as “small business” linked to my name.

Most of the pitches I receive have nothing to do with what I write about.

But those that do? I pay attention. When I get a pitch from a publicist who not only knows what I write about but what outlets I write it for, I notice. And I read those pitches.

Some I save for future use and some I respond to immediately not because I like their story idea, but because the source they’re pitching is a good fit for something else I’m working on at the moment.

When that happens, we’re all happy.

A little homework goes a long way.

Have you been able to get news media attention for your book? Please tell us about it in a comment.

Because many of her friends have influence with people the course is designed to help, I suggested she start by asking those friends to help spread the word. It’s a quick and easy way to begin moving forward.

But piggybacking onto someone else’s platform can – and should – involve far more than asking friends for support. The process is all about cross-promotion and collaboration.

How to leverage someone else’s network

It’s a smart strategy if you want to sell more books or other products, build an email list, or increase your social media follower count.

Here are eight ways to use the power of someone else’s network to reach your book marketing goals.

1. Do an Instagram takeover.

With an Instagram takeover, you literally take over someone’s Instagram account, posting your content instead of theirs. Create Instagram Stories and posts, or go live.

Keep in mind that this needs to be a mutually beneficial opportunity. Your host – perhaps another author in your genre – wants to know that you:

• Have an engaged audience that you’ll bring with you
• Will deliver quality, relevant content
• Will promote the takeover to your network

Keep the momentum going by arranging for your host to take over your account the following week.

2. Propose a newsletter swap.

A newsletter swap is a smart way to leverage someone else’s network while building relationships with others who reach your ideal readers.

With a newsletter swap, you and the influencer agree to promote each other’s books, programs, or products in your email newsletters.

I’ve got the how-to details in “How to do an author newsletter swap.”

3. Be a podcast guest.

Being any kind of guest is a great way to expand your reach, but I consider a podcast interview to be one of the easiest. Just show up and talk about something you know a lot about.

You’ll want to be thoughtful about what you say, of course. I always recommend working to communicate two or three key messages when you’re interviewed. Write them down ahead of time, and find ways to work each in at least once during the conversation.

Be sure to read “Message development: Know what you want to say and how to say it” first.

Support the podcast by promoting your appearance to your network so this is a win-win for all – you reach the podcast’s audience, but you also introduce your connections to the podcaster and their show.

4. Guest blog.

If you been hanging around here with me for a while, you know I’m a fan of guest blogging for several reasons.

When you write an article for someone else’s site, you’re providing an opportunity for your ideal readers to sample your writing.

via GIPHY

In addition, your host will most likely include a link to your book on Amazon or another retail site as part of your short guest blogger bio. (Learn the other reasons I love guest blogging in “4 reasons to embrace guest blogging.”)

Be careful to deliver a quality article that you’ve edited and carefully proofread. This isn’t an opportunity to “phone it in.” This should be a showpiece, not something you did so you could cross it off a list.

Get tips for being the best guest blogger ever in my free Guest Blogging Cheat Sheet.

5. Speak at a virtual or in-person summit.

via GIPHY

I do this once or twice a year, and I’m increasingly particular about the events I speak at so that I can maximize my time and reach.

I like to speak at events featuring other presenters who I’m fairly confident will promote the event to their networks.

When all speakers share summit news with their followers, everyone benefits. When they don’t, people in their networks aren’t exposed to helpful presentations and speakers, and other presenters don’t expand their reach and influence.

Speaking at a summit and offering free downloadable tips to attendees is one of the best ways I have for building my email list.

I usually create a new advice-packed “lead magnet” related to my presentation topic and require people to provide their email address to download it. They get bonus how-to information and my free, weekly, book marketing newsletter, and I can help more authors with articles like this one.

(Get fiction lead magnet ideas here and nonfiction ideas here.)

6. Bring well-connected people to your audience.

Do you have a blog or a podcast? Do you love using Facebook or Instagram Live? Invite influencers and others who share your audience to be your guest.

This helps you create quality content your followers will appreciate while your guest brings their audience to you, even while they’re connecting with yours.

Expand the impact by providing your guests with event text and images they can use to promote their guest appearances both before and after the events.

7. Get publicity.

Publicity – news media exposure – is the OG of audience leveraging.

Pre-social media, using publicity strategies to reach news outlets’ readers, viewers, and listeners was one of the only ways you could piggyback onto another’s platform.

Why should you work to reach audiences served by newspapers, magazines, radio and TV stations, and content sites? Publicity will help you:

• Get discovered
• Be seen as an authority and expert
• Sell more books
• Appeal to libraries and bookstores
• Expand your platform

Because I’m a national award-winning former publicist, I’ve written about publicity quite a bit on this site. Scroll through the articles here, and be sure to register for my author publicity course, “Get Quoted: A Journalist’s Strategies for Using HARO to Snag Book Publicity.”

8. Propose a joint venture.

The dictionary defines a joint venture as “a commercial enterprise undertaken jointly by two or more parties which otherwise retain their distinct identities.”

For us, it’s a mutually beneficial arrangement where you partner equally with someone else to achieve a common goal.

Let’s go back to my friend’s situation. If her course is designed for people like you – my audience – she could propose that I host a free training with her that teaches something helpful and previews the course.

We agree that in exchange for access to my audience, we will split the income she earns from course registrations generated by our joint event. She expands her reach, I provide you with useful free training, and we’ve both earned something in the process.

That’s a solid joint venture.

Which of these options works for you?

You’re better suited to some of these than others, right? If you don’t have a blog or podcast, you won’t be inviting people to write for you and you won’t be interviewing them on air.

But if you’re killing it on Instagram, a takeover there might become your new best tactic. Love talking about the writing craft or your book’s topic? Look into being a podcast guest.

It doesn’t matter how many of these you’re willing to explore. What matters is that you pick at least one – just one – and learn how to make it happen. You’ll move in the right direction – forward!

Which of these works best for you already? Which one are you going to try now? Please tell us in a comment.

Nearly every assignment requires me to find people – usually experts, but not always – to interview and quote. I use a range of resources and strategies to find them.

I’ve been doing this for a couple of decades, so I have a lot of experience finding people to interview, then working with them to get the information I need.

I’ve seen the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Today, we’re going to talk about the ugly.

How to make sure you don’t get publicity

What’s ugly? Ugly is behavior that guarantees that I won’t quote you.

Sometimes it’s intentional, sometimes it isn’t. But it still results in no interview. And no interview means you won’t enjoy the business-building, book-selling benefits that come with publicity.

Here’s how to make sure you don’t snag that media interview that can sell books, position you as an authority, and drive traffic to your site.

1. Act like you’re doing me a big favor.

via GIPHY

Before you exclaim that why, yes, you are doing me a favor by sharing your time and expertise with me and my readers, let me point out what should be obvious.

It’s a win-win for the writer and the source. I get help completing my assignment, and you get the credibility and other benefits that come with media attention.

Keep in mind that your competitors would probably be happy to step up. Writers have options, and some of them will understand the mutually beneficial relationship of writer and source. Those people will be happy to have me support them by giving them publicity.

2. Waste my time. 

So you think I’m writing about the wrong topic, but you agree to answer my questions. You plan to talk about what you think I should be writing about, instead.

While I respect that you know more about your area of expertise than I do, my assignment isn’t to poll a few experts for their opinions about my assigned topic.

My job is to write about what I’m paid to write about. If you can’t help me do that, move along.

3. Be stingy.

Whether doing an email, telephone/video, or in-person interview, make sure I can’t quote you by using short, incomplete sentences.

Say something generic in a generic way. Avoid getting specific. The devil is in the details, and nobody likes the devil, so skip the details.

Another good way to look like you’re cooperating when you aren’t is to say, “There’s information about that online.”

4. Make it difficult to contact you.

via GIPHY

When I need a very specific type of expertise, I often begin my search for experts with Google. That recently yielded a promising source, but when I clicked through to their website, there was no “contact” option in the toolbar.

I had to hunt (and hunt … and hunt) for an email address. I eventually found it buried at the bottom of a long service description, but by then I was exhausted and needed a nap.

5. Tell me to use something from your blog post or another interview you’ve done.

You might as well tell me I’m lazy, because only a lazy writer would do this.

Then there’s the plagiarism risk. Imagine how impressed my editor would be if they ran my article through a plagiarism checker and saw that I copied and pasted from your website.

It’s not plagiarism if I have your permission to pull from your blog post, but it puts me in an awkward situation with my editor. It’s also not how good writers gather quotes.

And suggesting that I just copy something you told another writer? Publications aren’t paying for duplicate content, especially if it comes from a competitor’s article.

6. Be a plagiarist.

And while we’re talking about plagiarism, if you’re doing an email interview, get the answers to the writer’s questions by copying and pasting from someone else’s website.

I recently used HARO (Help a Reporter Out), a free service that connects journalists with sources, to find people who could answer my questions via email. Two of the people who responded provided answers that they copied and pasted from someone else’s website – the same someone else’s website.

Yes, their answers were identical.

Again, picture my editor running my article through a plagiarism checker and discovering this.

(So I suppose that tip should be “Be a plagiarist and an idiot.”)

7. Be a jerk.

via GIPHY

I am not required to use anything from an interview when I write an article. If you’re rude or arrogant and I have enough of the right information from other sources, I might not have room for your comments.

How to make sure you get that media opportunity

Are you a smart author who knows the value of publicity? I’ve got lots of articles with book publicity advice on this site, but one of the easiest and most effective ways to get author and book publicity is to use HARO.

In my new course, “Get Quoted: A Journalist’s Strategies for Using HARO to Snag Book Publicity,” I get you up and running with this free service, and teach you how to use it the right way so you enjoy the benefits of publicity.

Learn more about the course, why you need it, and what’s included on the course description page: https://build-book-buzz.teachable.com/p/get-quoted. Scroll down to the bottom of that page to preview the first module.

An interview with the press is a free and effective way to share the messages from your book. It’s another way to help your target audience discover your book. And book marketing is all about discoverability.

Why turn that down?

How do you make it easy for journalists to find and work with you? Please tell us in a comment!

• Magazine
• Newspaper
• Online media outlet or content site
• Radio station
• TV program
• Blog
• Podcast

It’s more powerful than advertising and other paid-for marketing tactics because it brings with it far more credibility. That’s because when you’re quoted by the press, you get an authority boost.

People are smart enough to know that journalists are selective about who they use as sources. So, if a reporter chose you, you must know what you’re talking about.

What are the easiest and most effective ways to get publicity? Here are my top three.

1. Write and distribute a publicity tip sheet.

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.

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

Radio stations like to share the advice in snippets or, like TV talk shows, build author interviews around the tip sheet topic. Bloggers run them as new posts because tip sheets with substance help them deliver useful information to their followers.

Learn how to create one and see an example in “How to create a book publicity tip sheet.”

2. Blog regularly.

When I’m looking for sources for my freelance writing article assignments, I often start with a Google search.

I might type in my article topic, or, when I specifically want to interview an author, I’ll type the topic plus the word “author.”

More often than not, search results take me to blog posts. I contact the blogger via email; if they respond (and sadly, it’s “if,” not “when”), we do an interview … and that expert scores free publicity.

Here’s how you can leverage your blog’s content to get publicity:

• Provide your email address on your “contact” page, not a form that people have to type into. Because I rarely get a response to my form-based inquiries, I try not to use them when I find a source I’d like to interview. If I can use only one of the two experts I’ve found, I’ll start with the one who provides an email address.
• Respond to media inquiries quickly. Most of us move on to the next option quickly when we don’t hear back from someone we’ve contacted within a reasonable amount of time.

3. Subscribe to HARO.

HARO – Help a Reporter Out – is a free service that helps journalists find sources to interview and quote in articles and broadcast segments.

It is one of the easiest – if not the easiest – ways to get book publicity.

HARO is every book publicist’s secret weapon because works. That’s why every time I coach an author who wants media exposure, the first thing I ask is, “Are you using HARO?”

And it’s free.

HARO feeds you requests from journalists

When you create a free HARO account, you’ll get three emails a day. Each of these emails includes a collection of brief messages from journalists who are looking for article or segment sources. We call those messages from journalists “queries.”

I use HARO regularly to find people to interview or quote for my freelance writing assignments, and, sad to say, I rarely hear from authors.

Worse, those I hear from don’t respond in a way that makes it possible for me to interview or quote them.

That’s because there’s a right way and a wrong way to respond, and many sources of all types, not just authors, respond the wrong way.

HARO response secrets

I teach how to use HARO the right way to get publicity for your author career and your book in my course, “Get Quoted: A Journalist’s Strategies for using HARO to Snag Book Publicity.”

Mastering HARO will give you a competitive edge that will not only help you sell more books, it will contribute to the platform you need to get a traditional publishing contract.

And, for those who consult, coach, or speak, it will boost your profile in ways that attract more clients and allow you to charge more for your services.

Get more information on the Get Quoted course description page.

Publicity begets publicity

It’s important to use any of these methods or others, including contacting media outlets directly with article or segment ideas, because publicity begets publicity.

Here’s what often happens once you’ve been quoted a couple of times:

• You, your book, and your website show up higher in search engine results when people, including journalists, search for your topic.
• Journalists who see you’ve been quoted already are more likely to contact you for an interview. That’s because another reporter has vetted you, and because it’s clear that you’re willing and able to talk about your topic.

You also earn the right to share media outlet, blog, podcast, and content site logos on your website in an “as seen on” banner.

Don’t wait to pursue publicity. Let this free strategy help you reach more of the right readers.

Have you snagged publicity? Please tell us how you did it in a comment!

A book press release is the essential media relations tool that accompanies review copies or tells the media and other key influencers that your book is available, among other things.

And yet, too many authors don’t know how to write one that communicates the right information to the right people.

As a result, they lose valuable opportunities for exposure by distributing a document that doesn’t have the right information in the accepted and expected format.

Avoid these 5 mistakes

Because of that, many authors make deadly mistakes that ensure that journalists delete their book press releases quickly, before they’re even read.

Here are the mistakes I see authors making most often and how to fix them.

1. Creating a highly designed document.

This will definitely help your announcement stand out, but it will also grease the path to the digital trash can.

Press releases follow a specific format that begins with an attention-getting headline and looks like a news article. If yours uses the format that reporters, editors, producers, and bloggers need and expect, your press release has a better chance of getting read and used.

If it uses multiple font styles and sizes, a two-column format, and reads like you’re trying to sell the book, it’s called “sales material,” not a press release.

Journalists don’t like sales material. They like editorial content. And that’s what you want to provide in your book announcement press release.

2. Putting the author’s name in the headline.

We invest a lot of ourselves in our books, but because none of us are J.K. Rowling or Malcolm Gladwell, journalists don’t know our names.

Savvy book publicists and authors use that valuable headline real estate to communicate important information about the book, not the author. That’s what you want to do, too.

3. E-mailing the press release as an attachment.

Most business e-mail users won’t open attachments because of concerns about viruses and other nasty problems.

I explain the correct way to do it in “How to e-mail a press release to journalists.”

4. Housing it on your website as a PDF file.

Journalists don’t like working with PDF files because they often lose all formatting when they copy and paste the information into a new file. That means they have to find and reinsert paragraph breaks, and so on.

As soon as you create work for them, they lose interest (and who can blame them?). Give them what they want in the format they want. In this case, that’s text they can easily copy and paste.

Notice how easily you can copy and paste this article. That’s the goal for your press release.

Author Candy Harrington’s press room for her book, 22 Accessible Road Trips: Driving Vacations for Wheelers and Slow Walkers, is an excellent example of how you want to do this. At that link, select “press release,” then click on each option.

5. Not proofreading your press release.

If your press release is loaded with blatant errors such as spelling a word in your title wrong (I’ve seen it) or other typographical or grammatical errors, you’re saying to the recipient: “I don’t care about quality.”

That will encourage people to question the quality of your book, too. That’s not your goal, so proofread carefully. If you’re not good at that, find someone who is to help you out.

How to write a book press release

As an author, you’re the best person to write your book announcement press release. The challenge for most is knowing:

• The end goal — why this tool will help their book get noticed
• What to include
• What it should look like
• How to use it effectively

Help is here!

I’ve just updated my popular e-book, Get Your Book in the News: How to Write a Press Release That Announces Your Book. It walks you through the process step-by-step, gives you a template you can use to write yours, and offers 12 new examples of actual fiction and nonfiction book press releases so you know what yours should look like.

Get all the details on the book’s sales page, where you can learn more and purchase a snazzy PDF or the more ordinary Kindle version.

Taking the time to learn the right (and wrong!) way to write your book’s press release could make the difference between success and failure. It’s not hard when you know how to do it. When you follow the instructions in this book, you’ll have everything you need.

Do you have a question about book announcement press releases? Please ask it in a comment.

I’ve seen the impact it’s had on sales first hand.

My first two books were published before social media existed, so promotion options were limited to paid advertising, public speaking, and publicity — news media exposure.

My first book sold out its press run thanks to book publicity that included national TV, radio, magazine, and newspapers interviews. That publicity generated a steady stream of paid speaking engagements that not only helped me earn more from the book, they also sold more books.

My second book went through three press runs on the strength of publicity alone. No tweets. No posts. No shares. Just news media attention in the form of interviews and articles I wrote about topics covered in the book.

Publicity helps your book get discovered

This is why you see successful authors interviewed on network TV morning news programs and in newspapers and magazines. Publicity helps your book get discovered by potential readers.

With book marketing, discoverability is everything. People can’t buy your book if they don’t know about it.

One of the biggest challenges for authors smart enough to see the value in this marketing tactic is building a a list of media people to contact with segment and article ideas.

Creating that all-important book publicity media list you’ll use to promote your book on an ongoing basis takes time and effort, but it’s not hard to do. With guidance, in fact, an intern can do a lot of it for you.

Here are seven tips that will help you craft a media list you can use to get news about your book in front of your target audience.

1. Start with an empty Excel file or Word table.

Add columns for each media outlet, the journalist you should contact, e-mail address, Twitter address, outlet category (radio, TV, blog, magazine, etc.), and background notes. Fill it in as you gather names and addresses.

2. Gather both e-mail addresses and Twitter addresses.

You’ll use them differently, but you’ll want to have both. E-mail is the best option for delivering full-blown pitches or press releases, while Twitter will help you build relationships.

When you have the names of the journalists you want to reach, use Twitter’s search function to find and follow them.

3. Start local.

Write down the local media outlets you believe are most likely to give you publicity, then visit the website of each. Most provide contact information for reporters (print), producers (radio and TV talk shows), assignment editors (TV news), news directors (radio news), and news personalities (TV news).

If you can’t find what you need online, call the media outlet.

4. Use The Google.

Turn Google into your assistant publicist.

Set up Google and Talkwalker Alerts for your book’s topic to help you identify journalists and bloggers who report on it. Research and add their contact information to your database as the alerts come in.

5. Hit the library.

Media directories are helpful, but expensive. Instead of buying them, visit the research desk at your local public library. You can find the right contacts for people at national networks, national and local talk shows, radio stations and talk shows, trade and consumer magazines, and daily newspapers.

Resources include Gale Directory of Publications and Broadcast Media and Gebbie Press All-In-One Media Directory.

6. Go online.

Use the Radio-Locator database to get contact information for radio drive time or talk shows. After deciding who is the best contact at a daily newspaper (fashion? food? religion? business?), use USNPL to build your list.

You can also often find contact information for key journalists on each media outlet’s website. Newspapers are particularly good at this; consumer magazines can be hit or miss.

7. Pick favorites.

Identify the 10 to 12 media outlets that have the greatest potential to influence your book’s success, and study each one to make sure you know exactly where your information will fit. That will help you determine your best contact at that media outlet.

Use and reuse

Build your own media list so you can use it repeatedly. Use it to stay in touch with the media so you are top of mind when reporters are looking for qualified sources.

Be sure to leverage the list by creating a plan for staying in touch with the journalists regularly.

Send a press release when you have news to announce, create tip sheets offering helpful and relevant tips and advice, and pitch timely story or segment ideas to individual journalists. (Get all the templates for pitch letters, press releases, and other documents you’ll send to the media and use in your press kit in Build Book Buzz Publicity Forms & Templates, created just for authors.)

Want to simply send a press release to as many appropriate media outlets as possible? When you value your time, it’s more cost-effective to pay a press release distribution service like eReleases (that’s an affiliate link).

Be sure to update your list every six months so you’re always sending your pitch or news to the right person. Continually watch the talk shows you’re targeting or read the print outlets on your list so that you know what types of content they use. Your goal is to always offer content that’s relevant to their viewers and readers.

Provide appropriate content and ideas to the right people consistently and persistently, and your efforts with your new media list will pay off.

What’s your best tip for building a media list for book publicity?

(Editor’s note: This article was first published in August 2013. It has been updated and expanded.)

It’s not long before she discovers the book club is a ruse.

The women just want to escape from their families, drink wine, and gossip.

“You didn’t really think we read the book, did you, Lois?” asks one woman, shocked.

Fortunately for authors, many book club members take their club commitments seriously, reading the assigned book and arriving prepared to both socialize and discuss the book.

This is good news for you if you think your book is book club material.

Finding book clubs

If your book is the type that’s popular with book clubs, it’s possible that some in your area will find and contact you. This is more likely if you’ve had local publicity.

You can also look for book clubs to contact. Options for doing so include:

1. Ask at your library’s reference desk or talk to your local bookstore’s community relations manager.
2. Talk to friends about the clubs they belong to and whether your book is a good fit for them.
3. Inquire on social media.
4. Search the book club section of Meetup.com.
5. Use the ZIP Code search box at Reader’s Circle or list your book with the site.
6. Pay a service to advertise your book to clubs.

Start by identifying local clubs so you can participate in person rather than by Skype, FaceTime, Google Chat, or speaker phone.

Local clubs will also be more open to working with you than those in other regions, which makes them a good starting point.

Use local club meetings to discover which discussion questions resonate and what questions they ask that aren’t on your list but should be. Let them be your training ground.

Getting selected

Your next challenge is to get your book selected by clubs. Even then, though, you also need to make sure it can be borrowed from libraries and purchased online or in person.

How will book clubs know yours is the perfect choice for them?

Among other things, you want to include a book club reading guide on your website.

This is essential because it helps your book get found by groups. It also tells them that you’re interested in working with them.

You’ll find detailed information on what to include in your book club discussion guide as well as what to expect from club appearances in Module 4 of our popular online course, “Book Marketing 101 for Fiction: How to Build Book Buzz.”

Reader connections are worth it

Like nearly every other book marketing tactic, attracting and connecting with book clubs takes time and effort.

Even so, if your book is appropriate for clubs, whether they’re general interest, cookbook, or Christian book groups, think about reaching out to them.

The one-on-one interaction with people who have read (and loved) your book can be more energizing than a Starbucks latte.

In addition, the feedback you’ll get that you can use to shape your next book is almost priceless.

Do you participate in book club meetings? What advice can you offer authors reaching out to them? 

(Editor’s note: This article was first published in July 2013. It has been updated and expanded.)

If you’re looking for book publicity — free media exposure — you have to:

• Have an author press kit on your website
• Include the right elements with the right information
• Present it in a format that’s easy for all journalists to use

Are you making any of these common author press kit mistakes that are interfering with your ability to effectively promote your book? Don’t worry if you are — all of these can be fixed easily:

1. You don’t have an online press room with an author press kit.

Get out! No press room? No press kit? No media information? You need to read “Must-have online press room elements for authors and books” before you go any further.

Actually, most authors don’t have one, which means those who do are light years ahead of their competition when it comes to priceless book publicity.

When I’m looking for an expert author to interview for a magazine article assignment and have two choices, which one do you think I’ll contact — the one with a press kit or the one without? When I see an online press kit, I think, “This person wants to be interviewed. I won’t have to talk him into it.”

Unless you’re trying to hide from the press, you need one. It’s expected; it’s useful.

2. Your press materials are only in PDF format.

Here’s the problem with PDFs: You want journalists to copy and paste your press releases, fact sheets, bios, etc. In many cases, when someone copies text from a PDF and drops it into Word or another program, all formatting is lost. The journalist has to manually insert paragraph returns and so on.

That’s a problem.

So you want your press materials available in a format that lets people copy and paste easily. That’s plain text in the same way that the text on your “about” page is plain text.

Ditch the PDFs, even though you see publishers and publicists using them. They create problems.

Candy Harrington’s press rooms for each of her books are great examples of how to do it the right way. You’ll see how easy it is to copy and paste the text.

3. There’s no date on your press releases.

When your book announcement press release doesn’t have a date, I don’t know if the book is new or three years old.

Perhaps you’ve got a press release listing your bookstore appearances, but you haven’t included the year. A journalist compiling a local calendar of events won’t be able to use the information without taking extra steps to confirm that it’s current. As soon as you force reporters to take unnecessary steps, you lose them.

4. You don’t provide contact information.

This is incredibly common, probably because it doesn’t occur to you that someone might want to contact you for an interview or to ask a few questions.

Picture this*: A local network TV affiliate is searching online for local romance authors for a new twist on the usual Valentine’s Day segment.

The reporter finds your site, is thrilled to see that you have a press room, but can’t find your contact information on that section of your site, in your press releases, or on your site at all, for that matter (another common problem).

That will probably cost you that publicity opportunity.

5. There are no images.

Not that you need a lot of them, but you do need your book cover and an author head shot.

Make them available in both high-resolution (“high res” is 300 dpi or greater) and low-resolution (“low res” is less than 300 dpi) versions. Publications need high-res images; bloggers and websites like low-res.

6. You haven’t clearly identified the press room where you house your author press kit.

Label it clearly on your toolbar.

Title options include:

• Press Room
• Press Kit
• For the Media
• For the Press
• Newsroom

Many authors, experts, and others have a section identified as “Media,” which tricks journalists into thinking that they’ll find press kit elements there. What they find instead are reprints or links to articles or segments that include an interview with the author. That’s good — reporters like knowing that their interview won’t be your first — but it’s misleading.

If you have a “media” page that showcases your publicity success but doesn’t have press materials, add them so you’re both serving and attracting journalists.

Make sure you create an online press kit and house it in on your website so that you not only support your publicity efforts, but so that you improve your site’s search engine optimization — SEO — too.

Avoid mistakes by using templates

Need help creating your online press kit? “Build Book Buzz Publicity Forms & Templates” has a template and sample for every author press kit element, from your book announcement press release to your bio and sample question and answer sheet.

Learn more at http://buildbookbuzz.com/publicity-forms-and-templates/.

What do you call your online press room? Tell us in a comment.

_{*Channeling my inner Sophia Petrillo}