At least once a week, an author asks me, “Should I hire a book publicist?”

Are you wondering about this, too?

Before offering advice, I need to know an author’s long-term goals, the book’s quality and publicity potential, and the individual’s financial situation.

I also want to make sure any author considering this investment understands:

• Why they’re considering hiring a book publicist — what do they hope a publicist will do for their career?
• What a publicist can and can’t accomplish for an author and their book.
• There are no guarantees with book publicity — a publicist can’t promise anything (and if they do, it means they’re using your money to pay the media outlet…we call that “advertising”).
• A publicist is a significant financial investment.

The financial investment

Authors accustomed to marketing emails proclaiming, “We’ll promote your book for $99!” are often surprised when they learn what experienced book publicists charge for their time, skill, and know-how.

So let’s start there. It will help to know if you can afford it before you think about the other specifics we’ll talk about here.

A good, experienced book publicist charges $3,000 to $5,000 a month and needs at least three or four months to work on your book — often six.

If you can’t afford that, stop reading now.

Yes, yes, you can probably hire somebody for less than that. But that’s the going rate for experienced specialists.

And before you pull out the calculator to figure out how many books you’ll need to sell to break even, understand that you probably won’t earn back your publicist fees in book royalties or sales alone.

Who should hire a book publicist?

So who can afford to take that kind of risk on behalf of their book? Someone who can afford to invest in their career.

Authors who can afford a publicist typically fall into nine categories.

1. Traditional publishing contract authors with a large enough advance against royalties to fund an outside publicist.

I coached a first-time author with a six-figure advance who invested some of it in media training and two publicists, each with a different specialty.

2. Successful, well-compensated entrepreneurs or executives.

These people often hire a ghostwriter for their book, too.

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3. Consultants, coaches, and professional speakers who wrote a book to help build their career, generate higher fees, or build a client base.

Publicity for a book that is essentially a large business card can help generate enough income to cover the publicist’s fee.

4. Career authors who know that the size of their next advance depends on how well their most recent book sold.

They want to make sure they sell enough copies of this one to get a solid advance for their next manuscript.

5. Self-published experts who have written books on trending topics and have invested in a quality book that rivals anything published by a traditional book publisher.

This means they’ve paid for professional cover design, editing, and proofreading; and have enlisted objective beta readers to provide constructive feedback on the manuscript. The result is a darned good book.

6. Individuals looking to build a platform for their first or subsequent books.

Publishers prefer authors with a solid platform. Media exposure is a platform component that can enhance the marketing section of the author’s book proposal and improve the odds of landing a publishing contract.

7. Authors who can afford to spend the money without worrying about whether they will earn the money back.

They’re investing in their career, but won’t suffer financially if the publicity campaign doesn’t meet the publicist’s expectations.

8. Authors with a top-quality, self-published book who want to leverage high-profile publicity to help get their books into bookstores and libraries.

Retailers and libraries look for reader demand. Publicity both generates and demonstrates interest.

9. People who are independently wealthy.

They often pay for an expensive publishing package and corresponding marketing because it’s the easiest path to a finished book … and because they can. These individuals often have high expectations for book publicity.

Publicity can generate an income boost

When a campaign is successful, savvy authors leverage the media exposure to secure:

• More and better paying speaking engagements
• Higher consulting fees
• More coaching and consulting clients
• A larger platform for related products that can include online courses, companion workbooks, and coaching programs
• A larger advance for their next book

This is a snapshot of the potential; it’s not a guarantee.

Who shouldn’t hire a book publicist?

If you don’t fall into one of those nine categories above, be very, very cautious if you still want to hire a publicist. Remember, there are no guarantees.

A good publicist will tell you what they think they can accomplish for your book, but they can’t promise any of that. That’s because there’s a gatekeeper between the publicist and the results you want, whether it’s an appearance on “The Daily Show” or an interview about your book’s topic in the Chicago Tribune.

The gatekeeper is a producer, editor, writer, or reporter. They are the people who decide which sources get interviews and which products get featured.

With that in mind, I don’t recommend contracting wtih a book publicist if:

• You think a publicist should work for a percentage of book sales. It doesn’t work that way. (And I’m not going to argue about why it should.)
• You have to borrow money for the fee.
• You can’t afford to spend the money without being certain that you will get tangible results. Because you might not.

Extra credit homework

If you think it makes sense to hire a publicist, please read two articles on this site first:

• “7 things you need to know about working with a book publicist” offers insights into how it works and what to expect (and not expect).
• “How one author got ripped off and how you can avoid it” gives you seven questions to ask as you work through the outside consultant selection process.

Ask authors who have hired a book publicist to talk to you about their experiences, too. What results did they get? Were they satisfied? Would they do it again?

Do it yourself instead

Because of the expense and risk associated with a publicist, many authors decide to do it themselves. If you’ve got more money than time, hire a pro. More time than money? Do it yourself.

But learn how first.

Be sure to read my article, “How to be your own book publicist.” Search online. Take a course. Read a book. (Consider looking outside the “for authors” book genre to publicity how-to books for small business owners and entrepreneurs, too.)

Whether you hire a book publicist or decide to do it yourself, do your homework first (I offer one-on-one book marketing coaching that can help). The more you know first, the more likely you are to be satisfied with your decision.

If you’re hired a book publicist, please tell us in a comment how you found the person you hired.

(Editor’s note: This article was first published in July 2017. It has been updated and expanded.)

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.

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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.

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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.

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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!