Holiday gift guide topics vary, but typical headlines include “10 last-minute gifts for under $20,” “The best gifts for cooks,” and “What to buy the person who has everything.”

Many authors notice these and email me to ask, “How can I get my book included in a holiday gift guide this year?”

Here are three ways to do that.

1. Propose a “roundup” of books in a specific category or genre.

A “roundup” article usually gathers up the best, worst, most, least, newest, top, funniest, etc. products related to a specific category or theme.

Here are a few ideas for book roundups — use them to think about what might work best for your book:

• Best books for runners
• Favorite instant pot cookbooks
• Most popular new novels
• Best books for getting fit in the new year
• Top books for entrepreneurs
• Favorite books for early readers
• YA novels everyone’s talking about
• New diet craze books

Pitch a roundup to specific, targeted media outlets using the instructions in “How to pitch a roundup article.”

To get your idea picked up by multiple media outlets, write and distribute a press release announcing your gift idea, instead.

Write your press release as if it’s a newspaper article — no hype, no superlatives, no selling. List the books you recommend for the gift guide, making sure to add yours near the top. Include a short description of each book.

Use a press release distribution service to reach as many relevant media outlets as possible with your press release. Here’s an affiliate link for my favorite service, eReleases.

If you don’t know how to write a pitch letter or a press release, you’ll appreciate the templates for each plus actual samples in Build Book Buzz Publicity Forms & Templates.

2. Propose a gift roundup built around a topic or theme.

Even I publish one. It’s my almost-annual gifts for writers and authors post.

The umbrella concept you select might be built around a budget, hobby, profession, the recipient’s age, or your book’s theme. Ideas to get you thinking include:

• Best gifts for soon-to-be or recent retirees
• 10 must-have gifts for under $20
• Holiday gifts for health nuts
• 10 kitchen essentials for foodies
• Favorite gifts for the newly-engaged
• Top teen holiday gifts

Follow the pitching instructions in point 1 above — either send an email with your idea to specific media outlets, or write and distribute a press release for wider exposure.

3. Subscribe to Help a Reporter Out — HARO — and respond to gift suggestion queries from journalists.

HARO is a free daily email service that connects journalists with sources.

The 800,000-plus people who use it receive three e-mails a day loaded with queries from journalists who describe what they’re looking for in a source and why.

In November and December, you’ll start to see queries for holiday gift guides. If you make the effort to scan those emails for these opportunities, you might get your book into a gift guide pretty easily.

The trick to getting selected as a source — all of which you don’t pay for — is responding to the right queries appropriately. Learn how to do that in my online course, “Get Quoted: A Journalist’s Strategies for Using HARO to Snag Book Publicity.”

It takes just a few minutes each day to scan the emails for gift guides that could be a good fit for your book.

It’s a more passive approach than making a direct pitch to just the right media outlet or sending out a press release, but it’s easier and takes less time. Just be certain to respond only to those gift guide queries that truly are a good fit for your book.

Respond promptly, too. Journalists who receive more responses than they need tend to accept those that come into their inbox first.

Finally on that point, read the entire request and follow the instructions carefully.

Promote your book as the perfect holiday gift this year

Make getting your book into a media outlet’s holiday gift guide a priority this year.

Whether it’s a blog, an online magazine, or a printed newspaper, your book will enjoy the boost that publicity always brings.

Has your book appeared in a gift guide? Please leave a comment telling us how it happened. 

I hope that this month, you will give or receive a book for Hanukkah, Christmas, Kwanzaa, Festivus, or for any other holiday or occasion (or already have).

Books truly do keep on giving as they’re read and re-read or passed along to others.

It’s not too late to visit a local independent or chain bookstore or big box retailer to buy a book for anyone of any age. Don’t forget about gift cards, too! Because you can purchase and send them digitally, it’s so easy to let your recipient select the book of their choice.

Turn to Google for inspiration

Need ideas for books that will make great gifts? Google will help!

Googling “books for mystery lovers” got me to this Pinterest page with soooo many covers.

Searching for the best children’s books led me to a helpful article on Parents.com, “Parents’ 10 Best Children’s Books of 2017.”

Buzzfeed Books is a wonderful resource. How about “43 Books You Won’t Be Able to Stop Talking About?”

My own favorite source is the “Popular Book Club Books” list on Goodreads. Never disappoints.

And, of course, you probably know authors with books that will make great gifts. (Even better if you can get one signed.)

For example, I participated in a Secret Santa Facebook name draw this year with a large group of people I don’t know.  A quick look at the Facebook profile for the woman whose name I drew revealed that she’s an avid runner, so how could I not get her my friend Jen Miller’s popular memoir, Running: A Love Story?

Books are the best gifts year-round

This is the gift-giving season, but it’s not the only time of the year you’ll need to give a gift.

The next time you want to give the perfect Valentine’s Day, birthday, graduation, bridal shower, Father’s Day, or Mother’s Day present, look for a book.

You’ll enjoy searching for the just the right choice. And you just might introduce the recipient to something new, interesting, or exciting.

Would your book make a great gift? Tell us why and provide a link in a comment. 

These holiday gift guides are often built around a theme – gifts under $20 or $50, or for the person who has everything, runners, romance readers, knitters, and so on.

This type of article is often referred to as a “round-up.” A “roundup” usually gathers up the best, worst, most, least, newest, top, funniest, etc. products related to a specific category or theme.

Remember that roundups can be broader than books. In fact, if you come up with a “gifts for” or “best gifts of” topic that includes a wide range of product types, you might be more successful than if you focused only on books.

Here are the steps to follow to pitch the press on a holiday gift guide that includes your book.

1. Create your roundup topic and title.

Examples include “Best holiday gifts for writers,” “Teen gift ideas,” “Gifts for sports fans,” and “Top gifts for the health-conscious.” Written a mystery set in the Berkshire Mountains? Get regional publicity with a roundup on “Books that showcase the Berkshires,” or “Best Massachusetts-made gifts” or even “Best gifts for mountain hikers.”

(To get more gift guide topic ideas, read “6 ways to promote your book as a holiday gift.”)

2. Understand which media outlets are the best fit for your holiday gift guide idea.

October is probably too late to get into a magazine’s holiday gift guide because they started planning them weeks ago, but the timing is perfect for newspapers, websites, and blogs.

Decide if you want to contact just a few daily newspapers, most of them in a region, or most of them around the country. If you’re sending your idea to just a few of them, you can pitch via email. If you’re sending them to all daily newspapers with a circulation greater than 50,000, for example, you’ll want to use a press release distribution service (that’s an affiliate link for my favorite service).

Identify the websites and bloggers that reach your target audience and use this type of content. Consider TV talk shows in your local market as well, particularly noon news options and network affiliate morning programs that air in the early hours before the network morning shows (Today Show, Good Morning America, CBS This  Morning).

3. Be clear on where your holiday gift guide fits into the media outlet’s content.

If you’re pitching a TV talk show, watch a few shows to see if they usually do demonstrations, “on location” segments, or studio sit-downs where you chat with a host. If you’re going after daily newspapers, know which section is most likely to use your idea — business? Lifestyle?

4. Figure out who you should pitch at the outlet(s).

When you’re pitching just your local media outlets, you can gather that information easily through each outlet’s website or by calling. Here’s a quick cheat sheet:

• For TV talk shows, contact the producer.
• For TV news programs, contact the assignment editor.
• For daily newspapers, contact the section editor or the reporter who covers your gift guide’s topic. For example, if it’s a “best gifts for foodies” idea, you would contact the food reporter or food editor. If it’s “top 10 gifts for small business owners,” it’s the small business reporter or business section editor. The right title depends on the newspaper size – the larger the newspaper, the more likely it is to have topic reporters.

5. Write and e-mail a great pitch letter.

A pitch letter is a sales letter that needs to convince an editor, reporter, or producer that your idea is a good fit for that outlet. Learning how to write a solid pitch letter is so important that Build Book Buzz Publicity Forms & Templates has a fill-in-the-blanks form that walks you through the process and a sample pitch letter so you know what it should look like.

Describe your topic and offer your book as a suggestion as well as several other recommended gifts. Offer to send a copy of the book.

When you offer other gift ideas for the round-up, you’re doing two things for the journalist. First, you’re helping do some of the work. Second, you’re showing that you understand how these things work — that gift guides offer multiple gifts, not just yours.

PRO TIP: Use a search engine to look up a few gift guides from previous years. It will help you see how various media outlets handle them.

What would be a good holiday gift roundup topic for your book? Tell us in a comment.