Wednesday, March 28, 2018

8 Tactics To Try When Seeking Media Coverage For Your Book



Although I’ve given out common-sense advice, strategies, and tips in my nearly three decades as a book promoter and marketer, I also realize that some of the best ways to promote or market a book may be unusual, less common, even seemingly counter-intuitive.  Different methods work for some, while they fail to help many – and what seems to boost most books may not really move the needle for a handful.  

So what might help that often isn’t tried by others?

1. Most people will mail books to the media, but they usually send copies to big-name media or perhaps commonly targeted outlets such as health book reviewers or the feature editors at top 50 newspapers or the television producers of the major morning shows.  Perhaps you should consider sending books to massively small media outlets, where the competition for coverage is not as fierce as at the popular ones?

2. Many people seek to reach the media by email. Why not pick up the phone and try to locate the right person?  Or even better, see if you can befriend them though social media, and then lobby their connections to gain coverage.

3. Often people pitch logical story ideas – seven tips to losing weight; advice to parents; the backstory to a sci-fi thriller.  How about you pitch something too outrageous to look away from?  What’s the wildest headline you can come up with?

4. Can you create a media stunt, something that demonstrates how unique your story really is?

5. One thing that’s time-consuming, but worth a shot, and that is to write up what the story or review would look like in accordance with that media outlet’s style.  For instance, act as if you write for Library Journal and craft a review in the same length and format they would use. Or package, with video, how a four-minute interview with you would appear on a specific TV show.  Maybe when you show them how good it will look they will go for it.

6. How personal have you made your pitch? I don’t mean about yourself, but about the person you’re pitching? Did you check online to learn all that you can about the past and preferences of specific producers or journalists?  You can utilize this info when pitching them and making it seem deeply relevant and customized.

7. Have you tried offering your story as an exclusive, and making it sound really important?

8. Lastly, if you have a decent social media following, have you asked your connections to lobby specific media outlets on your behalf?  Can you get 20 or 200 or 2000 followers to tweet or email a journalist to highlight why you should be interviewed by him or her?

Be innovative and daring. You need to shake things up so take a risk and let it all hang out there.

“It is with books as with men – a very small number play a great part; the rest are lost in the multitude.”
--Voltaire, ‘Books’, Philosophical Dictionary (1764)

“One reads not to retain what one has read, but to forget what one has experienced.”
--Walter Benjamin, quoted from Stultifera Navis (1957)

“You don’t write because you want to say something, you write because you’ve got something to say.”

--F. Scott Fitzgerald, ‘The Note-Books’, The Crack-Up (1945)

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Brian Feinblum’s insightful views, provocative opinions, and interesting ideas expressed in this terrific blog are his alone and not that of his employer or anyone else. You can – and should -- follow him on Twitter @theprexpert and email him at brianfeinblum@gmail.com. He feels much more important when discussed in the third-person. This is copyrighted by BookMarketingBuzzBlog © 2018. Born and raised in Brooklyn, he now resides in Westchester. His writings are often featured in The Writer and IBPA’s Independent.  This was named one of the best book marketing blogs by Book Baby http://blog.bookbaby.com/2013/09/the-best-book-marketing-blogs and recognized by Feedspot in 2018 as one of the top book marketing blogs. Also named by WinningWriters.com as a "best resource."

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