Should Authors Invest In Book Marketing Or Book Publicity?

To be clear, the question really is not should an author an author invest in either book marketing or book publicity, but rather, how much of each?

Book marketing covers sales and advertising, including things like speaking, book signings, website development, and handing out fliers.

Book publicity covers the media, both traditional media (TV, radio, print, online) and social media (blogs, podcasts, FB, Twitter, LI, Instagram, You Tube).

You need not to choose one over the other but to be involved in both – in big quantities of time, money, and effort.

Even though I’ve been involved in promoting authors and books to the news media for nearly 30 years, I will state that book marketing may be more important than PR.  However, to succeed at selling your book, you’ll need some help from the news media.

Getting coverage in the news media not only yields more book sales as a direct result, it also positions you to gain brand credibility and authority in the eyes of the organizations or people you seek to sell and market to.  In order to land a speaking engagement, bulk-book buy from a company, or an introduction to movers and shakers, you’ll need to have some street cred that the media can automatically provide for you.

I think if you were to prioritize your efforts, you would need to juggle your choices and opportunities, often executing multiple things vs. doing just one thing at a time.  For instance, you can send your book for review to USA Today while pitching a podcaster for an interview, while running a Facebook ad, while speaking at a local church, while soliciting several organizations to purchase lots of books.  But some activities are dictated by a timeline, strategy, and resources. Let me explain.

Some things need to be done during a key window of time. To schedule bookstore appearances you need at least two months lead time and to seek out a speaking gig in front of popular or prominent organizations you may need to act 6-12 months in advance.  To seek book reviews at major print outlets like PW, Business Week, or Family Circle, you need to send them a galley three and a half to four or five months prior to book publication day.

But if I had to choose how to spend an hour today to push my book, I would split my time up so that 30 minutes goes into book publicity and 30 into marketing. Depending on where I have success or how the two play off of each other, I’ll determine how to reconfigure my time allotment next week or next month.

Authors shouldn’t feel they have to choose between book PR and book marketing.  The choice is really do something for your book vs anything else.  

Make time for your book and it will take off.

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Enjoy New 2018 Author Book Marketing & PR Toolkit -- 7th annual edition just released

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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