Have You Managed To Get A Press Release Done For Your New Book?
Well you have written a book and have gone and self-published it, so how are you now going to get the thing to sell?
Maybe you are hoping that the books review page of one of the main UK national papers with their millions of readers will pick up on it and write you a favourable review? Perhaps you are thinking of making contact with the display or classified advertising department of the self same newspaper or its rivals to place some 'inexpensive' paid for advertisements? Well, if I were you I would try another route the one of seeking to get some free PR. Not only will this cost you less, but the result will be better received by the readers.
Many marketing professionals will tell you that newspapers and magazines are always looking for copy to fill the pages in between their advertising. It is the adverts that makes them the money but the copy that sells the journal. Have you an interesting story to tell about your book? Think for a moment about what it is and then use your writing skills to craft a press release and send it out to an editor or three. One piece of advice I was given was to always find out the name of the Editor before posting off your Press release and remember some of them hate to receive email and would rather have it in hard copy. It is a good idea to ring the publication first to get the name and try to establish what they prefer. Once you have the Editor's name, use it to send to them personally your press release. If they read your piece and decide to use it you will find that free publicity will out rank any bought space you take in a publication. Why is this? Well, when doing my marketing course at college I was told of some research that was done. It seems that the readers of magazines and newspapers give much more credence to what is written in an article than what is said in an obviously paid for advertisement in the same publication. Many readers of newspapers and magazines are blissfully unaware that the staff reporters do not write everything themselves and the readers would probably be shocked that sometimes a press release will be printed almost word for word.
Let me tell you about the time that I once phoned a features editor to try and get a piece done on some creative work done by a man that I was aiding to promote. To begin with I was told that the paper was not interested. By talking with the features editor for a little while, she realised that there was an interesting angle to the story. It was that the man was in his early eighties and was funding his various travels around the globe in his retirement by his work. When the article came out it was almost a word for word copy of the press release that I had sent them about him and they had just gone to his website and downloaded a picture from it. The result covered half a page. Well how much would that have cost had it been a display ad from their advertising department?
So I advise you to take a look at the sort of articles that they publish. Get a feel for their style and then try to write your press release in the same tone used by the journal that you are targeting. This is to aid the hard-pressed sub-editor from having to rewrite your press release to make it match their own writing style before they use it. It may be that this will be the difference between them using it or not, so it is important.
The above sort of advice features in the Write Your Way To Freedom manual and 3 Audio CD pack that my company has compiled for the new author/self-publisher. We are booksellers of 19 years experience and are passionate about books. Having gathered advice, from other experts in the book industry, we packaged it along with some resources on good English and other helpful information on writing and then selling a book. By doing this we are hoping to encourage authors to bring to the marketplace new books or all genre.
Bookseller is the pen name of Nick Thorne. He has a marketing qualification from the Chartered Institute of Marketing in the UK and has been a part owner of The Printed Word Bookshop in Jersey, Channel Islands for the past nineteen years. He and his partners have produced a new manual and 3 audio CDs package designed to help the new author or self-publisher write a book and then sell it to the public. It is available from their website: www.WriteYourWayToFreedom.com
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