Everything You Wanted to Know about Publicizing Your Book, 1 of 2
This is the stuff I wanted to know a year before my novel, The Skin and Its Girl, came out. If I could go back in a time machine and speak to 2021–22 Sarah, the version of me who was fretting about the discomfort of promoting The Skin and Its Girl, I would share some stats:
Eighty-two percent of readers in an informal 2017 survey said they buy books because they already know the author’s work.
A peer-reviewed 2019 study showed that in the first ten weeks after publication, the biggest factor in a literary novel’s sales, if it’s published at a big imprint, is the author’s previous sales.
In other words, the excitement of being a debut novelist or launching a debut novel (if you're the publisher) doesn’t rub off on most readers. “They don’t even know you,” I want to tell last-year me, “so they don’t even care if you’re fretting about introducing yourself. Stop being weird about it. There is too much work to do.”
Besides what I discuss below, other prepublication work includes bookstore outreach, library outreach, award submissions (more on that in a future post), and conference and festival pitches—all tasks handled by the publisher, not the author. But here are the ones where I had input between August 2022 and May 2023. I’ll talk about author events and interviews too, but separately, soon, because Substack didn't like how long this got when it was whole.
Should You Hire a Publicist?
Publicity is an enormous-octopus-sized task. Before I fully appreciated the size of this octopus, I fretted for months about hiring an independent publicist, afraid of signaling that I didn’t trust Ballantine’s team. Yet it wasn’t a matter of trust at all: the idea was just part of the no-regrets promise I’d made myself. If something goes wrong, I need to be able to say I did everything I could. So I made some inquiries and hired Kathy Daneman, as one should.
The biggest firms will create full PR campaigns that cost as much as a luxury SUV. Kathy’s approach is boutique and extremely responsive. She brainstormed essays with me, edited the drafts, tweaked the jacket copy and press materials, scheduled me for interviews across the country, kept track of essay submissions and events, and compiled all press clippings in an online portfolio. She handled all online, podcast & LGBTQ+ media efforts; in-house publicist Chelsea Woodward handled trade and local & national print media. About five months before the on-sale date, like magic, my book started appearing on most-anticipated lists online. (More on these in a minute.) Overall, she helped me do most of what book-publicity how-tos say you're supposed to do, and much better than I could have done on my own, with access I wouldn’t have had otherwise. And hopefully, the in-house team felt their jobs were made easier, too.
Working with an independent publicist is expensive, and if you are a debut author, the money you spend has a vanishingly small chance of ever returning to you, at least directly. But if your advance can absorb the cost, and you don’t have to put a child through college or pay for something equally expensive, you will only ever have one debut novel in your life. If you want to build other career-ish things on top of your first book, the extra media attention can help. I’m satisfied with my decision, but it was a very big one, and I will approach it no less deliberately the next time around.
Finally: hire someone good. A bargain doesn’t save money; it just sets it on fire.
** Enjoying this? Read the rest of the free post about getting book reviews, contacting social media influencers, and more on my publishing-related Substack, The Bird’s Eye.