The Professional Publicist

I've only heard of famous authors having publicists, usually appointed by their pubilshers. but maybe they're famous becuase they got a publisist. An author i followed on blogger had a publisist. She got on a few tv interviews and radio shows, but on her last post she said she's only sold 500 copies of her book (in a year) that doesn;t sound very good to me).

MarieSalvros said:

I've only heard of famous authors having publicists, usually appointed by their publishers. but maybe they're famous because they got a publicist.

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Both my publishers (Tor and Viking) have assigned me a publicist, and I'm not a famous author. That's just standard practice with large commercial houses.

A good friend of mine hired a professional publicist for the launch of her two most recent books, and an assistant too, to help her arrange blog tours and such. She did reasonably well, I believe. Another friend did the same and got a couple of TV interviews and so on but as she's a broadcaster, her name was known to the TV stations so it wasn't as big a deal as it might have been for me, for example.

It's worth doing but it doesn't mean that you just hand all the PR work over to the publicist: it means that you have more work to do, I think.

I think platform needs to be considered as well. If you are publishing a non-fiction book with a very strong platform (niche that appeals to an invested group/groups), then the publicist will have a much easier time using that platform to focus on specific media groups (magazines/blogs/websites that focus on that topic). Fiction novels can also have angles that a publicist can use (J.A. Konrath used to hand out signed coasters that tied in nicely with his books, which were titled after alcoholic drinks). I think it's in the author's interest to consider what angles their novel/non-fiction book offers. If it's something a publicist can use to appeal to large groups, the publicist will be more likely to be successful. If there aren't a lot of good angles, then the publicist might not be able to do much.

EQB--If you have the time or inclination, would you mind sharing what your publicist does? How do the two of you interact? Are you heavily involved with their work, or do they function separately? I'm so curious!