I also hired a publicist, but since QUEEN OF THE ROAD isn't coming out until June 3rd, I can't quite give you the full scoop, yet. What I can tell you is this:
My publisher at Random House assigned an inhouse publicist for me. She has wonderful energy and loves my book. When I broached the subject of hiring an outside publicist with my editor (who is a VP at Doubleday, so she should know), she said she didn't think I needed one, but that if I wanted one, of course they would be happy to work with her.
So, why did I hire one? I just wanted to feel that I did everything possible for this book, that if it tanked, I would have no regrets later (ie, "If only I had done... ") I didn't write QUEEN OF THE ROAD for the money; I wrote it because I desperately wanted to write the book. So, spending part of the advance on a publicist was fine with me. I looked at it as an investment in my writing career.
Before I did anything though, I consulted
Bella Stander. I found her via Miss Snark's blog (sigh). She raved about Bella and I can see why. Once an author has a publishing deal, he or she really should consult with her. She can advise you if you need a publicist and recommend good ones she thinks will fit with your book (as she did me). She also recommended the website designer for my kick ass website. Finally, she even got me a blurb via her connections. Once you become one of "her" authors, she kinda takes you under her wing. I've only formally consulted with her twice on the phone, but then she follows up with emails (no charge for any of that). Particularly, I'll never forget after our first consult, she emailed me a few weeks later with, "NU? What are you doing about blurbs?" Well, I thought my publisher was going to take care of all that. She immediately set me straight, gave me several suggestions and said she knew one of them and would ask him for me (all this no charge, BTW). Really, consulting with Bella has immensely helped QUEEN OF THE ROAD. (And, after seeing my website, I really do believe the sales folks got more excited and again, Bella recommended the company that did it.) Overall, consulting with her has saved me a bunch of money on things I thought I needed and she felt I really didn't. She has a recent
blog post about the very issue of whether or not to hire a publicist. (I also know of authors who have consulted her and not hired publicists - she can give you ideas and direction about what to do in that case. Bella charges $150/hr, but even with everything she's done for me, I think the total time I've formally consulted with her has been 1.5 hrs.)
Back to my publicist! OK. I interviewed four on the phone. Liked 'em all, but one stood out for me. People of course want to know cost: They all wanted to work for six months. The cheapest was $15,000 for the entire six months, the most expensive $4,000/month for the six months. (With my June 3rd pub date, my publicist started Feb 1st - they all want to start before galleys come.) I'm sure there are less expensive ones that may or may not be as good. Also, be sure to ask if the publicist does web publicity, if she doesn't, you may want to hire someone for that. (Web publicists want to work for two months before pub date. Cost range I've seen is $1500/mo up to $2700/mo.)
Thus far, I'm thrilled with both my inhouse and outside (I almost wrote "outhouse"
) publicists. They are doing a great job and working well together. Did I really need the outside one? I don't know, but it has given me tremendous peace of mind. You hear a lot of horror stories from writers about inhouse publicists not sending review copies to key places or blurbers the writer has already secured (this did NOT happen to me. I'm just saying...), as they work on many books at one time. And, I know enough about the whole book publishing thing to know I don't know enough to know what the publicist should be doing or when she should be doing it. I also think hiring a publicist my publisher knew and respected also made a difference, ie it sent a message I was serious about promoting my book.
QUEEN OF THE ROAD was recently (two days ago, in fact - still pinching!) chosen as one of Borders four book club picks for June. That means front of store placement with specially printed reading guides for the entire month. How did that happen? I have no clue. However, when I was in LA in February, my outside publicist (who is based there), set up a fabulous bookseller lunch for me with various people, including two from Borders. They had gone on my website, told me how much they loved QUEEN OF THE ROAD and thus were able to ask very specific questions about the book. When galleys came out two weeks later, she sent them to these people, who followed up saying they loved it. I'm sure my publisher had also been pitching the book to Borders, but did the lunch and galleys help Borders decide to chose it? Again, no clue, but as Bella might say, "It couldn't hurt."
I hope this is helpful and sorry for the long post. The boards here have been so wonderful to me with all the sharing of info and support. It's hard to find costs and specifics, so I wanted to post what I could from my experience.