Why you should never hire a publicist for your book (do this instead)

This is a long article on author marketing, but if you just want a quick PR boost or author marketing service, scroll to the bottom and click “Launch My Book!”…

A common question I get in my private facebook group goes like this: “my book is published but I have zero sales and no visibility, and I don’t know anything about book marketing. Should I hire a publicist?”

The short answer is NO.

A book publicist or book launch specialist will often charge $10K or more, guarantee nothing and focus on things that don’t directly sell books.

A book publicist might help you:

• find relevant bloggers or platforms and approach them 6months in advance
• figure out how to tie your book into a current story or topical issue
• find the “hook” that makes your book relevant
• figure out the “pitch” to communicate your book’s value
• organize a book launch (timing, ads, etc).

But they won’t help you:

• check to make sure the book has obvious value (content, title, subtitle)
• research and find your audience
• make sure your cover attracts that audience
• invest in building your own email list and audience (which means after you blow all the money, sales will dry up and your book will be invisible again)
• get enough book reviews before you launch

Which means, even if you get a ton of visibility, the conversion won’t be great, and because you’re not in control of the way you reach your fans and audience, after sales are exhausted you’ll have no way to reach more readers.

This is why most books fail, and most authors lose money publishing. It’s easy to spend 10K or 25K and expect big results, but fail with the cover, title or content and have a book that never takes off.

It’s also why I don’t personally offer book marketing services like this – unless I can help you write a book that’s actually going to sell and design and position it well, no amount of marketing will help.

If you get everything else right, I love making customized marketing strategies and launch plans for the members of my private community. You can join Guerrilla Publishing for a fraction of the price you’d pay for a book publicist, and get far more value from the program (it’s basically like booking me for a book marketing consultation, but instead of one hour you get long-term support.)

The problem is, services follow demand.

What Anne calls “Junk marketing” is basically anything that can’t be measured, costs too much, and won’t sell books – but the truth is nearly all “book marketing” packages are probably worthless, along with most publicists, because the real problems are the book, the audience size, the value proposition and the positioning/book design (which is why I say all real marketing happens before the book is published).

How to publish successfully (without a book publicist)

It may seem like publishing is getting saturated, but the truth is there is a ton of demand from readers that is not being met, because the majority of writers are choosing to write in less commercial genres.

It’s nice to focus on craft, but demand usually trumps all other considerations. With this in mind, you can boil publishing success down to only 2 simple steps, which most authors refuse to consider.

1. Write great books in popular genres with obvious value people actually want.
2. Put it in front of the right readers with positioning statements, credibility boosters, quality signals and an open loop hook.

There’s always room at the top. Half the bestsellers are indie, but they’re doing all the things right: great covers and blurbs, finished series and boxsets, AMS/FB ads, rapid release… if you do all the things it’s not *that* hard, but that’s assuming you can write great books in popular genres semi-quickly (a few a year) plus handle all the rest of it.

Specifically, use content marketing to get traffic; use a permafree book or giveaway and an optin bribe to build an email list; offer vulnerable shares and valuable content to build trust; use image quotes and excerpts to build desire before launch; launch with ad stacking and list trades; write series and complete boxsets so you have a higher value ladder and can bid more on ads; run ads as long as they’re profitable (if you cant advertise profitably, there’s a problem with your conversion or targeting – product market fit).

If you don’t know what all this means, now is a great time to join my private course and membership community (or just download the free guide and workbook, which explains most of this stuff).

New Publishing Opportunities (joint ventures)

Even if you get everything right, there are some new changes you need to be aware of: many of these were just pointed out in a great article by Yudhanjaya Wijeratne, which claims we’re at the end of the “Wild West” of indie publishing and entering new territory.

Specifically,

“it takes a certain amount of financial security to be able to put one’s feet up and keep the pen on paper. Traditional publishing no longer provides this surety.”

And while ten years ago indie authors were getting rich by being first in new market, now it takes networking, practice, and hard work – three things most authors aren’t interested in.

The new opportunities are what Yudhanjaya calls “CoPubs” or franchises – a team of indie authors publishing together under one branded universe, which tend to have these features:

1. Characters that are interesting and memorable
2. A fictional universe big enough for more than one story
3. A recognisable visual style
4. Different, but not too different

These may be set up as profit share, or they can be set up with ghostwriters or paid interns (Yudhanjaya says “in an optimistic future, competition forces them to give their authors a larger share of the royalties”). In my own version of this publishing experiment, we’ve created a program where writers get credit, but are only paid a one-time advance without royalties. This means we can reinvest any profit in the marketing, so that hopefully, eventually, I also get paid for all the work I’m putting in.

It’s risky, but allows me to concentrate on building up a large backlist of creative content, while also continuing to focus on writing and publishing my own books at the same time.

How much should you pay to publish?

That depends on you, but probably less than $2000, with the understanding that “marketing services” won’t work. You can pay more if you need long-term coaching, extensive editing or feedback, or some major publicity (as long as you recognize that getting featured on primetime news won’t sell books, so you better have another income model besides book sales to recoup your investment).

The cost of a product or service depends mostly on the size of the pain you’re trying to avoid, the perceived benefits and potential earnings, and the available budget. Many authors are so desperate to make their book successful and so reluctant to figure out publishing and marketing, they will gladly pay someone to remove the burden.

This might all sound intimidating to the casual or first-time author who’s is thinking about publishing their first book, or the one who can’t imagine writing more than one book a year. If you need help getting started, the very best thing you can do is focus on writing books people want to read (if you manage this and do it intentionally, you will absolutely be way ahead of most authors). Don’t worry too much about anything until you have a book out, know who it’s for, and how to position it in a way that attracts your target readers.

After that, the second most important thing will be building up your OWN audience and platform, so you are less tempted to pay for bullshit marketing services that won’t help your long-term author career. If you need help getting started, I have a course on writing bestsellers, and a bundle to help you build a fanbase, that are highly recommended.

Best publishing companies (that aren’t scams)

This one is tricky, because there aren’t many good options. If you try googling this you’ll find a bunch of predatory vanity presses that you should absolutely avoid – but are very tempting because they say they’ll handle everything for you. It’s usually a costly mistake most authors regret…

But figuring out self-publishing on your own can feel overwhelming. I prefer to teach authors how to hire all the right help, and it’s not *that* complicated (you need editing, book design and then a way to get some reviews). OR I could just bundle everything together and charge twice as much and become a project manager – which is what a lot of people in this space do, but I have no interest in becoming a publisher.

A lot of authors will ask, why not just help me publish and split the profits? But they don’t realize that would mean reading hundreds of manuscripts, trying to find one of quality – which is a fulltime job and a half that traditional publishers hire cheap interns for; and even a very successful traditionally published book rarely makes the author any money.

For all those reasons, I recommend learning about the best self-publishing companies which are mostly just services that help a little, and guide you towards publishing on your own (uploading the files to KDP or other sites).

These are issues I’ve struggled with for years (not wanting to do the thing authors want/need, because I know it’s unhelpful and I can’t justify charging double or triple what I know they could do on their own).

For example, this old post on why book marketing doesn’t work (if you haven’t read “Book Marketing is Dead yet, it’s free).

However…

I’m finally finishing up a course I mapped out years ago, the 21 Day Bestselling Author Platform, and I recognize a lot of the stuff I do isn’t all that easy to set up on your own – and that authors really want/need a “Book Launch” service, which may be separate from a “Publishing” service.

So I added a couple of extra levels, one of which includes a done for you author website and press release, but more importantly help figuring out your hook and angle, as well as a feature on a bunch of high-authority book blogs. We won’t accept all books; and I may add more services like managed social media content or writing your email newsletters. It’ll definitely be more expensive once we’ve ironed out all the kinks, but I think it’s a reasonable, effective package so it might be just what you’re looking for.

You can check it out below.

SPECIAL OFFER! (Press Release Service)

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Instant Prestige & SEO boost

• We can’t guarantee sales, and this isn’t direct marketing like with advertising where you can see immediate results (which are almost never profitable, but that’s a whole other conversation).
• But this is a permanent PR boost and the chance to get in front of key media and influencers; and it’ll help your blog traffic over time to help your book stay visible even when you’re not actively promoting it.

Still looking for a professional book publicist?

The 3 secrets to book marketing, and a haunted castle tour.

Totally free. Get it here.

Derek Murphy

I’m a philosophy dropout with a PhD in Literature. I covet a cabin full of cats, where I can write fantasy novels to pay for my cake addiction. Sometimes I live in castles.