Category: News

Publicity 101: Who are the Media?

Posted on by CMPR

Who Are the Media

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Written by Arianna Parks

We become what we behold. We shape our tools and then our tools shape use.
-Marshall McLuhen, Canadian media theorist

Who are the media? The question of who exactly the media are, or what “it” is has been one pertinent to the public as of late. While technology evolves, the definition of media changes. Knowing what the media are, along with the “who” in charge is especially important to promoting your book.

Who are the media?

The “What” of Media: Journalists, PR professionals, and others in businesses relating to the wider public audience split media into two categories, legacy or “traditional” media, and new media. Legacy media includes newspapers, television, and books. New media encompasses digital, from blogs, online papers and magazines, and social media (i.e. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and even YouTube!).

The “Who” of Media: Perhaps the most important aspect of media, the “who” include those holding job titles behind media outlets. Journalists, editors, critics, bloggers, staff writers, assignment editors, and content managers are under this category.

Maintaining good relations with those holding such titles helps establish a substantial media presence. The key to good relations surpasses just a knowledge of the media world.

With the words of media theorist Marshall McLuhen in mind, take the powerful tool of media and behold how it shapes your audience!

Interested in the in-depth details of media and what they mean? Do You Know What a Book Publicist Does? by Claire McKinney covers this and other areas that are important to promoting your book.

CMPR’s Best Books of 2017

Posted on by Keely Flanagan

At the end of every year, major outlets compile a list of their favorite books of 2017 by editors and readers alike. Since we love to read at Claire McKinneyPR, we decided to follow suit with our own Best Books of 2017!

Claire McKinney’s Best Books of 2017:

The Secret History by Donna Tartt: The Goldfinch is an amazing novel and I decided to pick up The Secret History earlier this year at a bookstore. Tartt’s debut novel is fantastic – the characters come alive on the page.

The Interestings by Meg Wolitzer: This book about best friends from camp felt so realistic to read. It didn’t hurt that I could really identify with the characters, who are from my generation.

Fractured by Catherine McKenzie: Fractured was a real page-turner. Over the past year I read other psychological thrillers, but they didn’t deliver the same way McKenzie’s novel did.

Larissa Ackerman’s Best Books of 2017:

Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan: I was late to hop on the bandwagon for this one, but I’m glad I still read it. It’s the perfect book to read during a year that has had such an up-and-down climate! Crazy Rich Asians is gossipy, juicy, compelling, and will make you want to book your next vacation to the glittering lights of Singapore.

Heather, the Totality by Matthew Weiner: Matthew Weiner is most known for being the creator of two of my favorite characters on TV, Don Draper and Roger Sterling of Mad Men. I expected Heather, the Totality to be in a similar vein – serious yet with its human and humorous moments – but was surprised when this book took a very dark turn very early on.  It’s a compelling yet uncomfortable read about the male gaze.

My Best Friend’s Exorcism by Grady Hendrix: Although the book is about a teenage girl being possessed and her best friend’s attempt at saving her, this is not a young adult novel. Although it’s considered horror genre, the book is ultimately an extremely well written and eerie story about the bonds between two best friends. I also highly recommend Hendrix’s book Horrorstör, about employees getting trapped overnight in an ominous, Ikea-like store.

What books did you read this year that you loved? Tweet us your favorites @McKinneyPR.

Publicity 101: The Niche Audience

Posted on by Keely Flanagan

niche audienceniche. niCH,nēSH/ adjective. denoting or relating to products, services, or interests that appeal to a small, specialized section of the population. (Google Dictionary)

It often happens that an author will come to us with one goal in mind — to get a New York Times Book Review. This is a great long-term goal to have, but many times it is clear the author hasn’t done his research.  Otherwise, the author would know that the NYT will rarely consider an independent book for review and has a strict policy on not accepting self-published titles. Even though there are many self- and independently-published books, many major outlets still feel some aversion to them.

The good news is this: self-published and independently-published authors don’t need the NYT to review their books in order to gain traction in the book community. As an independent author it is crucial to understand that while a review with a wide-reaching magazine or newspaper could be helpful for exposure, it is important not to brush off what could be your niche audience (or audiences).

A niche audience — or what the dictionary calls a “small, specialized section of the population” — can really help to raise awareness of your book. Think of it like different sections of the bookstore: there’s the Science Fiction/Fantasy shelf, the Mystery/Thrillers shelf, Biographies/Memoirs shelf, the spirituality/religion shelf, the self-help shelf, the women’s fiction shelf, the regional/local interest shelf, and the business shelf. Where does yours belong?

Once you know in what section your book belongs—let’s say it’s Mysteries & Thrillers—you have the opportunity to dig deeper. Is your niche audience political thrillers? Is it cozy mysteries? Is it hardboiled mysteries? This is where you can really explore where your interested and loyal fans are, because these niche audiences actually have media outlets, bloggers, reviewers, communities, and book clubs of their own. Many of them even have their own conferences that you can attend to meet like-minded thriller, cozy, or hardboiled mystery book lovers! If you’ve written a thriller, why not reach out to the group of people that you know have a built-in affinity for thrillers and dark mysteries?

The word “niche” means small and specialized, but when you get down to it you’ll find that there could be hundreds, or even thousands, of people who are in these communities. Hundreds of thousands of people read books in the mystery genre every year—and they may not necessarily read the New York Times Book Review to find their next favorite reads.

So sit down, take out a piece of paper and pen, and think about what your book is about and what your niche audiences could be. You’ll be surprised at how many you might be able to find and how they will be able to help you build your writing career.

Looking for information on book reviews? Check out our post on some of the do’s and don’t’s when seeking book reviews.

You can also read more about book publicity in Claire McKinney’s new how-to guide, Do You Know What a Book Publicist Does?

My Adventures with Amazon: Part 1

Posted on by CMPR

A couple of months ago I published a blog called “3 Things I’ve Learned about Book Production”. In it, I described one of the mysteries of publishing that we commonly call Amazon. I also described the difficulties I was experiencing getting Ingram and Amazon to communicate effectively. My book was listed as available in 5-7 weeks and I couldn’t understand how a print-on-demand title—the purpose of which is to be available in days Adventures with Amazon book selling and publishingnot weeks—wouldn’t be available for shipping much sooner if not immediately.

Fortunately, in that case, things got resolved and for a couple of months all was operating normally. But then the unspeakable happened—Amazon took my “Add to Cart” button away from my paperback. Now my book is only available from third party sellers and they are charging over $1 more per book. Do You Know What a Book Publicist Does? is still available on Barnes & Noble.com and other outlets in paperback and ebook form. However, as we all know, Amazon is the dominant online retailer. I’ve been working on this problem for six weeks and in a nutshell, this is what’s happened so far.

Adventures with Amazon

In my first call to customer service at Amazon, I was told to have Ingram resubmit the title to refresh it on the site and bring back the button, which I did. No dice. I called Ingram a second time and they said they would try to submit the title again, but they couldn’t do anything else beyond that. Two weeks later the problem was still there. I asked my colleague to call Amazon to see if she could get anywhere. After spending twenty minutes explaining the problem to customer service, getting a supervisor on the line, and being put on hold for ten minutes, she was disconnected. We moved on to the second line of defense otherwise known as Twitter.

Tweeting at Amazon Customer Service got a response.  We received a link on Author Central that would get us in touch directly with a person who could help. I emailed through the link. I got a call! But, it went to voice mail and the person on the line said I should email again and leave a window during which they could call back. I did that, providing a window of 2 – 6PM EST. I got a call at 5:55pm when I was getting into my car and I didn’t get to the phone in time. Really, 5:55 when you had four hours to call? Then it dawned on me, I could call back, right? Although no specific call back number was given, I could try the number that was now in my phone.

More Adventures with Amazon Customer Service

I dialed the number and was greeted by Amazon Customer Service. After listening to the prompts, I went with “all other requests”. A pleasant woman named Crystal answered and I explained my issue. This time I knew that 1. Customer Service was not going to be able to help me on their own. 2. I was not an “Amazon Seller” and should not be transferred to that department. 3. I needed to talk to someone at Author Central. I was quite happy with myself because I could direct Crystal to the right department on the first try! I also asked for a back-up number to Author Central just in case they disconnected the call (again learning from previous experience). Guess what? She didn’t know the number, and didn’t know where to find it. Oh well, she was transferring me, so I was hopeful.

After a few minutes Crystal returned to the line and said that Author Central said they were not the right department and that I needed to talk with Amazon Sellers. I let her transfer me, knowing this was wrong, but hoping this new group up the ladder would have access to a phone number and more information.

When Rita answered, I quickly explained my situation. She said, “Ah,” (I thought, this is it, she knows what to do) “let me transfer you to Amazon Kindle. They are the ones to help you”.

I started to lose it.

I let Rita know that I was not calling about an ebook, Kindle, or any other name you could use. I was calling about a paperback, that I was a publisher not a seller, I needed to reach Author Central, AND did she have a phone number where I could dial in directly? Sounding a bit nervous at this point, Rita put me on hold in her vain effort to find a way to reach the right department.

Several minutes later Rita returned from her mission without having succeeded. She was very sorry, but there was no number and no way to reach these people directly. She didn’t have any other advice for me and could only continue to repeat on script “I understand”, “I understand”, “I understand”.

Back to Twitter

Feeling like I had stepped into a science fiction story, I went back to my second line of defense—the Twittersphere. I tweeted Amazon Customer Service about their lack of phone number for a vital aspect of the business. And, I tweeted to my followers that Amazon’s departments didn’t know how their own business worked. Why was I explaining that there were paperbacks and ebooks and that the two were separate products, to their own employees? And, why don’t they have a phone number or extension to call a different department, especially when they were already calling me directly? (One thing I haven’t mentioned is that in one of our conversations with customer service, we were told that they get 2 – 3 requests like this per day, which makes this even more bizarre.)

After my brief Twitter rant, I received a new call from Tony. This person knew what the issue was and understood how Amazon functions as a selling outlet for publishers. He said that they didn’t have copies in stock, which was why I didn’t have a button. I explained that they don’t need copies to be in stock when it is print-on-demand. The product is available almost immediately. That’s the point of the whole print-on-demand process.

He Said / He Said

He said that Amazon’s own self-publishing arm, Create Space, uses Ingram the same way I do as a printing source. He said Ingram wasn’t sending them this information. He asked me to bear with him for a few days so he could investigate the issue and that he would get back to me. The message was, if we work together we will find a solution, even if I decide to let Create Space switch my ISBN to their system directly so that they control the process. There are more details related to this part of the conversation that I will leave for later. After we figure out what I need to do. For now, I am being patient and I am grateful that Tony is on the case.

So that’s the story so far. Weirdly, there isn’t a lot of information from other people online about this problem. Given that Amazon says they get about 60 – 90 calls a month about this issue, you would think there would be chatter or at least a thread where you could visit to commiserate. I wonder if some people just give up? I can’t.
As I explained to Tony, I’m not just an individual author, I started a publishing company and I have an author in the wings who wants to publish with me. I must get these bumps in the road ironed out before I handle anyone else’s book.

Stay Tuned

Stay tuned for more, when I have it. I am looking forward to getting to the bottom of this and hope we will all be better publishers as a result. If you have a story to share about losing your Amazon button, email me directly at claire@clairemckinneypr.com.

Publicity 101: Your Publicity Calendar

Posted on by Claire McKinney

publicity calendarWhen it comes to your public relations campaign and your publicity calendar, what is important to remember is that the campaign starts before the book, with proper preparation and set up. You want to be able to take advantage of every opportunity, so being organized and having access to all the information you need is going to give you an edge over the competition.

Some dates to mark on your publicity calendar (besides your publication date) are:

Events and appearances: Record the dates for any readings or speaking engagements where you can promote or sell your book. Start as early as the six-month mark so you can have a postcard or business card made to pass out to audiences or potential contacts.

Pitching Magazines: In general, there is a four-month lead time for book coverage in glossy magazines, and even longer for features. You can try finding out on the magazines’ websites what their requirements are, but in the absence of any information, plan to approach editors four months ahead of your official publication/media date.

Pitching National Broadcast: Usually three months is enough time for most shows, but talk shows like The Dr. Oz Show or Steve Harvey could tape your segment and not air it for months. You don’t have complete control over this, but I recommend you get in touch with these outlets as soon as your materials, like your press kit and review copies, are ready.

Pitching Radio: Radio tends to book between two to six weeks ahead of time, and then there are those stations that will ask you to be on tomorrow. I like to start my radio work about four to six weeks ahead of time and if I’m contacting the station too early, I make a note to follow up at a later date.

The months following your publication date are for building on the media you get, making appearances at outlets or events, and new pitches. Keeping a written publicity calendar on paper, or in Outlook that dings when you have an upcoming event or deadline, is going to make your process a lot easier…and more effective!