7 Media Myths that will Kill Your Campaign!
Myth #1: A good news release is all you need to get "ink"
The days of the "one size fits all" news releases are gone. Now it's all about customizing and knowing what the media target you're pitching is looking for. Making one release isn't a bad idea, but use it as a starting point, not the final message.
Myth #2: Mention your book every chance you get
The surest way to kill an interview (and your chances of getting asked back) is when you mention your book over and over. When you say things like: "as I wrote in my book" you'll cheapen your message and make it look too sales-like. Viewers hate being sold, give them solid information and they'll buy your book because they'll want to know more.
Myth #3: You must answer every question the media asks you
Despite all your research and expertise, you can't expect to know everything. If you don't know an answer don't lie or speculate. It's much better to say: "You know I don't know the answer to that question, but I'm happy to look into it and get back to you," than to make up a story that will make you (and the reporter) look bad.
Myth #4: You can use advertising dollars to influence media interviews
If you're trying to get some airtime or print placement, do not ever elude to buying ad space in order to get them to commit to an interview. This is a completely unethical thing to do, conversely, if someone is trying to get you to buy an ad in order to be considered for their publication or program run for the hills.
Myth #5: Use big, complicated words; they'll make you sound savvy
It's unfortunate, but the "dumbing down of America" is a necessary trend and one you shouldn't overlook. Do not use complicated industry jargon to impress your audience (unless you're speaking to industry experts), you will only confuse them and alienate the person interviewing you.
Myth #6: Emotion is a bad thing
Marketing fact: People buy on emotion. Whether it's happy, sad, or angry. Make them feel something and you'll send them straight to your Web site to buy your book. Now I'm not suggesting that you fall apart on camera, but emotion is a good thing. Look human! If it's a subject that you're passionate about, look passionate! If it's a terrible thing you went through that you're writing about, let your audience "feel" that emotion right along with you!
Myth #7: You should never even consider doing an interview without media training
Don't get me wrong, media training is a great thing, but media training without the proper interview prep work can lead to a disaster. For example, don't assume because you're media trained that you can survive any interview without researching the show or publication. Even worse, don't put all your focus on your media training and then forget to update your data to support your interview.
Super Savvy Internet Promotion
What happens if you build a web site and no one shows up? You spend hundreds, maybe thousands of dollars on a site that gets a few visitors at best and certainly isn't selling your books. For the most part, authors assume that internet promotion stops once their site is up. But the harsh truth is that with all the sites popping up every day, yours will likely get lost in the shuffle unless you promote it.
Some years back, my company began pushing authors out to the Net to help increase their exposure and get into markets they might not otherwise have access to. In early 2005 I began pulling together what we'd learned and positioning it in a powerful new promotional program we call The Virtual Author TourT, a campaign that exists only on the Net and one that you can implement too.
If the thought of virtual promotion is confusing, think of it this way: let's say you build a wonderful store in the middle of an Iowa corn field. The only problem is there are no roads leading to it. A tour on the net is like paving a super highway to your "store" and to tell you the truth, it's really the only way surfers will find you.
To begin your own tour you need to have a good understanding of who your audience is and where they hang out on the Net. For some readers it will be in Blogs (also called web logs), for others it might be chat groups, message boards or discussion groups but for most, it's a combination of all of these. Whatever it is, you should be able to begin tracking them down by doing a quick Google search on your topic or market. Your first search will bring you back a slew of sites, some of them great and some of them not-so-great. The first portion of the tour will take the most time because you're going to have to investigate the sites to see how effective they might be in your promotional efforts. One way to gauge this is to see what their Google page rank is. You can type the site into the following link and get a fairly good idea of where they rank: http://mygooglepagerank.com/ or you can load the Google toolbar into your Internet Explorer and get results each time you land on a page. Few sites will rank 10, but if the sites you're looking at are 5 and above, you're generally in the ballpark of sites worthy of a pitch. We will typically toss back anything that's 4 and below unless the topic is very niche and the sites don't get lots of hits because of a smaller market.
Once you have your list of sites, you'll need to begin pitching them. Most often this is the area where authors get stuck. Why? Because they're focused on selling their books. Regardless of who you're pitching, you should never, ever sell your book. Always sell what your book can do for the reader and believe me, web sites, blogs, chat groups and discussion forums are always looking for books that will appeal to their demographic.
As you're pulling together your tour, don't overlook ezine article banks, these can be powerful too. If you're unfamiliar with them take a peek at http://www.articlecity.com/ and you'll see what I mean. This site archives hundreds of thousands of articles just waiting to be selected and placed in ezines. The good thing about this is that you never know the size of the ezine you'll get placed in. It could have a readership of 500 or 20,000. Another good reason to do article submission is for the incoming links. Most of the main search engines change their algorhythms quite frequently, doing this causes sites to go up and down in ranking but incoming links from web sites, chats, blogs, and article placement can help give a site more consistent ranking rather than being at the mercy of an algorhythm change.
And no virtual tour would be complete without a web site so let's circle back to where we started, that all important author site. Do you have one? If you don't you should not begin your virtual tour until you do. If you do have one, take a long, hard look at your site and see if it's ready for virtual exposure. By this I mean that often times, web sites aren't nearly as "ready" as they could be. Why? Well for one your site design is really driven by your audience. Colors, styles, and wording will all depend on who you're marketing to. Do you need lots of information or very little? All of this will depend on who your reader is. My site for example: www.amarketingexpert.com is packed with information. Why? Because authors and publishers arrive at my site hungry for knowledge so having articles, tips and lots of free information on there is necessary to not only get my audience to the site, but to keep them there.
Getting to know your reader is one of the most important components of any campaign and is especially true when you're trying to go from a ho-hum site, to one that's making the grade and converting visitors into customers. Do you know what your site conversion rate is? If you don't you should; ask your web designer or site host for this information. It's typically delivered in something called an Urchin report which is fairly easy to read and a wealth of information. If your site isn't up to par, consider getting it internet ready before you launch your tour. If you're spending all this time sending folks to your site, you'll want them to convert into buyers otherwise your time spent on the Net is wasted.
Unlike a real tour around the country, a virtual tour isn't associated with any timeline per se and it's certainly not as expensive as the cost of travel and lodging. The impact from a tour, however, can be felt for a long time. The reason for this is that unlike print or broadcast media, every step you take on the Net leaves a footprint. And the more footprints you have, the more times you'll come up in a search and the more hits you'll get on your site. Also, consider this: the impact of going directly to your audience cannot be overstated. Rarely are you given the opportunity to gain direct access to your readers as you are on the Net. You can't accomplish this in a bookstore or even in the best news piece. And while traditional media and bookstore placement offer great promotional leverage, the Net offers something that no other marketing programs do: a direct pipeline to your readers. So if you haven't "gone virtual" you should consider it. No campaign is complete without it.
Wishing you virtual success!
To Frey or not to Frey
Yesterday I got a call from a reporter who wanted my comment on the Frey scandal. I don't think he liked what I offered him especially when I said: "What scandal?" The truth is that memoir - as with anything written from memory - is subject to our own slants and filters and, let's face it people will often remember the same situation two entirely different ways. Now, don't get me wrong, this doesn't explain the inaccuracies in Frey's book, nor does it excuse lying, but investigate 10 memoirs and I challenge you to not find a thread of fiction, just like in about every fiction you'll find a little bit (or a lot) of fact. But the bigger and most important issue here is that it's not about the inaccuracies of a memoir or whether Frey lied intentionally, the issue here is that if we're going to force one author to be so scrutinized we must all abide by the same rules. If we raise the bar on one person, we must raise them on everyone. Are we really ready for that? When does hype bow down to serious fact checking, disclaimers and all the things that any publisher knows, could kill a book buzz quicker than a public apology on Oprah. The truth is, we are a desensitized society. We are mesmerized by train wrecks and addicted to breaking news. Sensationalism begets sensationalism, and these days in order to sell it has to bleed more, cry more and tilt the drama scale to the breaking point. We're no longer satisfied with the sugary sweet, we need the 100%, high octane shot in the arm. Especially when it comes to memoir. So what's a publisher to do? Give the public what they want a sensational story of triumph and tragedy and face the litany of inaccuracies or offer a dry, watered down version attorneys have poured over. Personally I think Barnes and Noble had better consider adding some extra shelf space in the fiction section.
The problem with POD? No problem at all.
A back page piece in Publisher's Weekly has me all fired up today. It was written by an independent publisher and reflected his views on print-on-demand (POD). He stated in his article that POD books were now finding their way onto bookstore shelves and thereby limiting the room for small, independent, and boutique publishers. This comment was personally offensive to me largely because I've spent so much time in the POD industry and have worked very hard to do my part in trying to help raise the bar on these books which now evidentially has happened. If books are finally making it onto bookstore shelves I say: hooray! It's about time. I suspect that the author of this piece, like much of trade publishing, is growing nervous. Yes, the competition is increasing and we're having to get more creative with our marketing efforts to get our books noticed. Perish the thought that simply plopping a book on the shelf of a bookstore no longer serves as a viable marketing plan.
Part of his lamentation was that there was "confusion" over which books were POD (and therefore making it onto bookstore shelves) and which weren't (which according to the author of this piece have much more right to be there than their POD counterparts). I can not help but wonder if there wasn't a time when the big New York publishers said the same thing about small presses and independents. Their books were on the shelf, they were making good sales and (gasp!) some of them were on the best seller lists. Now it's POD's turn. The article certainly offered a glimpse into the hearts and minds of many in publishing these days but I dare say it certainly doesn't give enough credit to the bookstores shelving these POD titles. I have worked in this industry long enough to know that bookstores are extremely cautious when it comes to any self-published work. In fact if you put a stack of books in front of a book buyer they could probably pick out the self-published title blindfolded. A bookstore will not shelve a book simply because it's "mistaken for a traditionally published title." They shelve it because they feel it will sell. Therefore I disagree with the author's inference and would argue that there are no "accidental" placements, but rather that some of these self-published titles are actually making the grade and worthy of shelf space.
It's true (as the author pointed out) that the barrier to entry for self-publishing is minimal these days and consequently, there is a proliferation of books making their way into the market. I disagree though that the blame for the challenges the industry faces today needs to get placed on the shoulders of print-on-demand titles or the publishers who produce them. I believe the upside down state which we find ourselves in comes from the natural growth this industry is facing. We can not support an industry that doesn't always support the author (ok, rarely supports the author). If authors want to see their work in print they will find a way, this is not new, it's not "POD's fault" it's just the way of publishing. Print-on-demand publishers have simply facilitated a momentum that was already building. Are there POD publishers ho should be drummed out of the industry for publishing nothing but high-priced science projects? Quite possibly, but that's not what this is about. This is about making room for titles worthy of shelf space, it's about a whole new world of publishing that's been knocking on New York's door for over six years now. And it's about the publishing industry finally understanding that the way to market a book is not to let it gather dust on a shelf. No offense to bookstores but often they're not the best place to sell books. The advent of print-on-demand technology and the publishers who utilize this printing process is forcing this industry to look at titles that otherwise would have languished in obscurity under someone's slush pile. Not all of them are worthy of mention but the ones that are, will rise to the surface. The problem is, traditional publishers never expected there to be so many of them. This would mean that somehow the New York giants let them slip through their fingers. Well listen, nobody's perfect. We can't catch all the winners and that's why I say, thank God there is an option for these authors. It's our right to voice our opinion, in whatever form we want. Yes, we're publishing more books than ever before. Yes, shelf space is shrinking, review windows are shrinking and the media is inundated with book pitches. This trend is now forcing all of us to dig deeper and be more creative when it comes to getting our books noticed, it's forcing us to think outside the "book" and push the envelope. And believe it or not, this is a good thing - reinvention always is. POD will never replace traditional publishing, but this trend is forcing us to realize that diamonds come in all shapes and sizes, even in the form of a self-published book.
