Monday, December 08, 2008

How to Publicize Your Book

Joining us this week at the Writers' Group to answer your question is industry insider and all around nice person, Lissa Warren.

We first met Lissa at a Grub Muse and the Marketplace conference where she hosted one of the most informative panels that year on author do's and don'ts. Lissa is an author herself of the book every serious writer should own, The Savvy Authors Guide to Book Publicity and is senior director of publicity at Da Capo Press. Can you think of a better person to ask your PR questions of? Check back on Thursday when she answers this:

Q) We've heard again and again that writers need to help promote their work once their books are published, but not every one knows how to do this (other than buying THE SAVVY AUTHORS GUIDE). What are your best author do's and don'ts?

Lissa Warren has worked in the publicity department of several prestigious Boston publishing houses including David R. Godine, Houghton Mifflin, and Perseus Publishing, and is currently Senior Director of Publicity at Da Capo Press, a member of the Perseus Books Group. She is an experienced promoter of both fiction and nonfiction, with particular expertise in the areas of business and biography, health and history, poetry and parenting, sports and science, and music. She has worked on such national bestsellers as The Cluetrain Manifesto, Greenspan: The Man Behind Money, Flatterland, Smart Mobs, Faster Than the Speed of Light, and Touchpoints Three to Six.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sounds like a good book. Thanks for recommending it.

Unknown said...

Lissa's book does sound like a good reference.

Something that Lissa could address to help authors is the differences in strategy on how to promote self published or small press projects versus traditionally published books.

I believe self published books represent more than one out of seven books published today and is a popular option with even highly credentialed, good quality authors struggling to get their work in the marketplace.

As a book publicists working with an agency, Smith Publicity, we work with a wide range of genres and books produced by not only mainstream presses, but small independent presses and self published authors.

These are the questions and challenges we help our authors with daily.

Any input you give for the many authors who do not have major distribution support or books on shelves at bookstores would be great.

Thanks and I look forward to reading your answer!