If you want your book to sell, you are going to have to make some sacrifices

You’ve poured your blood, sweat and tears into your book; it’s your baby. It’s finally finished. It’s finally been published. It’s finally available to the public. Now the real work begins. (And you just thought you had it all done!) Now that your book is available, you have to let the public know about it. The first step is hiring a publicity agency to get you where you need to be. But, even at that, your job is not over. You have to be ready and willing for whatever opportunity your publicist throws at you. In the most simple and basic way, it is best to view each interview request from a media venue as a generous favor. The cost of this interview, which is free, is much better than you buying 15 minutes of advertising on a radio station, half page advertising in a magazine, or a 30 second ad on television.  For that, you would be paying a hefty price. And you are actually getting a value better than the advertising because you get to talk about your “baby”; you get to share your heart, and you get to engage the listener or reader in a way that an advertisement can’t. Also remember that of all the books and all the experts out there, this host or journalist sees something special in you. They have asked to talk to you. Keeping this in mind, as an author, you will need to do everything that you can, within reason, to accommodate the media– whether it is the dates they offer, the times they offer, or the fact that you need to be on a land line. We would like to share with you a few things you may not have thought about; a few situations that we have run into along the way. Please do not take a two week vacation to Hawaii to celebrate the release of your book (or other big life events) the week that your book releases, especially without planning ahead and telling your publicist. Ideally, you want your interviews to start the week your book hits the shelves. You need to be available to be able to do these interviews. If your publicist starts pitching your book to the media, and then finds out you aren’t available for the first couple of weeks, it reflects badly for everyone if your publicist has to tell a producer, “oh, yes, we want to set an interview with you, but you are going to have to wait as the author is not available right now.” You can always take the vacation in a few months to celebrate the success and great reviews your book has received in the media. We do everything we can to work around your calendar and things like weekly staff meetings. We understand your time is limited and valuable. However, we do have to work within the guidelines that a program gives us. One author’s office asked, “Is the time (9:40) set in stone?  If so, I can look for another couple of day options, otherwise, 8:00 works best for Mary.” In this case, it was a national interview, and well, yes, it really had to be at 9:40 AM. Even if a program is taping the interview, they are often stuck with a small window of available taping times. If a host comes into the station at 5 AM, he’s probably not going to be hanging around the station until 2 PM to be able to tape. You also have to remember that there aren’t always extra studios at the stations, so they can only do interviews when the studio is available and other hosts aren’t on the air. Something you may not realize is that many radio hosts only work part time at the station, especially Christian stations where hosts are involved in other ministries. Be as flexible as you can. The more times your publicist has to go back and forth with a station to make one interview work, the less time your publicist has to pursue new opportunities for you. Take advantage of the opportunities that you have while they are available. The most important time for your book is within the first few months after release. For example, most publicity campaigns that we conduct only last for three months. This won’t last forever. A few sacrifices now will certainly be worth it. We’ll share with you more thoughts on this subject next week.