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Posts Tagged ‘virtual book tour’

Literary Agent vs Publicist: What Is the Difference?

November 27th, 2010

Many new authors are confused by the different roles of support professionals in the publishing world. It can be a very overwhelming world! So the goal of this article is to shed some light on the basic differences between 2 support professionals who often cause new authors to scratch their heads: Literary Agents and Publicists.

Literary Agent Overview:

You’ve written a book manuscript and you don’t want to self-publish it…your dream is to land a publishing deal with a major publishing house. Great goal, but what many new authors don’t realize is that nowadays you typically need to land a Literary Agent to represent you FIRST, and then they’ll shop your manuscript to Publishers. Most Publishers won’t even accept a manuscript unless a legitimate Literary Agent delivers it to them. And, quite honestly, finding a Literary Agent to represent you can take quite some time – months and even years. This is a big reason many authors choose the self-publishing route…out of total frustration!

But, for the sake of this article, let’s say you are totally determined to land a publishing deal with a traditional publishing house. Here is some general info you need to know about Literary Agents.

What exactly is a Literary Agent and what do they do?

In general, they are marketing and sales experts who know how to give your manuscript pizzazz. Their purpose is to determine the compelling pitch that (they hope) will make Publishers want to review your manuscript and offer you a publishing deal. Literary Agents also negotiate the book deals for their clients (often with an attorney involved).

How do they charge?

Like a Talent Agent, they work on commission based on the deal they get for you. So if you contact an agent and they say they will charge a fee to represent you, RUN! That’s a scam. Legitimate agents only get paid if they land you a publishing contract.

Here’s a bit more detail from AgentQuery.com about this: Literary Agents charge a commission whenever they sell the publishing rights (and various sub-rights) of a book. Standard commissions range from 10-15% for the sale of domestic rights and 15-20% for foreign rights. Major Publishers pay authors an advance against royalties. A Literary Agent negotiates the terms of the sale, and then collects a commission for their hard work.

Publicist Overview:

Whether you are self-published or traditionally published, you can hire a Publicist. And their main purpose is to get you, and your book, mass exposure. So a Publicist typically comes into the picture when your book is close to being published (or after it is) and assists with the book marketing.

What exactly is a Publicist and what do they do?

Basically, a good Publicist comes up with strategic ideas for event promotions, tries to get book reviews, finds opportunities where you and/or you book would fit nicely (like speaking at an event or coordinating a virtual book tour), contacts the media on your behalf to land interviews, and also “cooks up” interesting story angles to grab the media’s attention. Plus, if you’re “famous” and run into trouble that becomes public, your Publicist is there to protect you from bad press OR (try to) address the issue with a positive spin…think Lindsay Lohan, Charlie Sheen and Tiger Woods!

How do they charge?

Unlike Literary Agents, Publicists do not work on commission. Most of them have an hourly rate or monthly retainer fee. However, there are some who charge based on “pay for placement” (i.e. charging $3000 if they secure you 10 radio interviews), but under those placement arrangements they are not helping with all the other services I mentioned above. And you typically have to come up with the “story angle” yourself to pitch the media and then they contact the media they think will be interested.

But, most authors I work with need help with more than just landing a few media interviews. They need help with Marketing, PR, Branding, and Social Media strategies, too. So I assess and strategize all of the elements needed to market the book and the author – and I consider “publicity” just one piece of the big puzzle. Therefore, I don’t just limit my services to being a “Publicist”.

I bring this up so you know what to ask a Publicist before hiring one! I know one author who was pitched by a Publicist and for $2500 a month all she was going to do was contact the media. This so-called “Publicist” had no experience with all of the other puzzle pieces needed to successfully market the author or their book, and my (now) client, who was new to the “publicity” world, came close to signing a contract with her. That could have been a very expensive lesson with very little return!

Bottom line? If you contact a Publicist and they don’t mention strategies beyond contacting the media (such as conducting a Virtual Book Tour, or assessing your marketing materials, website and positioning), don’t waste your money on their services.

In terms of retainer fees, they vary greatly. You’ll see some Publicists who charge $1,000 per month (for a limited amount of hours), and others who charge $25,000+ per month. Most of the “bigger” well-known Publicists I’m aware of won’t take on clients for less than $10,000 per month, and they require 6-month contracts – a pretty hefty price tag for most authors I know.

So, there you have it. I hope this snapshot of differences between Literary Agents and Publicists has given you some clarity. They each play very different roles in the publishing world, and (the good ones) can often make a big difference in your quest for publishing greatness!

Cheers & Happy Marketing!

Lisa

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How to Conduct A Virtual Book Tour to Increase Your Sales

November 13th, 2010

Hi All!

Book authors are on a never-ending quest to promote their books, sell their books, and increase awareness for them. Yet, many authors struggle with this. I know this first hand because I have a lot of clients who are authors and seek my help with their book marketing.

One effective book marketing strategy that most authors do not use is conducting a Virtual Book Tour; using blogs as the vehicle. There are many ways to do one, so this post will give you some general guidelines to follow and you can adjust, alter and brainstorm additional ideas for your tour.

And the great thing about Virtual Book Tours is that it doesn’t matter if your book is new or not! There are many authors who have books that are several years old and their Virtual Book Tour brings the book back-to-life, generates interest for the book amongst people who didn’t know about it when it first came out, and ramps sales again. So don’t think this strategy is just for NEW books! And, it doesn’t matter whether you self-publish or not! I know authors who get hung-up on the self-published status of their book, but it’s NOT an issue!

1.)   Establish a timeframe for your tour. This can range from one week to one month. And you’ll want to start organizing it 1-2 months ahead of time for effective planning.

2.)   Find blogs that reach the audience you want to target for your book, and contact the owners of those blogs. This can range anywhere from 10 to a million blogs! How many blogs involved on your tour just depends on the time you have to do this outreach and how many blogs are the right fit for your book’s topic.

3.)   Tell each blogger the tour’s timeframe and what your expectations are when they participate in the tour. This may include: During the tour, they need to write a review of your book that includes the book’s cover linked to your Amazon page or wherever your book is sold; and you’ll provide them with 1-3 articles that pertain to your book’s topic that they will run during the tour as “guest blog posts” (from you) on their blog. And in the articles you provide them, they’ll include your short bio, pic of your book (or of you), and link to your website. You’ll provide EACH of the blogs that participate the same articles and each of them can run the articles in any order they want during the tour.

4.)   Send each participating blogger an organized “kit” for the tour (via email). This should include: General tour info (restate expectations, tour timeframe, roll-out schedule, etc.); file of your book cover; file of your headshot; and the articles you wrote for them to use as “guest posts” (as Word docs with links embedded to your website, Amazon page, etc.). Don’t rely on the bloggers to find the correct links to YOUR stuff!

5.)   Mail each blogger a copy of your book. Obviously you need to do this so they can read it BEFORE the book tour launches. And, no, don’t ask them buy it! Mail them a free copy!

6.)   Offer several copies of your book to each blogger who participates to use as a giveaway item for a contest they can create (or use it as a free gift for something the blogger wants to promote). You may not want to do this with every blogger who participates (if you have TONS of blogs on the tour), but you’ll want to offer it to the ones who have a lot of traffic. This is a good strategy because aside from them writing a review for your book and running the articles you provide to them during the tour, they can create a contest (or promotion) “around your book” which will be additional exposure for your book.

7.)   Thank and mention the blogs who participate on YOUR blog throughout the tour, on Twitter tweet the links to the blog posts they do about (and from) you, mention them on your Facebook Fan Page, etc. Doing all of this is critical because you are giving the participating blogs exposure to YOUR social networks, and that’s good business. The bloggers who participate on your tour are doing YOU a favor so giving them some “link love” and exposure is only right.

8.)   Consider sending each blogger who participated in your tour a Thank You gift when it’s over. Again, show them gratitude for their time, effort and help in promoting YOUR book!

Okay! That’s a general overview of how to do a Virtual Book Tour. Yes, I could go on & on with more ideas for conducting a successful tour, and ways to make it more elaborate (but that can get costly), so this gives you a good starting point. The “basic” approach I provided can get you great results as long as you PLAN ahead of time and connect with enthusiastic bloggers who are excited to participate in your Virtual Book Tour.

And if you want help with ideas, planning, and execution of your tour, or need other book marketing strategies, you know where to find me…

Cheers & Happy Marketing!

Lisa

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