Tie your book, product or service to a holiday and you can exponentially increase your chances for free publicity from print and broadcast outlets.
That’s what Willie Ripple learned when she self-published the “What Do I Do?”® series of books that give children and their parents all kinds of ideas for fun parties for Halloween, Valentine’s Day and Christmas, as well as for slumber parties.
Ripple, of Littleton, Colorado, had great success with her publicity campaign which started three years ago when her book “Halloween School Parties” was featured at a Denver Halloween store that also doubled as a Haunted House.
“The Rocky Mountain News does publicity for the Haunted House and they saw the book and ended up doing a three-page spread on it,” she said. “They came out and took five rolls of film and did a big blow-out on the front cover of the Spotlight section.”
She also sent articles to local publications, including Colorado Parent. That led to an invitation by “WB2,” a morning TV show in Denver to appear in two four-minute segments on separate days. On one segment, Ripple demonstrated Halloween foods. On another, she offered ideas for Halloween party games. See http://www.publicityhound.com/publicity-products/reports.html.
“I read Brian Jud’s Book ‘On the Air’ and saw his video and did as he suggested—gave a lot of tips to the audience,” she said. “As I was leaving the stage, I heard somebody in the studio say ‘She was really good.’ ’’
So good, in fact, that the producers invited her back to do more segments for her Christmas and Valentine’s Day books. She promoted her slumber party book the following summer.
Willie offers these publicity tips for authors:
For television, be sure you offer interesting visuals. Her Halloween food segment, for example, featured an entire table of Halloween foods and punch. See http://www.publicityhound.com/publicity-products/marketing-tapes/getinthenews.html.
Your TV segment might be short, so offer lots of how-to information.
Send the media tip sheets and articles written about your topic. Willie sent excerpts from her book to Colorado Parent magazine, which then passed her name along to producers of a local TV show. See http://www.publicityhound.com/publicity-products/reports.html.
Don’t be afraid to bring others with you onto the show if it helps explain your topic. She invited four children to appear with her to demonstrate how to play various Halloween games.
Authors should read Brian Jud’s books “On the Air” and “Perpetual Promotion” which explain how to contact producers and create media appearances and then look and sound your best on TV.
Besides the more routine holidays, don’t forget topic-specific and industry-specific holidays such as Take Our Daughters to Work Day, National Tourism Week, Children’s Dental Care Week and thousands of others.
Authors can use the “holiday” theme for an entire series of books, particularly if they create a catchy theme like Ripple did when she came up with the “What Do I Do?”® series. Holiday-related books can include cookbooks, a history of the holidays, how-to books, books with religious themes, books about clothing and costumes, and books on relationships that tie into holidays like Valentine’s Day and Mothers Day.
If you have a book that doesn’t lend itself well to an entire series, consider catching the media’s attention by pitching story ideas about the book that tie into specific holidays.
Mary Marcdante, for example, author of the new book “My Mother, My Friend: The Ten Most Important Things To Talk About With Your Mother,” pitched story angles that tied into Mother’s Day when her book was published.
If you have written a biography, ask yourself if you can tie the book to an historical anniversary. If you can add significant historical perspective or anecdotes, the media might consider you as a valuable source. So let the media know which topics you can speak on as an expert.
Finally, remember that many major magazines assign stories six months ahead of the publication date. Give yourself plenty of time to pitch. See http://www.publicityhound.com/publicity-products/marketing-tapes/morepowerfulpitchletter.html.
