[FM Discuss] PR: Boosting book visibility

[Andy Oram]

I'm perplexed that her advice to authors focuses on local events. How many sales can you generate by speaking at a library or a local bookstore (which is probably about to go out of business?). The social networking advice is more reasonable, albeit obvious. As for contacting reviewers--who reads them any more?

I don't want to sound too cynical. O'Reilly has a big PR department, and we do encourage authors to do face-to-face events. But we're more strategic: for instance, instead of a bookstore, we're more likely to encourage authors to talk to a user group, where they can influence 20 to 40 really active users who are likely to talk about what they've heard.

And what's that advice about getting advance copies three months before a book's launch? Maybe that works for children's books (I have a little knowledge of that, having talked to Scholastic). But three months before our books launch, the authors are about half done writing them.

Andy

----- Original Message -----
From: Janet Swisher <jmswisher at gmail.com>
To: discuss at lists.flossmanuals.net
Sent: Wed, 18 Mar 2009 17:31:40 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: [FM Discuss] PR: Boosting book visibility

http://cynthialeitichsmith.blogspot.com/2009/03/publicist-interview-julie-schoerke-of.html

Scroll down to: What advice do you have for writers trying to handle
their own publicity/media relations?
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Andy Oram  O'Reilly Media                     email: andyo at oreilly.com
Editor     10 Fawcett Street, Fourth Floor         voice: 617-499-7479
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