Probably a dream of every author is to got on national TV (or even local TV!) in order to publicize his/her book. If you are a self-publisher without the advantage of a publicist paid by a national publisher, you know it will be an uphill battle. From what I’ve seen, you’re chances are better if yours is a self-help book rather than a novel. Well, no one promised you a self-publishing rose garden!
Self-help author Mahesh Grossman wanted to increase publicity for his work Write a Book Without Lifting a Finger and his ghostwriting service. He wrote an article about his experience in meeting this goal, but here is a brief synopsis.
1. Relationships are the name of the media game.
When I made it my goal to get on national TV, I took the plunge and went to the most expensive conference I’ve ever attended: Steve Harrison’s National Publicity Summit, where I got to personally meet producers and reporters from major media outlets like CNN, Fox News, The View, 48 Hours, Live With Regis & Kelly, Oprah magazine and Forbes.
2. You need to be your own publicist.
I don’t care if you’ve hired the best publicist or PR firm in the world — nobody is going to do a better job promoting you than you are simply because no one cares about what you’re promoting as much as you do.
3. Try to tie-in with the news.
Before we had our personal meetings with the producers and reporters at the Summit, their staff trained me to come up with the kind of angles and ideas the media
loves. For example, I learned one of the best strategies is to figure out how to tie-it into what’s happening in the news.
4. Milk your appearance for all it’s worth.
I can now say the Fox News Channel refers to me as “The Ghostwriting Guru.” That’s publicity you simply can’t buy at ANY price. It wasn’t more than a few days after my appearance I started plastering all of my promotional materials with that phrase. Plus, as I mentioned earlier, the fact I was on Fox makes it much easier to land segments on other shows.
Again, you can read the entire article here. It’s not long, so invest the time.
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