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186 Hiring an Independent Publicist . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . You should think long and hard before deciding to hire your own publicist. For one thing, independent publicists cost a lot of money. While it’s possible to spend as little as a thousand dollars for a publicist to focus on publicity for a single city, it’s also possible to spend as much as $20,000 or more for national publicity. At the end of the day, you may not have sold many more books than if you’d simply let your publisher’s in-​ house publicist do her job. There are, however, a number of good reasons for hiring your own publicist. The publicists who work for large commercial publishers handle publicity for many books at once—too many books at once. They are overworked and underpaid. I can’t think of another position in publishing with as high a burn-​ out rate. For one of my novels, I worked with no fewer than five different publicists. It got so that I quit memorizing their names or programming their phone numbers into my cell.One of the publicists who assured me that she was there to stay was gone by the end of the week. Also, because these publicists work on so many projects at once, the bulk of their energy will go toward high-​ profile books or books where the author was paid a small fortune for her advance, while the rest of the books fall into their let’s-​ see-​ what-​ sticks category.What this means is that the publicist will blanket the media with press releases and review copies with the hope that the book starts getting some traction. It’s less likely, however, that the publicist will personalize letters if there’s a connection to be made or make follow-​ up phone calls. Sometimes, an author working with a smaller publisher will hire an independent publicist because the publisher may not yet have the clout to get the coverage the author thinks his book is capable of getting , or because the publisher may not have its own in-​ house publicist . In all of the examples above, a good independent publicist can be particularly effective. These publicists often have personal relationships with newspaper and magazine editors, radio show producers, and feature newspaper writers, allowing them to make phone calls and pitch the book directly. They can also tweak individual cover letters to make the book more appealing for that particular venue. Frequently , they’ll work with a newspaper writer to brainstorm ideas Publicity 187 for feature stories.The independent publicist can make those follow-​ up calls to make sure that the materials arrived and to gently pressure the editor/producer/writer into doing something on the book’s behalf. Oftentimes, they can set up book signings in off-​ beat venues that the publisher’s publicist wouldn’t know about, or they can pull strings to get the author into a competitive reading series or a hard-​ to-​ book bookstore. (Yes, getting a signing at a bookstore isn’t always an easy thing to do, particularly in large cities.) That said, hiring an independent publicist doesn’t guarantee that any of these things will pan out. Therefore, you need to take an honest look at your own book and determine whether or not it’s a good candidate for an independent publicist. Remember: The independent publicist doesn’t get paid based on how much publicity the book receives. The publicist gets paid an agreed-​ upon fee regardless of whether or not the book gets publicity. I hired an independent publicist for my first novel, The Book of Ralph. Because of the novel’s setting, I hired a publicist who lives in Chicago and specializes in Chicago-​ based publicity. My gamble, in this case, paid off, as it did years later when I hired the same publicist for Ghosts of Chicago, a story collection that features a real-​ life dead Chicagoan in every other story. Both books received significant coverage in Chicago media—reviews; feature stories; radio interviews ; and, in the case of Ghosts of Chicago, a live interview on WGN-​ TV’s news. Not all media is effective media, however. I decided not to hire my own publicist for the paperback release of my novel America’s Report Card because the publisher had subcontracted the publicity to a company that specializes in book publicity. What they did was set up a couple of days of back-​ to-​ back radio interviews for...

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