Never Stop Chasing Coverage: Shel Horowitz’s Monthly Book Marketing Tip, August ’07–Volume 1, No. 2

Lead Article: Never Stop Chasing Coverage

You can get publicity for books long after publication.

http://frugalmarketing.com/newsletters/2007/08/25/never-stop-chasing-coveragebook-marketing-tip-august-07/

About Shel’s Award-Winning Book, Grassroots Marketing for Authors and Publishers

http://frugalmarketing.com/newsletters/2007/07/25/grassroots-marketing-for-authors-and-publishers-authors-best-friend/

Which of Shel’s Other Books is Right for You?
Principled Profit: Marketing That Puts People First (Apex Award
Winner)
Grassroots Marketing: Getting Noticed in a Noisy World (Foreword
Magazine Book of the Year Finalist)

http://frugalmarketing.com/newsletters/2007/06/18/shels-award-winning-books-which-should-you-own/

Hear and Meet Shel
In Avon, CT; Las Vegas; South Hadley, MA; worldwide at an online
writer’s conference and over Internet radio:

http://frugalmarketing.com/newsletters/2007/07/05/heremeet-shel-july-to-december-07/

Latest Additions to the Websites
Seven articles from Book Expo America, Whole Foods’ ethics dilemma, better press releases, and more

http://frugalmarketing.com/newsletters/2007/08/26/content-posted-to-my-sites-august-2007/About Shel Horowitz, the copywriter/consultant/.author/speaker who makes the world insist on knowing why *you’re* special http://www.frugalmarketing.com/aboutshel.shtml

Administrative Information
Subscribe, unsubscribe, back issues, etc.

http://frugalmarketing.com/newsletters/2007/07/06/administrative-info-frugal-marketing-tips/

Published monthly since July, 2007 by Shel Horowitz
16 Barstow Lane, Hadley, MA 01035 USA
413/586-2388

Down to Business

Your Next Goal in Five Minutes a Day

http://www.frugalmarketing.com/dtb/five-minutes.shtml

Six Low Cost Ways to Build Links to Your Website

http://www.frugalmarketing.com/dtb/six-ways-to-get-links.shtml

The 10 Commandments of Press Releases

http://www.frugalmarketing.com/dtb/10-press-releases.shtml

How to Get More Business With a Better Website

http://www.frugalmarketing.com/dtb/better-website.shtml

An Action Step is Worth a Thousand Words

http://www.frugalmarketing.com/dtb/action-step.shtml

BEA 2007: The Year of the Thinking Reader

http://www.frugalmarketing.com/dtb/2007bea-thinking-reader.shtml

Social Entrepreneurship: Make a Difference AND a Profit

http://www.frugalmarketing.com/dtb/2007bea-panel.shtml

Big Authors at Small Presses, #1: Ralph Baruch: First, Cable-And Then?

http://www.frugalmarketing.com/dtb/2007bea-baruch.shtml

Big Authors at Small Presses, #2: David Silverman: An Industry Dies of Outsourcing

http://www.frugalmarketing.com/dtb/2007bea-outsourcing.shtml

Big Authors at Small Presses, #3: Naomi Wolf: The End of America

http://www.frugalmarketing.com/dtb/2007bea-wolf.shtml

Confessions of a Part-Time Sorceress

http://www.frugalmarketing.com/dtb/2007bea-sorceress.shtml

Remote Signing Technology: The Coolest Thing at BEA

http://principledprofit.com/good-business-blog/2007/06/05/fedex-should-be-scared-and-intrigued/

Good Business Blog

http://principledprofit.com/good-business-blog

# US Punishes Iraq Corruption Whistleblowers-Shameful!
# Wikipedia Scanner Reveals Sculduggery
# Bob Lutweiler: An Extraordinary Life
# Cruise Ships and the Environment
# Foundations Admit Mistakes…How About Businesses?
# More Reasons to Oppose Nuclear Power: DOE Official
# Barbara Kingsolver on Being a “Localvore”
# Scotts Miracle-Gro, Pick On Somebody Your Own Size
# Without Spoiling the Surprise: Harry Potter #7
# Bush Exec Order: Seize Property of Activists
# NY Times: Whole Foods Not the Only “Sock-Puppeteer”
# Pentagon Papers: High Drama and Intrigue-And It’s All True
# Is Bill Kristol on THIS Planet?
# Organic Food Could Feed the World-And Pesticides Hurt Yields!
# Good Thoughts from the Two Ethics Chris-es
# Whole Foods’ John Mackey’s Sneak Attack on Rival Wild Oats
# Why Michael Moore’s “Sicko” Made Me Want to Leave the Country
# Prominent Methodist’s Strong Critique of Methodist Bush’s Libby Commutation

Book Marketing Tip, August ’07–Volume 1, No. 2
Never Stop Chasing Coverage

If you talk to big publishers, you’ll hear a lot of malarkey about the brief, tiny window for news coverage on a new book–measured in months.

This is absolute garbage, and they should know better. After all, they’ve invested many thousands of dollars in each book. It’s in their interest to succeed, although sometimes it seems they don’t realize this. What it does mean is that if you’re a big-publisher author who believes in your own book, you can continue to breathe life into it long after the publisher’s publicity department has given up.

Several of my books have gotten significant coverage long after publication. In one case, a book I published in 1995 (on having fun cheaply) was mentioned in both Reader’s Digest and the MSN home page in one month–eight years after publication and after the book was already out of print and converted to an e-book! Four years later–12 years after publication–that book still gets me print, radio, blog, and other coverage. I do get a kick when radio hosts introduce me as “author of the new book” (and yes, I correct them, quickly and gently: “the book’s actually been out for some time”–I don’t want to mislead people).

In another case, Bottom Line (an extremely popular newsletter) did an extended three-page feature on my marketing methods, featuring the marketing book I had published with Simon & Schuster six years earlier. No help from S&S’s publicity department on that one, of course, but I just follow the methods I discuss in Grassroots Marketing for Authors and Publishers.

And I don’t have some kind of magic secret sauce; I’ve heard from many other authors who routinely get publicity for books that are five, ten, even fifteen years old. Of course if your book is something like “How to Survive the Coming Y2K Crisis,” you’re out of luck. But for most of the rest of us, there will always be topical angles, fresh pitches, perennial tie-ins, and plenty of publicity if we just reach out for it.

Next month: why publicity builds legitimacy.

Book marketing consultant and copywriter Shel Horowitz is the author of Grassroots Marketing for Authors and Publishers and six other books.

I’d planned to do this issue before my vacation. But not only
will I be away but I broke my arm and have to type one-handed.

See you in September (or at the end of the month if you read my Boo Marketing Tips).

Shel Horowitz

http://www.frugalmarketing.com

http://www.principledprofit.com

http://www.frugalfun.com