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Book Publicity Manifesto

Book Publicity Manifesto - Updated version of Trash Proof news releases free pdf file download

I’ve just uploaded a new updated ebook version of my book Trash Proof News Releases to my web site.

It’s a free pdf file download that captures many years worth of lessons learned doing publicity for creative people. It’s also got numerous examples of successful news releases and interviews with over a hundred media people on what it takes to be successful.

Please feel free to share this link with anyone who can use the education.

http://www.directcontactpr.com/files/files/TrashProof2010.pdf

Timing the transmittal of a news release

One of the members of the POD Publishing discussion group asked the following question:

When do you recommend going out with the press release (i.e. on the release date, a month before, etc.).

——-

Timing news releases depends what you are trying to accomplish and where you are at in your publishing or product release schedule. You must first recognize the key event date and then take media lead times into account. If this is associated with the publication of a book or a new product, this is usually associated with the official publication date or release date.

I do not generally advise sending out a news release till you can satisfy media requests for review copies or product test samples and interviews with the right person or people. If you can’t satisfy the media then you hurt yourself since you get a request which opens the door of opportunity but then you can’t satisfy the media’s request immediately. So you reduce the chances of getting the coverage you seek. So it depends when your books are available to you and that usually is a month or so before an official publication date, but this varies and is often a flexible date.

Second, the public has to be able to buy the product when the media publishes the news. So that means it has to be available at Amazon and/or BN.com plus any number of other web sites, and possibly be available in bookstores and or through bookstores so you can financially benefit (that is sell product) from the national or targeted demand your publicity seeks to create. This means you should not launch a news release or publicity campaign until the business system is totally operational. If you need to book to be in the bookstores or retail shops first, then you have to wait until your distributor tells you it is time to hit the switch. You have to be prepared to do what’s necessary to publicize and promote so that the window of opportunity doesn’t slip by and the lack of demand results in returns. Timing so that publicity hits when the product is in the stores is pretty crucial. If you are selling totally online, then this is not as crucial a factor.

You have to factor media lead time into account. This means you look two to three publications cycles ahead of the media you seek to get coverage in or on and then also take into account things like media response time to your pitch, mailing and delivery time, assignment time, the time it takes to read, write, review and then actually publish an approved article. For daily newspapers, this means a week to two weeks minimum and many times usually requires a month; for weekly newspapers, this is four to six weeks or more; for magazines this is four to six months. For radio and TV, it’s seven to ten days minimum, and preferably two to four weeks. Online media can of course react very quickly but many of the response and review times do factor into how soon these media can respond effectively. That’s all assuming you want media to do something with your book.

This means that you really have to stagger your news releases and target your media carefully if you are to take advantage of the medias needs. magazines require four to six months, so you hit them first. You do the short term media two to four weeks before your official public availability date. If you wait till the one month before launch date, then magazine publicity will come last and in some cases you lose the opportunity to time the coverage that you need at the time of product release. Still magazine publicirty at the back end can be a very helpful thing to have indeed since it will sustain your sales once the impacts of the short term efforts and coverage start to diminish.

Let’s say though that you are publicizing an event like a book signing, or a conference, or a work shop or a speaking event. If it is deemed to be newsworthy event or a hard news happening or something you propose media to witness of go to that involves people and photographers and interviews, then the minimum media times apply. We’ve seen newspaper, radio and TV camera crews get sent out and show up within 30 minutes of transmittal holding their Blackberries and iPods in their hand reading the news release and say “where do we set up?”

Finally there’s the day to day timing question. Which day of the week is it best to send out a news release to the media? The prime media tends to work on a five day work week schedule and that means they work Monday through Friday. Saturday and Sunday they have off and fewer people really are working in the office. Monday is a bad news day because the media show up to work and have staff meetings and have to recover from the weekend. Friday is also a bad day since they are wrapping things up and are trying to leave for the weekend. So unless it is really hard news, transmitting a news release on or near weekends is not going to get the best media response. But it really depends again what you are asking media to do. If all you want them to do is say yes to you sending in a book for review, Friday morning may be OK.

Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays give you the best opportunity to catch media when they have the least amount of competition for their attention and the maximum opportunity to devote resources to your project. So that is when I prefer to news releases to be delivered.

Finally, after the book is published, the publicity you seek may be far more issue and content focused and related to current events or some other angle. Regardless, you seek to get coverage for the best ideas, education or entertainment you can offer. This you can do whenever you want to do, but it really helps to get out in front to media and look four to six months out. So for example, today is March 25 so Mother’s Day is six weeks away, Father’s Day is two and a half months away, Earth Day is a month away, Independence day is three months away, Labor Day is four months away and so on.

I’ve created a free publicity calendar to help identify opportunities for people which is a free pdf file download. It contains a lot of unusual holidays so that you can really get creative and think up ways to tie-in to calendar events well in advance of the day they occur. Here’s the link:

Publicity Planning Calendar for 2010
http://www.directcontactpr.com/files/files/Publicityplan2010.pdf

The lesson learned is to be prepared, plan things out carefully, andthink through what you are asking media to do when you send out a news release.

If you’ve done your homework and you know you are offering something that interests a lot of people, has real value to the audience, and you also offer the media what they need to do their job easily and quickly, then when you send out a news release and get it to the right media people for action, then you will often times get what you wish for (which is media coverage).

What Really Happens When You Send Out a News Release?

What Really Happens When You Send Out a News Release? Marketing and Promotion Using News Releases

Marketing and Promotion Using News Releases

When you write a news release your goal is to get publicity – media coverage about you and your book – either an article or an interview. To do that you have to write a news release that is persuasive and interesting and then make sure it gets to media decision makers.

The technology you use to reach media decision makers has an incredible influence on the effectiveness of your outreach.

Online news release services will post a news release (a page of text and some even do multimedia pages) and then post a snippet (short description) or maybe even just a headline or a subject line with a link to the news release page and your content. Media have to search to find it and read it. The headline may be on top of the list of news releases posted for only a few minutes before another one is added to the system and then it gets pushed down as it is replaced by others. It may be accessible to media if they have signed up to receive news releases for selected keywords they are interested in. But they still may only receive an email with a list of subject lines or snippets and this may not produce a very high response.

The data you see on the reports from these services is also terribly misleading. You do not know really how many people saw your pitch, compared to how many machines or even search engine spiders actually are causing the hit. Page hits do not equal media coverage.

Some of the most meaningful measurements are:

* How many media actually responded with an article or an interview;

* How many review copies requested;

* How many and what quality blog posts you get with links and attribution;

* How many quality articles/reviews and interviews results from you then sending your book and media kit; and finally

* Did you sell ultimately product and produce a return on your investment that exceeded the cost of your outreach;

The challenge with this process is that you have to communicate meaningfully with media and first persuade them to give you coverage and second, the coverage you get has to trigger action on the part of the audience.

I prefer using email html and the phone to get maximum effect when I write a news release. At least you hit the maximum number of key media people directly with a pitch.

It is not unusual for me to see 25 to 60 media responses for interviews or review copies as a result of a news release I transmit.

Here are just some recent book project email outreach results showing actual media response stats to news releases I wrote and transmitted to custom targeted media lists:

Brian Bianco, Dressed for a Kill, mystery – two geographically tailored news releases on to the US media, one to Canadian media – 49 media requests

Stacey Hanke, Yes You Can, business communications, 34 media and interview requests (see the article in the Investor’s Business Daily from Monday Feb 22, 2010 http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=521721 and see Chief Learning Officer from Feb 2, 2010 http://www.clomedia.com/industry_news/2010/February/5124/index.php for a few examples of coverage)

L. Diane Wolfe, Heather, Circle of Friends Book 5, young adult, 29 review copy requests

Maggie Simone, From Beer to Maternity, family parenting humor, 65 media and interview requests, Among other things, our news release netted her a regular column at Huffington Post http://www.huffingtonpost.com/maggie-lamond-simone Lisa Pankau, Beyond Seduction, relationship self help, 42 interview and review copy requests

Louise Hart, Liking Myself, and The Mouse, the Monster and Me, children’s books, 65 media requests for review copies,

Dan Green, Finish Strong, inspirational self help, 58 interviews and review copies, outreach was coupled with Drew Brees and the Superbowl, helped raise money for NOLA nonprofits, a few dozen interviews and major media coverage

Andy Andrews, The Noticer, fictionalized storytelling, motivational self help, 173 media requests from two news releases staggered one week apart, major media included Fox TV, and others. (Go see what several years of monthly news release promotion and publicizing can do at the amazing press center at http://press.andyandrews.com)

HCI Books, Going Rouge: An American Nightmare, politics, not to be confused with Sarah Palin’s book), over 250 media requests, made NY Times best seller list.

Patricia Starr, Angel on My Handlebars, sports travel memoire, 36 review copy and interview requests

Derek Galon and Margaret Gajek, Exploring the Incredible Homes of the Eastern Caribbean, luxury travel architecture coffee table book, 75 media requests.

I have similar media response statistics for products, films and videos, and even consulting services and events.

The data clearly shows that media interest and responses are a real life reflection of public interest and predicted response to a communicated offering no matter what it is.

The bottom line, is this: If you offer up an idea that turns people on, they respond to it.

Of course pitching to media is a great way to leverage technology as a force multiplier. Each person you contact is a publisher and if you persuade them to share you and your message, their audience gets to see your creation.

It can be a great way to jumpstart and supercharge your marketing efforts.

If you want to learn more, here is a link to a one page info-graphic pdf which talks more about:

What Really Happens When You Send Out a News Release?
http://www.directcontactpr.com/files/files/IBPAFlyer021510.pdf

Questions anyone?

Paul J. Krupin

Is it worth it to hire a publicist?

Evaluating whether to hire a publicist for marketing and promotion

Since I’m a publicist and do a lot of work with authors and publishing companies, I’ll give you my spin on this.

Is it worth it to hire a publicist?

My response: It depends.

I don’t really ascribe to the amount of money invested in the book as a decision factor myself. Lots of my clients have turned books that they write with blood, sweat and tears into financial success using POD. Very simply they write a good book and print on demand in small quantity. Money invested in the book does not have to be considerable. Of course if you have invested a lot of money, then it begins to acquire the characteristics of a publish or perish syndrome. The stakes go up with the investment.

I’ll be honest with you. I see lots of one-book authors try to turn a profit from publishing. I see only a few succeed. I see lots try very hard and fail. So to me, self-publishing is best viewed as a risk venture. There are so many variables. Publicity can jumpstart marketing but there is no guarantee that it will.

For the sake of argument, let’s just assume that the owner of some intellectual property can reasonably benefit from using publicity to achieve their goals. To me, publicity is one type of marketing or promotion and it has a cost. And to really understand what we’re talking about, it’s crucial to get on the same page. So here’s my definition of what one typically asks a publicist to do:

PR: the creation and presentation of proposed content to media (publishers or producers) to persuade them to publish or showcase a story or information that is perceived as objectively reported by their audiences, that creates interest, desire and promotes and triggers desired action (sales, votes or social action).

The question is whether the cost you invest can produce the actions you want to achieve whether it be sales, votes, or social action such as human support, financial or material donation, or attendance at a show or an event.

The goal is to have a meaningful communication with the right real people on the receiving end. The message is matters, the medium matters, and the effect matters. The real value to the recipient is what determines whether they in fact are affected to the point of action. You can’t use any communication technology to trigger or motivate action without figuring out the magic words first. Can you do this yourself or do you need to have a professional publicist help you?

The cost of a publicist covers the actions needed to produce the results you want. There are lots of options for someone who needs publicity to consider from doing it yourself all the way to simply hiring someone to do it all for you. The choices range in cost from as low as the cost of acquiring a custom database all the way to hiring a full service PR, firm, or a pay-for-performance firm, all the way to hiring an in-house publicist.

Now I operate a task based service that allows people to select and deploy the simplest and most intelligent actions. For most authors and publishers this is a one-time project that involves identifying the target audience, figuring out how to galvanize them, crafting one or more news releases, creating the right custom media list to present this message to the maximum number of right people, sending them any and all additional materials the media then needs to do their job, and then calling them to persuade media who have not decided to do what you are hoping for to try to persuade them to give you the publicity and media coverage you seek.

Other publicists and PR firms do similar actions and charge more and less to do these things. But there are many different types of fee arrangements by which can acquire publicity services. You should study the differences when you make your decision and do so recognizing specifically what you will get for the money you pay.

Here’s a link to an article I wrote titled “Evaluating the Range of Publicity Tactics and Publicity Options”

http://www.directcontactpr.com/free-articles/article.src?ID=41

There’s a second article that talks about how to get the most out of whichever type of publicity service you choose titled “Super Client! Getting the Most Out of Your Publicists and Copywriters”.

http://www.directcontactpr.com/free-articles/article.src?ID=42
You can choose to manage your promotions to achieve many different types of results.

There is no simple answer. There are costs (money, time, and material resources for the data needed and the technology needed) to achieve publicity success.

There is also expertise required (copywriting, targeting the right media, utilizing the best technologies, communicating with clients and media, negotiating, reporting, integrating with marketing and other people and publicists who are involved).

These are some of the issues you need to address and factor in to the decision one makes.

The original question asks “is it worth it to hire a publicist?”

The return on investment question can be answered by evaluating the profit one makes per action triggered by your publicity effort. Let’s look at some of the costs and what it means to an author/publisher.

If one makes $5 per book, then it takes 100 books to cover a $500 cost for a single news release publicity project.

You’d have to sell 2,000 books to cover a $10,000 fee for a full service PR firm or personal publicist for some dedicated time or program.

If on the other hand if you are not just an author, but also receive $3000 for a speaking engagement plus travel and per diem, then you can make $2500 or more if you even get one speaking engagement off one $500 news release outreach.

If you worked with the $10,000 PR firm, you’d nearly break even if you got three engagements and you’d make a couple of thousand with four.

Will the $10,000 firm produce more than the $500 outreach effort? This depends on what is really being done to get media coverage. It depends on the message and who gets to receive it.

There are at least five key measurement points you should use to determine your level of satisfaction with the effectiveness of your publicity efforts.

1. The first point is when you transmit a news release or conduct an outreach effort. Do you feel like the costs of performing the publicity outreach are reasonable? Do you feel like the service has been responsive to your needs?

2. The second point is immediately after the outreach is conducted and you can identify the number and quality of the media responses to your outreach.

3. The third point is when articles are actually published or when your interviews have been conducted.

4. The fourth point is when you determine whether enough of the right people respond to your message.

5. The fifth and final point is sometime later still, when you are finally able to somehow determine the overall benefits of your outreach effort and experience.

It is only now you can truly ask “Was it worth it?”

Here is an article I wrote titled “Tracking Your Publicity Success and PR Effectiveness” which discusses this aspect of publicity in more detail:

http://www.directcontactpr.com/free-articles/article.src?ID=14
What this means of course is that publicity is more valuable when someone has multiple streams of income that can be leveraged and the branding effect triggers interest and sales in many ways. This frees people from strictly focusing solely on their product and allows them to shine again and again by helping people they can help the most in ways that really turn people on. This is how you not only trigger real interest, but trigger trust and action. This is the professional branding effect and when it works, people like what you say so much that they will buy everything you have for sale. This is what you hope for when you hire a publicist.

So is it worth it to hire a publicist?

It depends on whether you can do what needs to be done by yourself or with the right type of help. It depends on the results you achieve when you do these things.

The one thing you really need to realize is that even if one hires a publicist, there’s still no guarantee that publicity will produce sales. All you can do is try.

And like any other marketing tactic you should really evaluate the effectiveness as a business using objective measures. Look at all the factors and make an informed decision.

If it works, do more of it, and if it doesn’t stop and do something else.

The only thing that is certain is that if you do not reach out to people somehow, nothing will happen.

Publicity Planning for Fall of 2009

Publicity Planning for Fall of 2009

If you want to get more publicity, then you need to look ahead and identify the opportunities that will be coming your way.

So get out your calendar and think about what sort of article you’d like to see come out in the months ahead.

Identify the holiday or date or season that allows you to create a tie-in.

Then craft a news release or an article that’s appropriate for that date or event.

Pay attention to the crucial lead times and transmit the pitch idea to the right media to ensure that your proposal gets the timely consideration and attention it deserves.

To help you identify what’s coming up, here’s a quick look ahead at the next few months of opportunities.

Today is August 19, 2008

Ramadan begins Friday

Labor Day is three weeks away
Columbus Day is three weeks away
Grandparents Day is three weeks away

Rosh Hashanah is one month away
Yom Kippur is one month away
Fall is one month away

Halloween is two months away
Election Day is two and a half months away

Thanksgiving is three months away

Christmas is four months away
New Years Day is four plus months away

Valentine’s Day is five months away

Critical lead times: Daily Newspapers, Radio and TV – seven to ten days. Weekly newspapers – four to six weeks. Magazines – four to six months.

Best days to transmit your news releases are Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Plan and write copy Friday through Monday. Plan ahead and start writing early.

You can get your free 2009 Annual Publicity Plan download here.

Why book reviews news releases don’t work

Why book reviews news releases don't work

OK, you’ve written a book and now want to get some publicity?

I recommend that authors stay away from news releases that simply say “I’ve published a book and am marketing it…..” It may get you local publicity and it may get you some book reviewers, some of which my end up getting published.

But you do not see too many book reviews that result in stellar book sales and movie deals.

That’s what comes out of galvanizing feature stories and interviews that contains significant human interest or promise of tremendous value-added.

That’s what you need to offer to media and that’s what you need to place into your news release.

Content wise, you must remember the differences between the media and make sure the needed elements are present or are offered:

Print wants the best information. Radio and TV want to be told why you have the best entertainment.

Notice the difference: To the specific information or topic is of lesser importance than it’s entertainment value to the producer. Print speaks to the head. Print requires more written words — it is intellectual and focuses on getting you to think.

Radio and TV speak to the stomach. Radio and TV focus on provoking emotional response. They speak to your heart and soul.

Did you know that radio provides out-pulls print and tv when it comes to motivating people?

Did you know that more people respond to audio speech than written speech? Did you know who proved this point better than anyone else in the entire 20th Century?

Adolph Hitler. His oratory motivated the Germans to start a World War.

Listen carefully to the speeches given by our President. Look at the powerful emotions they can evoke with very few words. The speech writers are media masters.

Ha! I know you may get bored after a few minutes, but oh well, they are the ones who are “on the air”, so pay attention as long as you can get something out of it.

You can learn a lot by listening to others, and paying attention to the powerful and successful people around you, especially those who are featured in the media. Study what they do. Learn what they do.

You can modify and improve your media success by learning from the masters all around you. They are in print everywhere you look, on the radio everywhere you go, and on tv day in and day out.

If you become a student of the media with the goal of improving your media success, you will seek to learn and apply what learn, especially if you focus on people who successfully pitched to media, and are now “on the air’.

When you pitch to media, you must ask yourself three simple questions:

What do they want?

What can I offer?

How can I present it so I can be more persuasive than others who are also vying for the space, or air time?

So if you have a fiction book, and want to find out ways of publicizing your book, what you must do is start studying the publicity that has been acquired by other fiction book authors.

You find the critical intelligence you need in the latest issue of whatever media you want to be in.

You can also use search engines to find and get you access to the online counterparts to media.

You can also use news search engines to follow specific key words on your topic and study who’s getting publicity and on what topics.

You can use my 3 I Technique:

1. Identify the success stories

2. Imitate the success stories

3. Innovate with your own information.

This simple process works so use it.

Start paying attention to what is out there. Head to the magazine rack. Open up the magazines you want to be in. Use the magazine search and news search engines.

If you are a fiction book author, start studying the publicity acquired by other fiction authors.

Identify the feature articles about fiction authors. Cut them out and create a scrap book. Then use these for ideas.

Watch TV and listen to the radio and do the same thing. Tape the shows, watch them or listen to them several times, and learn the behaviors. List the questions, study the good answers.

Accumulate enough examples from your particular target media that you can craft news angles, headlines, and content in a comparable style. Then prepare your own materials using the successful models and mentors as a guide.

There is another way to describe this process:

Search, Find, Match and Apply.

You SEARCH for the opportunity what you want.

You FIND — an opportunity or a place where you think the opportunity exists.

You make sure you MATCH their needs with the right content.

And then you APPLY by presenting your news release to see if you can be selected for the opportunity you identified.

This process works as well for searching for getting publicity as aweel as it does for creating letters, business proposals, getting contracts, agents, publishers, or even for a soulmate.

The articles and interviews you find will tell you to the types of news release you will need to create to pitch this type of feature article story, or get interviews based on the themes you discover. Analyze them. Identify the content, length, style, and other characteristics of the information. Then create information about your book that parallels what you have found.

If you pay attention, you’ll see the types of things that turn your particular media on.

And you’ll be able to do it, too.

Event Publicity – Targeted PR Tactics that Work

Event Publicity – Targeted PR Tactics that Work

Getting publicity for a local event is a pretty straight forward project. It’s just that the devil is in the details.

A custom targeted publicity campaign to your local media can get you coverage in the newspapers, and on radio and TV before, during and after your event if you recognize the opportunities and provide the media with just what they need at the right time.

You can conduct the campaign so that you drive people to your event and also get feature stories which talk about your event while the event is going on. Both will improve sales of tickets to your event. You can also get feature stories which describe what happened at your event and which identify to the public where they can get more information even after the event is over. This will improve sales of product or services after the event is over.

A special event news release needs to be written that describes:

• WHAT the event is all about
• WHO is doing the talking
• WHAT the key person is going to talk about or do (book signing or talk or speech or seminar…)
• WHEN (exact times)
• WHERE your events are going to be located including the address (even specific directions) of the venues
• HOW to attend with cost (if any) and the local contact information (who to call and a phone)
• WHY is it going to be interesting and important
• AND WHO is going to be most interested.

The most crucial information is:

• the exact location (street address and room)
• the exact date and time
• and the local person for the public to contact to get more information or tickets for the event.

You can create one well written news release which identifies multiple events AND offers some feature story content, substantive information or tips. This way you hit two birds with one stone. You address the needs of print media editor interests by providing descriptive and educational content. You also describe what your key person can talk about and why people will be interested in the subject so it addresses the needs of radio show, radio stations, and tv show producers and guest hosts in the selected target areas.

Now this next point is of critical importance. The real key to being successful in doing this city by city is to think hard and create a “local news angle” or a community involvement element of some sort event, and let the media know what this is in the news release.

Many authors have a book subject with broad national interest or appeal. This will get some editors thinking about an invitation or an article, but it will not get as many is when there is a distinct local news angle and a strong community involvement element highlighted in the news release.

A local news angle is one which features a local citizen, event, activity, problem, or concern, or benefit. Thus, if you send a news release to New York City the release should contain something of specific interest to people in New York City.

The secret to being successful here is to identify key local people, people, people for the media to interview and write about.

You add in the community involvement element by think up ways to interest or help a larger number of people in a specific group, organization, or needy sector of society. You can enhance the public interest this way, get more people to come because of the networking that can occur within a group of people who are interested in a topic.

This can be one of the most difficult ideas to implement effectively. It often takes some real creativity if you don’t know anyone who can act as a local focal point or subject of interest for a community involvement activity.

So brainstorm and do some research. Use the Internet, and phone book to identify a local participant who would like to share some publicity with you. Then call someone, or a company or organization to ask if they would participate somehow meaningfully. Often times it’s a simple as a club, a church group, a school, a teacher’s class, a PTA group, a women’s shelter, or a non-profit group of some type.

You can call ahead and make the arrangements, get the quote, the local case study, or problem analysis. Get a local to review the book, say how they used it in solving a problem, or helping someone, or just how they enjoyed it. Send it to the mayor, or to a Principal, or president of a volunteer organization, or charity or self help group. Do what you need to but come up with a hard local news angle. Add this element in to the formula and tie it in to the bookstore event.

You use the local news angle in each “local” news release. Once you come up with a formula, you duplicate it city by city.

Newspaper editors in particular really love when you do this for them because it fits in with what they prefer to publish more than anything else they do.

The media response rate for news releases with a local community involvement news angle is the highest of any type of news release. You get more interviews and more publications.

Once you have your news release written you need to acquire access to a custom targeted media list.

This is a current listing of people with street mail, phone numbers and email addresses that identifies and contains just the right media for you and your event. This should include a carefully developed list of the right calendar editors, news, lifestyle and feature editors, and subject matter editors at:

• daily newspapers
• weekly newspapers,
• magazines and appropriate trade publications
• radio stations
• radio shows
• television stations
• television shows
• news services & news syndicates
• and Internet media.

Depending on your event, this listing can be a small list of media within a downtown area, or it can cover your zip code, or a geographic area within ten miles or a half hour or more driving time. The circumference of the area you target and specifics of the list of media you create will be based on who you need to reach with your message to connect meaningfully with the people you need to ultimately reach.

You can also conduct Internet search, email and phone campaigns to identify places locally so you can then send your news release and personal invitations to:

• Associations
• Clubs
• Support Groups
• Non-profits
• Schools
• Churches

And other potentially relevant groups of local people.

You can also use social networks about your event and ask them to tell all their friends.

Finally, you need to remain acutely aware of media lead time. Your publicity campaign for an event needs to be initiated two to three weeks before your event. You need to transmit by street mail, and email and make phone calls to media so that you confirm that the right media receive and acknowledge that they have the information.

You should have media kits prepared in advance so that media you can respond quickly and effectively to media who make a request for information. Your goal is to give them the additional information they need to do a feature story quickly and easily. So your media kit should have everything they need including things like photographs, questions and answers, bios on key people, and specifications of products.

Steps to conducting an Event Publicity Campaign

1. Lay out your event schedule get prepared to send out news releases three to six weeks before your event.

2. Prepare your news releases.

3. Create and acquire your custom targeted media list.

4. Send out your first news release three to even as many as six weeks before the event.

5. Follow up by phone with the most important media on your list at each event location. Invite the media to come to the event, or interview the key people before, during, or even after the event. Invite feature editors to come to the event. Offer tailored articles, interviews, and site visits if your schedule allows.

6. Send out a second news release seven to ten days before the event, and follow up once again, to get and confirm media attendance or interviews.

7. Conduct the event and do the interviews. Treat the media in attendance very special. If they came in response to your release, thank them and make it worth their while. Give them review copies and media kits if you haven’t already done so. Be quick to take advantage of an opportunity to get more publicity, or better media coverage.

8. Send out a final news release on or immediately after the event to leverage the event . The event itself is news. This release should be a short article which summarizes the high points of the event and provides book, ordering and contact information. Make it easy for the media to do a feature story about the event just as if they were there reporting the event.

9. Call to say thank you to media contacts for the coverage and to request tear sheets. Offer additional information, articles, or interviews by phone as appropriate.

You need to try as hard as you can to create a socially relevant event – a cultural experience that generates word of mouth. Make sure that you seek a balance where you position your author as an expert or a helpful champion of the locals, a facilitator of change. Educate, entertain, inform, and motivate the people in the audience at the event. Give the media photo opportunities to visually capture local people experiencing real emotion. One great picture of a child or a person exhibiting a dramatic and personal feeling will galvanize the reading public to action and result in more sales.