Don’t let any publicists convince you that you absolutely NEED them to do blog outreach on your behalf. To the contrary, it should always work as a partnership and it’s very important to put the YOU in the online outreach.
While many of you might not have the time or inclination to reach out to bloggers, and will want to hire a publicist to help you, keep in mind that you still need to participate as much as you can in terms of blogging, building good content to repurpose as guest bylined articles, and pro-actively thanking (via commenting) bloggers for featuring the book.
The best authors are those who are willing to take that extra step toward connecting with the bloggers whether they have a publicist or not. Take time to thank and give link love to bloggers who have featured your book.
Put Google blog alerts on books in your vertical and make sure your publicist is reaching out to those books too.
If your publicist is returning results to you that include blogs with just one or two readers, ask how that benefits the book. Part of understanding the blog world is getting your book to blogs that have a strong reader community. It’s not always about numbers – it’s also about quality – but you still need to shoot for blogs with a larger community of readers.
If you have a smart, savvy publicist then you should expect them to build and refine a very strong list of blog, website and online potential reviewers. You also want to look for blogs where the community is active in terms of posting comments to reviews. Also look for blogs that offer book giveaways. There are many of those and they’re very good about considering a book for giveaway.
Always keep in mind that bloggers want good content to give to their readership. Don’t blog-blast pitches that don’t fit the blog’s focus. Don’t rely on traditional PR methods to garner coverage. Don’t just send press releases. Send short pitches that evoke immediate reaction.
SAMPLE:
Dear NAME OF BLOGGER:
I’m writing to you in the hope that you might be interested in reviewing this book, “TITLE OF BOOK.” Here is the book’s website – www.WEBSITE.com . I know that you review leadership books – SAMPLE LINK OF REVIEW THEY”VE DONE RECENTLY , and would love for you to consider this book as well.
Here is a brief bio of the author and a link to the book information online.
Thank you in advance for your consideration!
Best,
YOUR NAME
Remember, your book can be evergreen on the Web. What that means is that long after you’ve engaged or not engaged a publicist you still have the potential for garnering new readers and reviews for the book.
Keep going!
