5 Ways to Kiss Your Publicist Goodbye And Pitch Your Book Online:

1. You’ve compiled your list of bloggers to reach out to. You’ve read their blogs, followed their blogs or websites and know the kind of books they like to highlight or review.

2. You demand coverage or review of your blog in an ALLCAPS email to them. (Ok…no you don’t.) What you do instead is send them a brief email pitch like this one below:

DEAR (NAME) (real name!):

I’ve been reading your blog and know that you review business books on networking and I wanted to see if you might consider a review copy of my new book, “Accidental Networking.” (PUBLISHER, 2010)

BRIEF PARAGRAPH ABOUT THE BOOK HERE – this paragraph would answer WHY, WHAT and HOW.

a. Why the book is important and different than other books out there

b. What the book details very briefly and its target audience

c. How their blog readership will benefit from the book and the blogger sharing it with them.

Here is a link to the book and my site for more information.

Thank you and please let me know if you’re interested in seeing the book.

END

3. You wait patiently for their response. You give them time to consider the book before you followup with another email. You don’t email every hour, you don’t send them chocolates, wine or fervent pleas about how they must cover your book on their blog. You don’t comment on their blog about how they must cover your book. You just wait. Wait, wait, wait.

4. If you’ve not heard back from them within 2 weeks of your first pitch, you make one more pitch to them. It looks like this.

Dear NAME,

Just wanted to reach out once more and see if you’ve had time to consider the possibility of reviewing my book, “Accidental Networking,” , it was most recently reviewed here – LINK TO REALLY GOOD UNBIASED REVIEW (not one your mom wrote) – and I hope you might take a look at it too.

I know you’re probably inundated with pitches, so I appreciate your time in considering it.

Thank you.

Your NAME

END

4. They respond to you and say they’d love to read the book  and you SEND it! You also note in the email that you would be happy to provide them a ready-made Q&A or a book for giveaway to their readership if they feel that would be appropriate.

5. You go back to your target Excel sheet (where I know you’re keeping all your outreach lists organized) and you mark that blogger as IN PROCESS and you go to the next blogger. Also keep in mind that you’re always compiling a new list of 20 bloggers, tweeters or websites that you can reach out to.

Bonus: The blogger reviews your book and you link to that review in your blog, thank the blogger via the comments on their blog and feel grateful that you’ve garnered another review.

Bonus:  You start all over again. You don’t give up. You keep pitching, researching and of course thanking anyone who takes time to cover your book!

7 Ways to Kiss Your Publicist Goodbye

1. Make your site a mini-magazine issue of thought-leadership. Look at your site as though it’s a real publication for both your peers and the media to source for news. Build an editorial calendar for all your online tools including Twitter, Linkedin.com (status updates), Facebook and make sure you’re congruent in your content and your expertise.

2. Make sure you’re linking outside your blog to other news sources and stories by journalists. As a recovering technology journalist (1996-2004) I can tell you that all journalists love to have their names or links to stories, surface in Google alerts and they really love to show those to their editor as well.  You’re also giving them new sources of experts to look at when you write about stories they’ve covered and what your take is on the story.

3. Build a set of Google alerts on topics you’re most interested in and let those Google alerts give you ideas for new pieces of content on your blog, your Twitter and your Facebook pages. Don’t just stop at  posting those story links, go and comment on the stories at the sites they’re on and that will help you with building link-love to your site.

4. Don’t purposely be contrarian to the news. Be the person who lends a new angle or insight to a story.

5. Make sure you’re reading the online and offline magazines in your vertical and studying how their stories are created, who they source and where you can contribute bylines.

6. Have a website that encompasses a Web 2.0 press ready page. This includes your TwitterID, Facebook, Linkedin.com, YouTube channel and one pager about your expertise.

7. Put Google alerts on journalists’ names so you can build a clip file of what they’re covering and who they write for. More and more the online media is made up of freelance writers so don’t leave them out of the mix.

1. Journalists are curious and under very tight deadlines. You can write all the content you want on your blog, Twitter account, Facebook but if you don’t work at making it interesting, enticing and engaging they won’t source it.

2. Who the top reviewers  Amazon are for your genre. Get them yourself by doing a search on Amazon or actually just hit this link where you’ll find the list.

3. What journalists to follow on Twitter. You can find them on your own by hitting sites like Muckrack.com and using Google search to search Twitter IDs.

4. How to engage your fans on Facebook – the secret is post often, post thoughtful content, post responses to comments and just when you think you’ve done enough – post even more.

5. What the names of producers are at major television shows. Ok, here’s the thing, the PR firm won’t tell you even if you do pay them, so one thing you can do is join a site like MediaBistro.com and watch the comings and goings in news staff and compile your list from there. You can also use google search and search on terms like, “Producer Anderson Cooper show” or “NPR Morning Edition producer.”

6. Who the top bloggers or online book reviewers are in your book’s genre. For this one use Google, Technorati and do searches like “book blog reviews” or “cookbook reviews” or “business book review”. You can also apply this to Twitter searches as well.

7. That you matter. Too often we forget that our ideas, our expertise can contribute something greater to the discussion and sometimes our PR firm can forget that as well. Make your ideas actionable, news-peg worthy, future focused and you will find media that is interested in it.

One of the things an author must avoid no matter how famous or unknown is the disease of “Don’ttheyknowwhoiamitis“.

The symptoms of this deadly and narcissistic disease include the following:

1. Author does not believe they need to continue doing outreach after their book has been out for six months, because everyone should already know who they are and desperately want the book.

2. Author does not think it’s necessary to register their profile on new niche sites that might elevate their visibility and help them reach out to a new community of folks.

3. Author says their online guru “manages all that web 2.0 stuff and they don’t need to keep track of it or know what is being posted.”

4. Author believes the term “online guru” really means something.

5. Author is too busy to thank any bloggers for covering their book.

6. Author doesn’t want to send out hand-signed copies for book giveaways because book give-aways are only for lessor authors.

7. Author spends time blogging snarky posts on their blog about how they are the smarter than everyone else.

8. Author never responds to comments on their own blog or even bothers to link to outside bloggers.

9. Author thinks the media, the blogosphere and the twitter denizens will follow them JUST BECAUSE.

10. Author believes book marketers who tell him/her it’s all about impressions, click-throughs and long copy – not about valuable content, elevating the discussion and empowering the vertical.

If you are felled by any of these symptoms, please make certain to address them immediately so they do not become a full-fledged online affliction.

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1. Spend most of my time researching blogs and online websites instead of kvetching that my traditional publicity firm is just not trying.

2. Understand that I don’t need a publicist, mygrandma or even my publisher to work on my behalf to get coverage for my books! I can compile a list of blogs and start participating way before my book is out!

3. Take to heart that it is an author’s job to help publicize their book.

4. Get on Twitter and start tweeting.

5. Remember that if I’m going to build a FACEBOOK fan page I’m not done working with it just because I built it. I have to post to it at least three times a week and make those messages lively, dynamic and not marketing blabbity-blah.

6. Do a search for book awards and submit my book to every single one of them that I’m eligible for.

7. Take my book and page by page I would highlight short tweets I could repurpose on Twitter, and identify what ideas I can use for blog posts to help drive more interest about my books.

8. Stop believing that by getting a ton of “friends” to compile a bunch of empty bonuses together that those are going to take my book to #1 on Amazon.

9. Commit that I’ll be conversant on the news as it relates to ideas in my book and commit that I won’t try to get my book to fit every news angle.

10. Commit to not growing hits, but reaching new communities with valuable insight and the goal of long-lasting relationships.

11. Have an active profile on Linkedin.com, participate, offer good insight and join the groups that care most about my book content.

12. Stop spreading myself too thin across 8 billion social media profiles.

13. Use Google. Use Google. Use Google. To search for new opportunities for my book.

14. Pro-actively write a reading group guide and save that as a downloadable PDF that I offer for free on my site.

15. Thank every single reporter, blogger etc. that notes my book each time they do it.

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MYTH: You’re only going to find out the real deal on how to use social media off a long-copy sales page and a series of bonuses and webinars which you have to purchase.

REALITY: There are tons of absolutely free and  in-depth social media  help sites. If  you spend just one hour a week on them, you can learn everything you need to do.

REALITY EXTRA: You cannot possibly learn any of this stuff by just reading – you have to start doing!

5  Sites That Give You LOTS of GOOD FREE Social Media MOJO:

1. For Facebook turn to Allfacebook.com – superb, updated daily and tons of tips to instantly use.

2. Mashable.com - one of my faves on all things social media. Fantastic resource.

3. Twittip.com - Twitter tips you can instantly use.

4. Linkedin.com – read their blog! You get the insider scoop on the latest, like today they’re showing folks how to reorder your profile information. Tons of guest articles too. Cool beans!

5. SocialMediaToday.com – another daily must read.

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I’m a giant fan of Mediabistro’s GalleyCat and think they’re doing a great job of providing resources for writers, authors, and idea-thinker uppers in regard to Web 2.0 tools.

Their latest piece titled, “The Most Popular Book Reviewers On Twitter” by Jason Boog  is something you should definitely read and take actionable insight from!

What insight?

The column gives you some top Reviewers on Twitter, two of my faves being Susanna K. Hutcheson (top Amazon reviewer too) and my friend Wayne Hurlbert of BlogTalkRadio’s Blog Business Success. They also give you some good hashtags for Twitter that you can search to find new book reviewers to pitch.

I think you might have to be a member of MediaBistro to get GalleyCat content, but if you do then I encourage you to join MediaBistro. It’s one of my favorite sites for writers and incredibly uplifting on a daily basis with new resources and kicks in the writers’ block butt!

Go now go and twitter pitch your book! You CAN DO IT!

We’re just days away from seeing Journalism Online‘’s system put into action with several newspapers. Journalism Online is a relatively new start-up venture aiming to facilitate newspapers’ efforts to charge online.

Here is a link to the full story , and I could not resist putting an excerpt from the story here, “”We’re starting small, so if this really turns people off, we’re not playing with a huge chunk of our readership,” Schreiber told the Times, reflecting a commonly-held fear among publishers of scaring away readers and losing advertising revenue.  

This small start will only involve charging readers outside the local area and only for reading obituaries, as these are unique to the paper, Schreiber said, adding that local sports might be the next area targeted.”

A green “Press+” logo will appear next to each obituary headline, and after reading a certain amount of such articles, a user will be prompted to pay a flat fee to continue.

Here’s my question, how long are most obits? Is it really a good idea to charge folks who already might be a little bit down about the loss of a friend, family member etc. to read the full obit? Are we really so monetarily driven in this day and age that we have to charge for someone to read a full obituary to help print newspapers stay alive?

Question: Are people going to be creating Twit-obits to save loved ones the expense?

The bigger question is also whether overall this will even work since so much information including news etc. is so freely available on the Web?

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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!

If content is King, then curiousity is Queen.

Here are 5 tips for inspiring journalists, readers and followers to keep coming back for more!

1. Tell them everything, be transparent and ask lots of questions that you don’t know the answer to.

2. If a journalist writes a story about a topic you’re familiar with then take time to dig deeper for your readers in an accompanying post. Recognize the journalist by name (it’s only respectful) and contrast and compare their insights with your own. Stop listening to PR folks who tell you that you have to get your requisite, always the same soundbites down pat. Pat is boring!

3. Be endlessly curious. Every single part of business has its own mysteries. Sometimes we’re all asking the same questions over and over again instead of challenging ourselves to look at something differently. Don’t be a lemming constantly leaping off the dull edge with everyone else. Step back and create new ideas.

4. Don’t make it about becoming a celebrity in your field, make room for everyone to rise to your level of understanding. Do these by asking your readers to ask questions, comment and guest post on your blog. Choose to be different, not “celeb-boring.”

5. Stop trying to be “quotable” and start trying to be perenially memorable.

6. Soundbites don’t drive curiousity, they just get us stuck in the mud of old traditional PR.

I’m truly saddened about J.D. Salinger’s death today. His book, “Franny and Zoey” changed my life one wintery night during my first residency at Goddard College.

Goddard was where I finally arrived to finish my B.A. in my early 20s and one of the first things you do as part of the work is complete your semester independent study plan with your advisor and fellow group members. The semester’s study is what you will work on throughout the semester once you’ve returned home.

The students there I felt were so hip and artistic and at a depth of soulfulness that I’d not yet experienced. The experience was overwhelming.

I spent several hours during the first few days at Goddard, truly refining what I thought was the magnum opus of all independent study plans. “Oh, this will blow my advisor away,” I thought, full of pride and bravado. “This will go in the halls of infamy as one of the best study plans ever!”

Skipping down to my advisor/group meeting carrying this hallowed six page document, I reveled in anticipation at what I was sure would entail several rounds of standing ovations (from my advisor Rob Tarule and the other six members of the group.) Tripping over a particularly big mound of sidewalk snow should have been my first sign that things were not going to go as I thought they might.

Holding my document in the air as I fell and thereby ensuring its dryness in lieu of my own bloodied knees and wet beret, I walked those final steps to the group’s meeting place.

Finally, it was my turn to present my study plan – rising from my bean bag chair I started reading! Alas, by the fourth paragraph my advisor Rob said, “This sounds very scholarly, but where are YOU in this document? What will change in YOU and your creative work by doing this study?” I couldn’t answer this. Rob gave me one more night to rework the plan -to put ME – in the plan.

It was about 23 degrees that night as I trudged up in my red boots back to the Goddard library to read samples of other plans – anything that might show me what was the RIGHT plan for me.

After spending two depressing hours in one bookshelf area, studying other successfully executed plans, I moved to another row of books. There I spied, “Franny and Zoey” by J.D. Salinger.

Suffering from severe anxiety I sat down on the floor beside the bookshelf and read the book from front to back in the middle of that night in the library. That book was where I found my answer to the block I was feeling over writing the “perfect” study plan.

The answer was this phrase, “An artist’s only concern is to shoot for some kind of perfection, and on his own terms, not anyone else’s.”

I worked all night creating a whole new study plan and in doing so created a plan to be a writer, an artist, an idea-lover not focused on perfection, but focused only on finally meeting and expressing my artistic soul on my own terms.

God bless Salinger for that gift.

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1. Not only read their work, but print their last ten stories out and look for all the ways they tell a story. Good journalists are incredible storytellers and you can find out alot about how they write, what they look for in an expert source and what interests them by reading several stories all at the same time.

2. In the aforementioned stories, highlight all the adjectives they use in the story and you’ll get a very good feel for their particular slant in stories and the publication’s slant as well.

3. If they are very well-known journalists, then take the time to read interviews they’ve done about writing, their own work and their lives. This is an excellent way to make a human connection. Remember, no matter what your PR firm has told you, journalists are HUMANS too.

4. Go through each story and highlight the experts they’ve sourced in the story. This will teach you what they look for, what caliber of expert they reach out to and how you might position your own thought leadership around this. By the way, don’t create inauthentic content via blogging or otherwise to just “snag” a journalist’s attention. They’re much smarter than that and really good journalists are very intuitive and work hard to find the best possible source.

5. RESPECT, find out what it means to the journalist. Don’t stalk them, don’t email them incessantly, don’t consistently denigrate their angle on a story. If there is something you can add, then by all means add it to your blog post about the story. Add some new insight. We can all help each other to elevate the writing and meaning.

6. Don’t ever expect or think you deserve coverage. It’s not enough to just decide you’re a great expert or big thinker. You have to work harder than that. Don’t even make it about a journalist doing a story on you. Make it about you doing a story for your own community that engenders new discussion. Journalists are always looking for new angles to old stories!