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And for your reading pleasure, here's a great article from Paula Friedrichsen, one of Rachelle's clients:
Same Book, Different Hook:
Taking another Turn around the Publicity Track
Taking another Turn around the Publicity Track
About three years ago I had the thrill of writing my first book. Although I had been writing newspaper and magazine articles for quite some time, it took a few years for me to get the nerve up and try to get a book published. To make a very long story very short, four years ago I found myself sitting across the table from a literary agent at a writer’s conference pitching him my book idea. He signed me, he got me a book contract, and I wrote the book.
When the publisher finally released my book, they assigned me a publicist. “Melissa” was everything I could hope for, and I credit her with being the major reason I was able to learn so much about publicity so quickly. But since all good things must come to an end, about four months after my book was released my publicist moved on to her next set of soon-to-be-released books.
Can I Do This?
It was at this point that I decided to take over my book’s publicity. It was either that or let it languish on store shelves—or worse, at the Random House warehouse. I was surprised and delighted to find out how much I actually enjoyed publicizing my own book. I also discovered I was good at it!
Using what I’ve since come to refer to as “The Six Pronged Publicity Plan” I actually ended up booking more media opportunities then my very talented, yet very busy publicist did for me. While she was forced to work on 10 or 20 books at a time, I could devote all of my creative energy to just one book—mine!
Today’s article will focus on just one aspect of my “Six Pronged Plan”: how to develop an interesting “hook” for your book. Rather than trying to come up with hypothetical situations, I’ll use my own book as an example.
What in the World is a “Hook”?
To promote your book you must first figure out what your “hook” is. This should be the most interesting
astory
afact
astatistic
aholiday tie-in
acurrent event tie-in that relates to your book. For example, the title of my book is, The Man You Always Wanted Is the One You Already Have (Multnomah, 2007). The opening story (as told in chapter one) was the hook for my book because it was interesting and a bit provocative.
The hook of The Man You Always Wanted is: Fifteen years ago I became romantically, although not sexually, involved with the pastor of my church. This affair devastated the church and did great harm to both of our marriages. But God used the difficult lessons that I learned during that arduous time to reshape my thinking about marriage, and to plainly show me that the man I always wanted was the one I already had!
With that hook my publicist was able to book me on popular Christian TV shows and dozens of radio shows—as well as having articles excerpted from my book published in print and online magazines. She also submitted my book for possible review at Christian women’s magazines. All that publicity greatly enhanced my Amazon ranking (meaning the book was selling well), and it would have been easy to stop right there. But I was so impassioned to get my message out, and to possibly help failing marriages, I was compelled to continue! And quite honestly, I also wanted to sell books. I wanted to succeed.
Same Book, Different Hook
When my beloved and esteemed publicist finally turned her attention away from my book, I decided to see if I could take another turn around the publicity track. Because my first hook had been pitched to all the major media outlets, I decided to put my thinking cap on and come up with a new hook. This wasn’t as easy as it sounds. It needed to be interesting…had to be creative…it needed to offer the listener, viewer, or reader helpful information and “take away” points. What could I pull from The Man You Always Wanted Is the One You Already Have that would fulfill those requirements? I decided that since the focus of my book was marriage, Valentine’s Day would be a perfect tie-in. Tying your hook into a holiday is a win-win proposition. Media outlets need content for upcoming holidays, and you need to publicize your book. You can accomplish both of those things by creating your hook around a holiday if possible.
Okay, now that I had my tie-in holiday picked out, I wanted to find a cute or creative way to word my hook. By using an online rhyming dictionary I found something that rhymed with Valentine’s (not as easy as you’d think). And so was born my February 2008 publicity campaign (drum roll, please!) Lifelines for Valentine’s. The pitch consisted of four of my book’s major points formatted into “take away” points for the listener/viewer/reader:
aThe three symptoms of unforgiveness and practical solutions to bring a spirit of unity back into your marriage
aValidating and appreciating opposites
aTa-da! Look who you married (i.e. taking notice of your mate’s unique and praiseworthy strengths)
aHow to stop letting your emotions rule your marriage
I carefully prepared press materials, possible interview questions, talking points, and graphics to go with my hook, and pitched it like crazy. I ended up with numerous TV interviews, radio interviews, print magazine articles, online magazine articles (one which had over 3200 February viewings alone!), newspaper articles, and online book reviews. My Amazon sales were great, and the email feedback from those reading my book increased. Suffice it to say Lifelines for Valentine’s was successful beyond my wildest dreams. And if I can do it, you can do it! With a bit of creativity, a sprinkle of ingenuity, and a whole lot of hard work you can promote your own book.
Paula Friedrichsen is a published author and conference speaker living in Central California. http://www.pfministries.com/
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