A PR campaign attempts to engage the interest of journalists or broadcasters and to encourage them to write an article or a review or to interview you about your book. Good reviews, articles and interviews in the media will increase the chances of your book being noticed and being bought by the book-buying public.

Approximately 188,000 books are published in the UK annually according to The Publishers’ Association – that’s roughly 500 books being released every day in the UK !! With so many books going on-sale continuously, it is simply impossible for every single book to get the media attention that it may deserve. Book reviewers, journalists and broadcasters are inundated with communications from publishers and authors who are trying to grab their attention with news of forthcoming books, so trying to get coverage (publicity) in the media is an extremely competitive business. A professional book-publicist knows and understands the industry and the media – and knows how to give your book the best possible chance of media coverage in this extremely competitive industry. There are no guarantees of success in the hyper-competitive book industry. Nonetheless, with a professional PR campaign designed to bring your book to the attention of appropriate media contacts – and with an experienced book-publicist representing your book – you will improve your chances of gaining some coverage in the media.

Why not indeed? Absolutely! With the right skills and contacts you can, of course, do the PR campaign yourself. Some authors choose to undertake their own PR campaigns – and some of them do it very well indeed – especially those who come from a background in journalism, marketing, advertising or related industries. Also, many authors thoroughly enjoy the whole process of doing their own PR. If you do decide to undertake your own publicity campaign for your book, you may find it helpful to contact me about my PR COACHING advice and mentoring service. However, if you are unsure about creating your own press releases for literary/features editors and broadcasters, or you are uncertain about how to distribute press alerts to the appropriate media contacts, or if you are at all concerned about how to handle media enquiries and requests for extracts or exclusives, then you may prefer to commission the help of a professional book-publicist such as myself.

Ideally, the PR campaign for a book should start a few months ahead of the publication date (the release/on-sale date) for the book. It is never too early to commission the PR campaign for your book. The sooner work on a PR campaign can begin, the better the chances of obtaining coverage (publicity in the media) for the book. So please contact me as early as possible. (If necessary, you may even consider delaying the publication date for your book in order to allow more time for the PR campaign to be effective.)