The Top 5 Things You Can Do to Help Your In-House Publicist

Most in-house publicists think it but would never say it, so I'll say it for them: there are those authors that it is a dream to work with, and there are those who you dread opening emails from. Having worked in publicity departments at a couple major houses, here are my top 5 recommendations for ensuring that you and your publicist are working more like Sonny and Cher (the early years) rather than Fleetwood Mac (the later years).

(1) Take your author questionnaire seriously. I know you're busy, and I know it can be very tempting to put this off for as long as possible. Unfortunately, that’s the kind of thinking that results in major missed opportunities. Publicity efforts for your book begin four to five months before publication, and this is when the crucial magazine coverage is booked. If you haven’t yet mentioned that you went to Penn, which has a great alumni magazine, or that your fiancée’s best friend writes features for Vogue, your publicist can’t be expected to send advance copies to these media resources.

Get it done, asap.

(2) Know the niche media that would be perfect for your book. In an ideal world (for publicists as well as authors), the subject matter of a book would match up with the interests of everyone working on it, but this isn’t always the case. In-house publicists don't always get to decide what books they work on. There is reason to take heart, though: most people in the publishing business really do love learning about new things and have even come to expect it as part of their job. You can help facilitate this learning process by making sure your publicist has all of the insider information on your book’s subject at her fingertips. This means filling out (yes, asap!) your author questionnaire as fully as possible, and communicating with her any important information that might be commonplace for a specialist but unknown to a beginner. Think of the advantage to you: if you tell her, ‘The rock-collecting market is essential to the success of this book!,’ she can spend a week researching magazines and newspapers to ensure that she has a solid list of all the best. If you provide her with a full AQ that contains a list of these magazines and newspapers, she can devote that week to actively pitching them.

(3) Respect that budgets are set well in advance of a book’s publication and generally without your publicist’s input. I firmly believe that the marketing opportunities for any given book are nearly limitless, and I suspect that most in-house publicists would agree with me. The real limiting factor in the publicity campaign for your book is not ideas, but rather a nasty little thing called money. For instance, if a book is intended to be "review driven," chances are extremely good that no money is available for a book tour. And the hard truth is that few extenuating circumstances are going to change that, and (most importantly for this blog post) it’s really not within the ability of your in-house publicist to affect the amount of money allotted for your book.

That being said, there are situations that might justify additional expenses for your publicity and that you should feel comfortable bringing to the attention of your in-house publicist. Getting booked on The Colbert Report, for instance, is probably worth the cost of the plane ticket to your publishing house. If an organization will fly you out to speak to their 200+ members and is going to buy 100 books up front, it's reasonable to ask if your publishing house will pay for your hotel. Anything less than that, you’re usually on your own, moneywise.

(4) Never contact the media or set up any events or interviews without letting your publicist know first. This one, I know, can be hard to follow, especially if you feel like you’re getting the runaround from your publicity team. But there’s a good reason that publicists handle the heavy lifting with media pitches (publishing houses know this and maintain quality publicity departments because of it): they spend many hours every week following television, radio, and print; have a good sense of where to reasonably expect coverage on the title; they’ve spent a lot of time cultivating relationships with journalists; and most importantly, they are pretty used to taking rejection. Unfortunately, this last one happens a lot when pitching books to the media.

The more well-connected of you might run into journalists regularly, and some of those might want to book you on their show. If this happens, I'd recommend thanking them for the request and then always refer them to your publicist to book the actual interview. There are a bunch of things to consider before setting up an actual interview, ranging from simple timing issues to more complicated things like which NPR show has called dibs on covering your book, so it's important to get the opinion of a professional.

(5) Try very, very hard not to say the word Oprah. Saying it to your in-house publicist is like asking an astronaut, ‘hey, have you ever thought about visiting this place called the moon?’ I speak from experience here, so please pay close attention: your publicist has considered Oprah. She has sent the show multiple copies of your book, and probably even spent hours crafting a pitch well-suited for the shows’ producers. Believe me, your publicist wants you sitting on Oprah’s couch just as much as you do. You can expect her to have been in touch with all of the applicable people at the show and to have thought very hard about how to pitch your book to the appropriate producers.

On Query Letters

I often hear from writers that writing the letter to initially contact an agent – i.e., the so-called "query letter" – is the hardest part of this business. One comment – typical – from an author: "My query letter took about 3 months to get it into the shape I sent out. Frankly, even that query wasn't terrific."

This is something that I just don’t understand. If the book's the best it can be, if this book is a culmination of all you've learned and thought about and dreamed and wanted in a book, that's enough. The cover letter you write to agents is the logical outcome of the book itself, of your ability to sum it up concisely and well, and show the kind of passion you feel for it. If you can't write that kind of letter, if you aren't that passionate, ... well, obviously, maybe you need to write a new book that does make you feel that way.

If you, as a writer, can truly write, if you’ve really learned your craft so that writing is like breathing, the cover letter just comes out. It may not be as business-oriented as some agents (or editors) would like, but I also think that we agents and editors will cut people a lot of slack, if the writing and voice are there - we're all looking for that wonderful, glorious, fabulous writing – the kind of thing that will and does come out in the cover letter.

Or, just maybe, good writing comes out in the cover letter unless the author's too daunted and intimidated and disheartened by this truly weird process to let the writing flow out naturally. (This may especially true for fiction writers, since they tend to be more left-brain-oriented, while letter-writing seems to be more of a right-brained activity). The novelist Sandra Kring (not my client, by the way, but definitely read her books – including her latest, Thank You For All Things, which came out in October 2007) wrote once, "The type of writing a query requires is so far removed from the kind of writing a fiction writer does that, to me, it’s the equivalent of a dancer going to audition for the role of The Sugar Plum Fairy, and being made to stand perfectly still and DESCRIBE her movements, rather than simply being allowed to dance. Unless that dancer, then, is also a singer and has a way with words, that dancer may the most incredible Sugar Plum Fairy that troop will ever see, but the dance company will never know this."

I don’t disagree with Sandra, but I do think that query letters are creative. You need to keep that in mind. They're a creative, short, extremely condensed chunk of your book. They're not really "business" letters – unless you're writing a business book. As it is, I always think the best query letters are the ones that are written to me as if I’m already an acquaintance - not too familiar, but also not written in businessese or legalese.

The query letters that really grab my attention are letters that have the writer's own individual flair to them. Where I can hear the voice, where I can feel the mastery that the writer has over the language. That voice needs to be in there. I know that a lot of people will try to turn this kind of thing into a science (how much of a "pitch" there should be; what kind of "hook" is successful, and all that kind of nonsense); frankly I don't honestly care that much, and I sure don’t think about it when I rip open the envelope - all I want, when I read a cover letter, is to be sufficiently intrigued to turn to the next pages (assuming that the author's sent those next pages with the query). Generally that happens because something about the writing grabs me, right from the first sentence.

There are a lot of times when something else, other than the writing, will grab me - the author's platform, usually (but the box of chocolates never hurts, you know) (I'm KIDDING here - do NOT send gifts) (well, maybe one or two) (small ones), and then I'll turn the page anyway and take a look at that first page of the manuscript.

But I swear - I wish you could sit here and look at the pile of unsolicited material I get - and I do NOT want to spend my day (or my assistant's day) going through it. When I tear open that envelope, I want something to spark, ignite, burn on those pages inside. And, in most cases, what sparks is the writing. So if you can't write, and can't express yourself concisely, .... um ...

Sound Byte To Take Away From This Posting:

Query Letters should be:

1. Concise (one page, max);
   
2. Have, somewhere in them, a very brief paragraph that sums up the book in a sentence or two [and ideally that log-line should generate a “wow” response from your reader];
   
3. Convey the author’s creativity, enthusiasm, and passion for the project;
   
4. Have something about them that sets them apart from the mundane (usually that’s the premise or the author’s credentials, or both).
   

Let me give you an example. When the email query, below, crossed my desk, I responded within a couple of hours. I’ve put my comments in bold, and hope they don’t prove too distracting:

---

From: Garth Stein
To: Jeff Kleinman
Re: Query: “The Art of Racing in the Rain” Putting both the words “Query” and the title of the book on the subject line makes it clear why you’re writing – and it often keeps your email from falling into the spam folder.

Dear Mr. Kleinman: Address your letter to a single individual. The proper way of opening business correspondence is “Dear [Title] Last Name]:”. Be sure you spell the name right.

Saturday night I was participating in a fundraiser for the King County Library System out here in the Pacific Northwest, and I met your client, Layne Maheu. He spoke very highly of you and suggested that I contact you.... One of the best ways of starting out correspondence is figuring out your connection to the agent. It’s always best to have a referral, but if you don’t know a lot of writers, try to determine if the agent represents any authors you like. Similarly, find first novels you really love, and look in the acknowledgments section - it’s where most authors thank their agent.

I am a Seattle writer with two published novels. Cool – so the author has some kind of track record. Who’s the publisher, though? Was these both self-published novels, or were there reputable publishers involved? (I’ll read on, and hope I find out.) I have recently completed my third novel, "The Art of Racing in the Rain," and I find myself in a difficult situation: my new book is narrated by a dog, and my current agent ah-ha, so he had an agent. This seems more and more promising. told me that he cannot (or will not) sell it for that very reason. Thus, I am seeking new representation. This kind of approach can backfire, because we agents tend to be like sheep – what one doesn’t like, the rest of us are wary of, too (or, conversely, what one likes, we all like). But in this case getting in the “two published novels” early is definitely helpful. Also, there’s something in the “Thus” that, to me, spoke of the author’s determination not to give up just because one agent didn’t like it.

"The Art of Racing in the Rain" is the story of Denny Swift, a race car driver who faces profound obstacles in his life, and ultimately overcomes them by applying the same techniques that have made him successful on the track. His story is narrated by his "philosopher dog," Enzo, who, having a nearly human soul (and an obsession with opposable thumbs), believes he will return as a man in his next lifetime. Great log-line. Here’s the one-sentence description of the book – sums it up, gives us a feel for what we’re going to get. It’s short and gets the job done. THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT PART OF YOUR LETTER.

My last novel, "How Evan Broke His Head and Other Secrets," won a 2006 Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association Book Award, Ah, good, and the author’s winning awards. This is exactly the kind of thing agents (and editors) like to see. and since the award ceremony a year ago, I have given many readings, workshops, and lectures promoting the book Also good – the author’s not afraid of promoting the book himself.. When time has permitted, I've read the first chapter from "The Art of Racing in the Rain." Audience members have been universally enthusiastic and vocal in their response, and the first question asked is always: "When can I buy the book about the dog?" Also very positive. By now I’m salivating, wanting to see this.

I'm inserting, below, a short synopsis of "The Art of Racing in the Rain," and my biography. Great that he didn’t put either of these things directly into the letter, that he separated them out to allow the letter to be brief and to the point. Please let me know if the novel interests you; I would be happy to send you the manuscript. Simple, easy ending – doesn’t speak of desperation, or doubt, or anything other than polite willingness to help. And all the punctuation was in the right spot.

Sincerely,

Garth Stein

---

That’s it. He’s done. Mission accomplished.

Of course, the manuscript itself has to deliver on its promise – but we’ll save that for another discussion sometime soon.

[Not to leave you dangling: Garth’s manuscript more than delivered on its promise. Harper is publishing it in the near future, May 2008, and you should run out immediately and get a copy. Here’s a link to his website, www.garthstein.com.]

---