How to Best Use Publicity Power to Elevate Your Book Success - BM383

Narrator [00:00:07]:

If you're an author or plan to be one get excited because this podcast is for you. Book Marketing Mentors is the only podcast dedicated to helping you successfully market and sell your book. If you're ready for empowering conversations with successful marketing mentors, then grab a coffee or tea and listen to your host, international best-selling author Susan Friedmann.

Susan Friedmann [00:00:31]:

Welcome to Book Marketing Mentors, the weekly podcast where you learn proven strategies, tools, ideas, and tips from the masters. Every week, introduce you to a marketing master who will share their expertise to help you market and sell more books.

Today, my special guest is Jason Jones, Jason is a longtime literary agent and publicist with a wealth of knowledge on how self-published authors can book radio TV, and podcast interviews for themselves, garnering more attention for their work. Jason has led campaigns for a dozen New York Times best-selling authors and over 400 books over the past decade, plus with major publishers all over the US. but it's self-published authors. He really enjoys working with them the most. So, Jason, you're in the right place.

Welcome, and it's a pleasure to welcome you to the show. Thank you for being this week's guest expert and mentor.

Jason Jones [00:01:31]:

Thank you so much for having me. No pressure, right, being a master marketer. That introduction's a little bit, Goodness.

Susan Friedmann [00:01:39]:

We've got to set the bar high. Our listeners are expecting good stuff. So, let's show them what it's all about. You've led major campaigns for publishers. I know you do a lot of that working with some of the major publishers. and best-selling authors, but we're talking here to many of our listeners of first-time authors many of them have either self-published or published through, you know, a hybrid publisher such as AVEVA Publishing And it's daunting this whole idea of marketing, promotion, PR, How can we make it easier for them?

Jason Jones [00:02:21]:

I think there are a lot of people publishing books not a lot of well, shouldn't say a lot of people doing it well. Far fewer people doing it well. That shrinks the pool and makes it much less daunting. And then beyond that, the people who are willing to take the right steps to engage an audience and build a real audience of readers and just stick with it, not quit. This is not something you can accomplish in months.

This takes years to do. And those that do it well and stick with it they'll make it, but I think the most important thing you can do right out of the gate is to lose that thinking, that thought process that says I'll spend a few months writing a book in 6 months from now, I can quit my job. You know, this is something that is, it's a years-long pursuit. It really is. you know, a lot of people jump into the marketplace as unknowns and expect people to them and spend money on what they have to say, and they don't know you.

There are plenty of other people out there that do know and like and trust, and those are the books they're gonna buy building that kind of relationship has taken time. So you've gotta be willing to do that and do that first before you write a book. If you're someone who maybe is just thinking about writing a book, I think that's the way you have to approach it. A lot of people, and you said this off air before we started today that you also talked to a lot of authors who write that book and then turn their attention and thinking to marketing and publicity. And that's, unfortunately, a pretty tough way to go about it because like I said, it takes months months, if not years to really build an audience. It does.

Susan Friedmann [00:03:59]:

for people to get to know you, as you said, as you trust you, and see that you are a credible source and that you have expertise that can help them. As you mentioned earlier, Offair, we were talking about the fact that people don't buy books. Although authors think that they are selling books, Talk to us more about that. The idea of getting away from the idea of selling a book that says I want to get onto a television station, and I want to get some promotion publicity And I've got a book and I say, hey, I've just written a book.

Jason Jones [00:04:38]:

Yeah. Well, that's not news. Take it from there. That's not news. And that's one of the first things I say. You know, your book is not news, and that hits a lot of people pretty hard to their family and their neighbor. it's news, but not beyond that. There are 3,000,000 books published a year. A book being published is not news. What media wants to know and needs to know is how your message benefits our audience, and what's in it for them. And that's what a reader wants to know, and what's in this for me or an endless number of things that I can spend my money on, ways I can myself or inform myself, what's in this for me? Is this author someone who is going to be willing to engage me?

Someone I can follow and have some fun reading bits and posts from each day and maybe even engage in some back and forth with. And is there a continuation of this content somewhere else other people like me that are gonna benefit from this information and want it. And maybe they're messaging and commenting on these socials. It it's all about community, a community of readers, a benefit for those readers. You know, so that's more the approach from a publicity perspective. This is not a news segment. It's not an infomercial. you pay for those things. Paid media versus earned media.

Those are 2 very different things. People don't like being marketed to. They're marketed to all day long, and that's not what they want from you. they want engagement, and they want to know what's in this for me. How does this book benefit me? What's the contribution it makes to a conversation we're having culturally? because that's what you're doing. As an author, you're entering into a culture and conversations that are already taking place in that culture, how does your book and your message enter into that contribute to that? So I can't remember what your question even was, Susan. I don't know if I answered it. But as you can't tell, like, you get me started on these things, I can just go over for a while. I totally get it. In fact, right at the beginning, you talk about taking the right steps.

Susan Friedmann [00:06:31]:

So if you were to give our listeners let's say, 3, 4 right steps, what would they be starting out? One of them you mentioned was thinking about this before the book comes out. But what else should they be thinking about? I think, yes, that mindset

Jason Jones [00:06:50]:

shift is really, really important. The next thing from a more practical standpoint, I think, is to start getting your house in order online with a web AI landing page for your book, and things like that. I come across a lot of authors too who they're ready to do media, but they don't have anywhere to send readers back to. not only will the media want to go to your website and see your social feeds. They're gonna wanna scroll through your social feed. See how engaged you are with an audience. Make sure you have something that's a little bit off the rails. It might not agree with their audiences or sensitivities.

Those things are important, but you've got to get those things in order. I always like to say that before you invite guests over for dinner, you're gonna make sure you give your house a good deep clean, right, and you wanna put your best foot forward. So Make sure your website's up to date and your social feeds have content that's fresh and engaging. That's another step people can take I like the idea a lot of involving those close to you in the writing of the book. Let them know what you're working on and what you're thinking about. And as you've kind of fleshed out the content. You'll get, in the same sense, you will be the focus group, you know, an idea of which pieces of that information interest them most. and you maybe even get some questions asked that other readers may have.

You can answer those questions. It's better to do this, not do it in a vacuum, but do it you know, with a group of interested parties that can help you put forth the best content, you know, a lot of people just dive into a book. They open up their laptop, and there's just a brain dump. And they next thing, you know, they've got a couple of hundred pages that they wanna turn over to an editor, and they haven't really thought through whether or not the content is organized in the best way or thought through a second book, or is this content that I should be laying out there, you know, first? Maybe there's more than one book here. There are all sorts of steps and approaches, I think, first-time authors don't take. Those are just a few off the top of my head that come first to mind mindset change, preparing yourself online for visitors and media, and then getting into the writing of the book and doing it as part of the community, I guess, are the 3 things that first come to mind for me. Excellent.

Susan Friedmann [00:09:06]:

You talked about earlier the idea of, obviously, getting on television or radio shows. And often authors think big. They think about the top shows. you know, maybe good morning America or when Oprah was big and interviewing people, they want to be on the Oprah Show One of her agents is going to call all of a sudden and say, hey, we want you on here. Realistically, that's not gonna happen. we know, not for a first-time author. So where could an author get some visibility What would you recommend as sort of starting points to start the visibility moving?

Jason Jones [00:09:47]:

Yeah. Locally, you're always most relevant at home as a member of your community as a resident expert. You know, you are most relevant at home. Local media is where you get it. I often tell authors that come to me that have that idea that they're gonna show up on Good Morning America, you know, next week with their first book. You don't want to show up on Good Morning America next week with your first book. It's not gonna be your best interview. if you've not done this, you don't understand what happens to a person when you sit down in that chair and that red light comes on. those lights are on the interviewer turns to you and welcomes that audience back from the break and asks you a question.

And, you know, how quickly that 3 or 4 or 5 minutes can go? It's a learned skill. You need some seasoning. So do local media, radio, television, do small podcasts, so that by the time you pitch those bigger outlets, you're ready for it. It also gives you an exponentially better chance to land those shows because they can see that you're informative that you're entertaining that you're not gonna freeze when those lights come on. You know, those producers at GMA and the Today Show and those big networks, their livelihood is on the line.

Every time they book a guest, they're not going to take a chance with a first-time housewife author who's never been on television before, and that's just the hard truth and you only get one shot at that. You really wanna knock it out of the park. So lower stakes do some local stuff, get some seasoning, sell a few books, get some encouragement and some confidence. Because like I said, before, this is not about just selling books. It's about building an audience, gaining mobility momentum, you know, oftentimes you do that local media, you end up with a couple of speaking engagements, locally, words starts to spread, and that's how this works. You just can't skip those steps.

Susan Friedmann [00:11:38]:

What about new media trends? What's out there now that self-published authors

Jason Jones [00:11:46]:

could take advantage of. Yeah. Well, obviously podcasts. There are over a million active podcasts plenty of airtime to go around with podcasters. That's the first place I would go. And for us, as an agency, one of the first things we do with an author, particularly newer authors is we pitch the smaller stuff for them first, including, you know, the podcasts because it lets them get their feet wet. that's the way we approach that. I'm not giving your audience advice that we ourselves don't follow, but podcasts are where it's at. And there's such an opportunity, even if a show only has 100 or a few 1000 downloads a month, there's a real opportunity there for you to not only find an audience that is laser-focused on your topic, but that needs to hear what you have to say to engage with that host. You know, you're gonna send an email out to Robin Robert or somebody on GMA, and you're not gonna hear back from those folks.

You will hear back from the host of a podcast with 600 downloads a month because they're out there hustling like you are. They need guests. They want guests. They need that content. You have to learn to think of it that way too. You're providing them a service when you have a message that is of benefit to their audience. you're not asking for a favor. You have real content that is beneficial for this, especially as a nonfiction author. Fiction's a whole different ballgame, and we can talk about that. But nonfiction, in particular, that's the way you have to view it and approach it. And those contacts are much, much easier to come by than hunting down email addresses for folks at Big Networks And National Shows. Hold on. I'm just thinking about how

Susan Friedmann [00:13:18]:

For instance, you approached me. We didn't know each other before we started this interview, but you have an intern working with you and He reached out and wrote a very poignant letter or message that said, hey. We understand what your shows are about, and we think that Jason would be a good fit. And I agreed. I was like, yes. He's talking about the kinds of things that I like to talk about and to the right audience versus somebody who approaches me and says,

Jason Jones [00:13:52]:

client has written a new book, and we think they ought to be on your show. Well, I don't necessarily interview people who've just written a book. That's not what this show is about. So -- Right. Right. Lots of people write books. That's what we said earlier. Right? A lot of people write books, but why your book and why does my audience need to know about your book? That's what we teach our interns, and that's what we try and practice is it's always about the audience. And one of the first things we say in all of our pitch to media is, hey. We know you. We know who you're talking to. We've got a message and an author and an expert that we know would benefit them to hear from. here's why. there are all sorts of tips and tricks and things that you have to learn as a publicist, you know, working with media. That principle really extends beyond TV and radio and podcasts. It's in general. Everyone's looking for that. Right? I mean, first, it's what's in this for me, whether it's an Instagram post or a radio interview, do I stay tuned in? All those things. What's in this for me, we're gonna stay tuned in here. That message extends beyond media, and it's a principle that you've got to accept.

Susan Friedmann [00:14:59]:

You wrote a book called Landing Local Media. Let's dig into that because I think you mentioned earlier, this is a great place to start. that you could be a celebrity in your own town. Talk to us more about how would a first time author go about looking at their local media.

Jason Jones [00:15:20]:

I think the most important thing for you to do is to be familiar with the show that you're pitching. And the audience watches the show. Listen to the show. As one of my close friends on air friends has said, we've talked about this topic. If you expect me to pick up your book and read your book and be familiar with your message and your audience, then spend a few minutes to become familiar with mine. That's only fair. Be familiar with who you're pitching before you send out that email. And then let them know I'm a member of this community. I understand this community. I know it's important to this community. as someone who lives here like you.

You know, our kids may even go to the same schools. Here's why what I have to say is important and why I know it will resonate with this community. So That is the first step. Let them know right away at the outset of that email who you are, why you're writing, and that you're local. because you have to keep in mind, these folks, even local television producers and radio producers get 100 of emails a week from people who want airtime. They really have to parse that down to just a few. So it's important that you send them the right information in the right order and that if you don't hear from them the first time that you try again, that you're persistent and you're but patient, you know, polite, professional, personable, all those things. They don't owe you anything. You just have to stay at it and understand that they are hearing from a lot of folks. and it's your job to convince them of why, you know, what you have to say is important to that local audience.

That's the biggest part of the job is just reaching out to the right person with the right information at the right time. And a big part of that too, Susan, if I've run the risk here, rambling on a little bit too long, is being prepared for that opportunity comes. I think one of the most frustrating things as an author, and I've been there myself years ago when I know that I'm the expert on a particular topic. I'm the source that the news needs to be talking to. I'm the guy that should be in front of the camera. News happens. All of a sudden, what I have to say is extraordinarily relevant but I don't have a Prescott put together. I don't have the right information.

I don't know who to reach out to. All these things need to be ready. You know, you need to have your gun loaded and cocked there. Right? So when that new story hits, 10 minutes later, I can have 4 or 5 emails sent off to the right folks. letting them know that, hey. When you're ready for someone to break down what's happening, I'm the guy here locally or nationally. If it's a national trend, something's happening how does it affect the people of our community? Maybe it's, you know, big economic news, and I'm a financial planner or banker in our hometown here. I can talk about why interest rates, why the spiking, and how that affects our local community. You just have to pay attention and be ready, be prepared, write the right email, and reach the right people. So That's how it happens. You know, chance favors the prepared mind. Right? Yeah. And I love that is looking at what is topical

Susan Friedmann [00:18:12]:

and how can you take your subject matter and your messaging and relate it to as you said, either that local trend or it might be a national? It might be an international global trend and how it affects the community. So I think that is though poignant here and a message that I hope you heard that listeners because, yes, be prepared and look at how you can relate your book or your message. It's not about the book. It's about the message. to whatever's going on. Even something like if you're in stress management and the idea of or burnout around the holiday time. This is a very stressful time for people. Then how can you relate if Your subject matter is burnout or stress management? How can you relate that to the local community? So, yes, I think -- See, everything.

Jason Jones [00:19:09]:

that lens. That's right. The analogy I've always made is that of a cocktail party. Right? If you're at a cocktail party, you approach a group of people that are having a conversation. You don't really know these people. You don't walk right into that group and change the subject. You approach that group. You listen. You hear them talking about what's important to them. And as you figure out what you have to say that's relevant to that conversation, you say it in an informative and entertaining way. So people want to hear more from you.

At some point, the topic of the conversation may turn to you. Someone may say, hey. You're a really interesting guy. What do you do? Who are you? and maybe there comes a natural segue, you know, a natural point in that conversation for it to turn more to what it is you wanna talk about. But It's the same way with the new cycle. You know, we're talking about certain things, and you are unlikely to be able to change that conversation. So you just have to figure out how what you have to say contributes to it or wait until the new cycle cooperates. and sometimes that may take a bit. And that's okay.

Susan Friedmann [00:20:10]:

I think that's the hard part often. I know I've got some authors that they say, oh, I tried that and it didn't work. What should I try next? You've mentioned it several times as the whole idea of perseverance. I mean, it may not happen the first time or the second time or the third time, but maybe the 4th time or the 5th time. But they've just got to know who you are and what you do, and If you keep reminding them, there's going to come a time when they say, yeah. Oh, maybe we should be talking to Jason or to Susan or Mary about, this particular subject.

Jason Jones [00:20:43]:

That's right. They will. If you can stay top of mind and not be a pest, not be someone whose email they block or someone that, you know, they'll remember. I've had countless instances in my career where I have pitched an outlet to an author or expert. And I thought that I'd swung and missed, and we just, you know, we moved on. But then months later, the news would break. All of a sudden, that person's relevant, and I get an email that says, hey, Jason. You reached out several months ago with this person. Are they still available?

You are on their mind. if you've done your job and stayed in front of them and been clear about who you are and what you know, a lot of those folks, and I speak from experience before we were married, my wife was a television news producer. So I know A lot of these folks are very organized. They tend to file people away by subject matter or by city. Where are they? Are they so that when the time comes, do I know anybody in Chicago? Boom. Okay. Here are the eight people doing on anybody that's an expert on this particular topic. Boom. Yes. I do. They've gotta be able to find people quickly just be one of those people. Make yourself easy to find, and easy to reach.

And the other part of this thing too that I failed to mention earlier, Susan, as far as things you must do before you pitch yourself out there to media, you've gotta build some flexibility into your calendar, some availability. You're on their schedule. If they call and you don't have anyone to watch the kids, well, that's too bad. You know, they're gonna move on to someone else. If you don't have any days off from work, you can't be at the station tomorrow morning at 8 AM. You need to make sure you've got some flexibility built into your calendar. You have somebody on call that can come over at a moment's notice and watch the kids, or if you're asked to fly somewhere and be on set, you've got all that covered. You know, you've got a shirt that's been freshly pressed at the cleaners and is ready to go. You know, you need to be ready. because all of this happens very quickly. That's a big part of it. Just be able to say yes. there's nothing worse. And I've had it happen plenty of times.

You know, we work with 10, 11, 12 different authors a month. And the author tells me he's available next week to do media. We send out a pitch to the media. They asked me for that author next week and all of a sudden, now he's not available. And, you know, that the media have to be sitting there and asking, well, why did you pitch person? I mean, if I can't have them, that's frustrating for them. So make sure that if you're asking for their airtime that you're available to be on their program, Yeah. They don't wait for you. They don't wait till you're ready, as you said. Something happens. They want it now.

Susan Friedmann [00:23:04]:

You've just got to, you know, do whatever you can to make it happen. So Jason, listeners always like to know more about a guest and how they can contact them, talk to us about that. I know that you have some different, tools, and do-it-yourself tools. So talk to us about those.

Jason Jones [00:23:27]:

Yeah. Thank you for asking, Susan. It's very gracious of you. I try not to be that guest that over-mentions their product or, you know, their book. That's not a lot of fun for a host. either to listen to that. So we do have some tools and resources for self-published authors. You mentioned when we first started the show that we do work with all the major publishers and major media. I love working with first-time authors. There's still so much enjoyment and excitement about what they're doing. Enthusiasm They really believe in their message. I really love that. I love to help see them succeed. A lot of the authors we work with have been doing this for many, many years, and a book is more it's something that they're obligated to do at this point, and they don't wanna do media. You know, they signed a contract, and it's just it's less fun sometimes than seeing someone's first book. Birthed. That's really fun. But at the same time, what we do in public is extraordinarily time-consuming. and we have to offer guests up to these big national shows that are qualified and ready to be there. So all those things mean that we don't often get to do full publicity campaigns with very many self-published or first-time authors. I've heard from so many of them the past few years that want help and before I had to, just kinda turn these folks away and wish them the best, and I I never liked doing that.

So what we did was we built toolkits DIY PR tool kits that provide authors with email scripts. You know, how do I pitch media? What do I say? We provided lots of email scripts and media training videos, We can custom-build a press kit. We know exactly what needs to be included in a press kit, how much of it, placements, all those things, and media lists, probably the biggest piece of our toolkit is custom-built media lists depending on the market you're in and the topic you've written on, consultations are part of that package.

We have a private Facebook community full of other authors and publicists and publishing professionals where people bounce ideas and questions off of one another. So All those tools we've made available as part of what we call the local PR toolkit, and that is at locallocaltoolkit.com. And that's to help you book local media like we've been talking about through the last 30 minutes. That's the first step. So this kit helps you do that. you know, beyond that, we've also got a publicity starter kit, and that's publicist starterkit.com. That's where you find that. And that's a much smaller package and starter package. And you can check that out and see which one of those, you know, maybe, helpful to you, but I don't know of anybody else that's doing that. I'm really glad we've been able to build this. We just got it off the ground last year. We saw great success for a lot of our authors with it, and they're engaging us on Facebook. It's been great. But I think that's what we do that will be most helpful for your people.

Susan Friedmann [00:26:14]:

I agree. Yes. Cause I know hiring a publicist can be pricey. And you've gotta be able to not only start it but continue it because as you said early on, I mean, it's not something that you just do and then expect miracles. It does take time to build. So being able to do it yourself, giving people the tools that's really invaluable So we'll put those links in the show notes, Jason. And we always end off, asking our guests for a golden nugget.

Jason Jones [00:26:50]:

What would your golden nugget be? What would you like to leave our listeners with? I think this is an easy one, Susan. You and I talked about this. is just to remember you're not selling a book. You're providing the content. You're engaging people. Just be a person. don't be someone else trying to sell me something. Be someone that I can engage with, that I enjoy that I trust, that I like, that I can see in my feed every day, the book sales will come. If you put book sales first and become just somebody else out there pushing a product on me, I will turn you off. You cannot approach this that way. Just be a person, be personable, polite, informative, and fun, and stick with it. This takes time, but it is well worth it. If you just stick with it. Excellent. Well, thank you. This is

Susan Friedmann [00:27:40]:

amazing stuff. Listeners You're gonna have to listen to this a few times because there are some gems that have been wrapped up in this interview that you may not have caught the first time around, but I think you summed it up very nicely too, Jason. So thank you for sharing your wisdom.

And listeners, if your book isn't selling the way you want it or expect it to, let's you and I jump on a quick call together to brainstorm ways to ramp up those sales because you've invested a whole lot of time, money, and energy, and it's time you got the return you were hoping for. go to BrainstormWithSusan.com to schedule your free call. And in the meantime, I hope this powerful interview sparks some ideas you can use to sell more books. Until next week, he's wishing you much book and author marketing success.

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