How To Get The Best Publicity For Your Book
Entrepreneur and owner of The PR Freelancer, Lori Ames joins the Published Author Podcast to discuss her work in the marketing and PR world as a book publicist.
Lori tells host Josh Steimle she started her career working as a PR consultant and with big names, including Tina Turner and Dr. Steven Covey. However, Lori realized early on that she enjoyed working with mid-level authors, as they often give her more of a challenge and in turn a more rewarding outcome.
Today, Lori’s perfect client is a consultant, a CEO, an entrepreneur, or anybody in a leadership position who has something actionable that people can do.
TOP TAKEAWAY: CREATE YOUR NETWORK AND CAMPAIGN PLAN BEFORE WRITING
Today, publishers want to publish books for an entrepreneur-author who has a strong network, one that’s already familiar with the author and their ideas. This way, a publisher knows a book will be met with enthusiasm by an author’s network.
To that end, an author needs to begin work on their platform well before the writing begins. Lori suggests building a platform (such as a website or podcast) and growing a network before a book is even published. By attracting a following ahead of time, an author-entrepreneur is in a strong position when their book arrives. And a publicist will be able to utilize this interested following.
Lori says that some of her most successful clients are those who think about what they want to accomplish—both with their book and the publicity campaign. And by success, she means authors who get the most value out of working with a publicist.
“The first thing we do is we have to find out what an author's goals are. It's always part of the introductory conversations,” she says. “You know, what is it that you want to get out of a publicity campaign? What are your goals?”
DEVELOP ADDITIONAL REVENUE STREAMS
In addition to generating revenue from book sales, today’s author has to create additional revenue streams. Explains Lori: “It's different (during the pandemic) because a lot of speaking engagements aren't happening. So that's one revenue stream that that sort of disappeared, at least for the foreseeable future,” she notes.
So authors have to come up with other ideas, such as training programs, consulting, or courses, because: “The book is just one piece of whatever your bigger plan is.”
Finally, Lori encourages authors to: “Have a connection with [their] publicist,” and not look solely at the cost associated with the process. She notes that: “The money may be part of it, but that connection is something that you won’t get with every firm or consultant.”
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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Josh Steimle
Today, our guest is Lori Ames. She's a publicist, a marketing and PR consultant for authors starting in 1979. She worked for various PR agencies large and small in positions, ranging from the entry level to the executive vice president. She's worked for lots of authors including Davor David Halberstam, John Irving, Gail Godwin, Richard Bach, and my favorite Tina Turner. In 2010, she founded the PR freelancer, which specializes in publicity marketing and public relations for nonfiction book authors. Lori, welcome to the show.
Lori Ames
Thanks so much, Josh. It's a pleasure to be here.
Josh Steimle
Pleasure’s all mine. Now, before we get into your professional history, is reading books just your profession, or is it more personal than that? What's your How do you feel about books,
Lori Ames
I love books, I love the smell of books, I love opening books, I love reading books, I was an English major, I was surrounded by books, my mom was an English teacher. So books have always been a natural, surrounding for me, it wasn't what I intended to do. I started college as an education major, less than one semester that hated every second of it. And then I went to Hofstra University, and they have an undergraduate specialization in publishing. And I thought that would be amazing. I'd love to edit the great American novel. So I took as many publishing and English courses as I could got my first job doing editorial, and decided that it killed me to have to change people's words. So I decided I would rather do the promotion of people's work. And I've been doing book publicity ever since.
Josh Steimle
Cool. So in 1979, that's when you graduated, right?
Lori Ames
Yeah.
Josh Steimle
And you went straight to work in the publicity world. Now, were you doing book publicity and author publicity right off? Or was this other PR work?
Lori Ames
It started at a small mass market paperback publisher doing some editorial work, I did that for about a year, then, probably around 1980/81, I did get my first job at a PR agency that specialized in book and art publicity. So I've been doing book publicity for a long time. It's changed tremendously over the decades. But it's still as exciting and exhilarating as ever.
Josh Steimle
So over these years that you've been involved in this industry, I'm sure you've had lots of mentors and people you've worked with what some of the best advice you've received about book publicity.
Lori Ames
That's the advice I've seen. Well, I received really good advice about book publishing in general, from Richard Merrick, who was a publishing icon and one of my professors, a lot of professors came out to my university to teach us specialty courses. So we weren't taught by teachers in publishing, we were taught by people in the publishing industry. And he just always said, you know, the words are always going to be there. Just keep doing it. And I found a niche and publicity, I like taking other people's ideas and presenting them to the media for whatever purpose it used to be more, or print and magazines, we used to send authors on publicity tours so much, even before the pandemic ad moved online. So it's wonderful to know about the new technologies and the new outlets, and the industry is always changing. So it's always exciting and every day is different.
Josh Steimle
Yeah, tell us what was a typical campaign like back in the 80s, and 90s versus today?
Lori Ames
Well, in a publishing company, you would write a press release, you'd write a pitch letter, you would actually physically send out hundreds of books to people with tour dates, where people were going to be, and spend a lot of time on the telephone, talking to producers. Now, fast forward, mostly, everything's done by email. You still send out books, but we don't send out hundreds of books like we used to, we only my agency only sends out books when people ask for them, or unless it's maybe top 10 influencers, then we'll send out a book. Most of the interviews don't involve travel. Everything is done either by telephone or via zoom or other online platforms. There's lots more writing that authors need to do after they write their book, because there are so many websites and blogs that want contributed content, that the writing might stop temporarily when the book ends. But especially for nonfiction authors, you need to write guest blogs and guest articles and all sorts of stuff. So that's a big difference. Back in the 80s, it was more touring and in person. Now, more things are online. It's a little less personal unless you're doing a podcast or a TV interview. So you have to convey your message in the written word.
Josh Steimle
So I know you probably have lots of stories of the authors you've worked with in the past. But I've got to ask, like, what's the Tina Turner story.
Lori Ames
I was working at William Barrow, we published I, Tina: My Live Story And I was the publicist assigned to work with her. I was probably at the upper level of the publicity department at that time. And for somebody famous like that, it's really just becoming a booking calendar or booking agent, you're really not having to pitch very much, but I did get to meet her. We did some TV interviews up in her suite. And I got to sit with her and talk to her. I actually had a biker for one of her interviews. And she was absolutely delightful. She was down to earth. She was pleasant. She was just very, very nice, not what you would expect from a celebrity.
Josh Steimle
So even though she's quote unquote, a diva in the world, but she wasn't a diva by personality.
Lori Ames
She was wonderful. She was really wonderful. I had the opportunity to work with a lot of celebrities. I worked with a lot of athletes. I did a lot of sports book publicity. I worked with Whitey Ford, Dave de Vecchi. I did David Halberstam his book on the 1984 Olympic rowing team. So I had you know, back in the day, it was fun. It was really fun. It's still fun. But I rather take these days, I'd rather take a midlist author and make them famous, then take somebody famous and just be booking interviews into a calendar.
Josh Steimle
Because there's there is a real difference there. Like you said, with Tina Turner, I mean, who's going to turn that down? You could call anybody up and say, do you want to have Tina Turner on your show? And of course, they're going to say yes. So like you said, it's more coordination and logistics. But with somebody who's not so well known, you really have to pitch them and talk them up and in sell them. And so it sounds like work for you.
Lori Ames
It's so much more fun. It really so, is I love taking an author who is using their book as a platform builder. And they're in the business space leadership, marketing, entrepreneurship, innovation, workplace career, and really help them deliver their message to a lot of people. Most authors that I work with are using their books for a purpose other than just selling books, they want speaking engagements, they want more clients. And it's so exciting to watch that. And, you know, roll out, it really, really is, it's much more satisfying for me.
Josh Steimle
You said you work primarily with mid-level authors, and you're working with nonfiction authors tell us a little bit more detail. What's the ideal client look like to you that you look at and you say, "Oh, this is perfect. I could do so much for this client."
Lori Ames
A consultant, a CEO, anybody in a leadership position, who has something actionable that people can do. So leadership books, there's a gazillion of them out there. We all know that. I'd like to work on all of them. Because everybody's coming at it from a different angle. And nothing is cookie cutter. Entrepreneurship books, there's always something new to learn. I learned something new from every single book I work on. If I'm not learning something new, it's So, not the right project for me. I've been doing this for a long time. You can take the same 10 books over and over and just keep promoting and promoting. But it's new ideas, new presentations of the ideas, new voices. It's really fun. It just is. I had the opportunity to work with the late Stephen. Dr. Steven Covey.
Josh Steimle
Oh that's great
Lori Ames
The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. And, you know, I like authors who are passionate about what they're doing and what their message is.
Josh Steimle
That's great. He's my he's one of my idols. I love his stuff.
Lori Ames
He was an absolutely amazing human being.
Josh Steimle
Yeah, he left us all too soon. Yeah. So let's go back a little bit. I'm curious about the transition from working for other people working at other agencies to when you started your own agency. What's the story there? And what was that transition like of going from working in these big established agencies to striking out on your own?
Lori Ames
Well it was totally unintentional. In October 2010, my son was diagnosed with an inoperable malignant brain tumor. There was just nobody knew what the future would bring. There was no way I could go into the city. We live on Long Island, and I was living at the hospital with him. And at the beginning, they really didn't know what type of tumor it was or what was going on. And so I was allowed to bring my iPad into the neuro ICU. And I was just sitting there watching him and watching him. He could talk at some points, other points he couldn't and in between two of his surgery He looked at me and he said, Why are you here because I've always worked. If I was home, something was really wrong. And if he wasn't very sick, I would just always take him with me. So he knew something was really wrong. And I just explained to him that, you know, we didn't quite know what was going on. But he was pretty sick. And I needed to be there. And he said, Well, you need to work. I said, Well, I can't. He says, Well, why don't you start your own business, you could do that. So I jumped on LinkedIn, which I hadn't used very much at all way back then. And I started connecting with everybody I knew with messages that, hey, my son's really sick, I'm not going to be at work for a while, if ever again, I'll let you know what's going on. And it was basically using LinkedIn without having taken your cost course all those years ago, where I established a network that supported me when I started my own business.
Josh Steimle
That's great. So what were some of the challenges of starting your own business and doing all this on your own, when previously, you had all the support of this whole business behind you?
Lori Ames
Well, I was at a smaller agency for a really long time. So I knew the ins and outs of running a business, I had helped run the business, I understood fee structure and collecting money and such. I just wasn't quite sure how I was going to get business. And it was through that, connecting on LinkedIn where people said, okay, let us know, what happens, let us know if there's anything we can do to help. Then once we had a full diagnosis, and Rob had been through his surgeries, and we knew we were on a better road and a better path, I contacted everybody and said, Hey, you know, we're doing okay, I'm going to start my own business. I'll let you know more. And people just started reaching out and saying, Okay, well, I have this book, you know, you've worked with me before we know you, you have a good reputation, you're always honest. So we want to be your client. And it just sort of happened. I didn't have a business plan. I didn't quite know what I was going to do. And I, I figured it out as I went along. I started by working from the hospital, then I worked from the house. And now I have an office in a full team spread because of the pandemic around the country.
Josh Steimle
That was my next question. How's he doing?
Lori Ames
He's doing super well, October 21, was 10 years from diagnosis. And he's doing great. He was diagnosed three weeks after his 22nd birthday. And now he's 32. He works here full time. And then we have two other full-time employees as well plus a couple of freelancers who work for us.
Josh Steimle
That's wonderful. What does he do for the business?
Lori Ames
He, well, he keeps me organized, he does a lot of the emailing, I set up the emails in an email account where he can copy and paste it. And I use a very old-fashioned method of printing things out so I can highlight names. And he does a lot of the emailing. You can't do it from screen to screen all the time. But he can he can do it from paper. And he schedules some interviews. There are a lot of producers out there who know him and they know his story. So they're very happy to work with him. And he is also in charge of letting me know if we're running out of anything. He does all our mailings. You make sure we're eating. And he has he likes to work early he is in the office even before me he comes to the office sets up the coffee comes back and picks me up for only a half mile away. And his prime work hours are from 6:30 a.m. till about one and then he takes a rest.
Josh Steimle
How many clients do you work with at a time there with your agency?
Lori Ames
Let's say about 10 at a time. I was looking over to see the current projects, every project is at a different stage. So we can be working on 10 to 15 projects. But some are starting some are ending some are in the middle. A lot of publishers this year, push their books to the fall, because they don't want to publish in the spring because nobody knew what was going to happen. So we have a little bit of a heavy September, but everything is good. And we're busy. And it really depends if I have a project that's paying more money, I can always add team members. I have a lot of people who've worked here before who'd like to, you know, have moved on to other things, but they're available for projects if I need them. And I have two full time people in addition to myself and my son so we get a lot of work done.
Josh Steimle
How long does a client engagement typically last when we're not having a global pandemic?
Lori Ames
No matter what I like projects to be four months, gives us sort of six weeks before pub date and then running till the end of pub date for a launch campaign. I prefer to do four months and then There's always the hope that there's a continuation or a continuing retainer. So, and we have a lot of that.
Josh Steimle
So during those four months, do you have a fairly structured program that you take people through? Or is it completely different for everybody?
Lori Ames
The targets might be different. But the program's very similar. It really depends on when they've come to us, we have authors who come to us months and months and months before a book is published, then we have authors who come to us, the month the book is published, because they haven't planned ahead. So it depends, but it's, the skeletal structure is usually the same. We have to read the book, we write a press release, we create our targets. And we go out and we do it in rounds. So podcasts, print, radio, podcast, print, radio, sometimes there's TV included. Sometimes, when in non-pandemic times, we'll present authors to different conferences where they might be able to get some speaking engagements. Some authors want some help with websites, some authors want help with social media management, anything that an author could possibly need, we have a way to help them with that. Lately, we've also been hearing from a lot of authors who have written their books and don't know what to do next. So I try and do a little bit of coaching and a little bit of advising. We're not a literary agency. But for former clients, and some very, very select people will present a book proposal to a couple of agents, we know a lot of self-publishing, folks. Gee, we happen to know this guy who runs a publishing mastermind whenever that could be. So we have a lot of resources and ways to send people and help them. There's really not much about publishing that I don't know. But if I don't know it, I know somebody who will. And I'm always happy to refer people.
Josh Steimle
Gotcha. And when you say they've written a book, you mean they've sat down at word or in Google Docs, and they've typed out the book, but now they have this manuscript, and they're like, well, now what do I do? Where do I go from here?
Lori Ames
Exactly. Many of them need an editor. So we'll hook them up with, you know, I have a whole group of people that I refer out to I don't do referral fees, I just say, hey, these are the three people I recommend, or this is the person I think you should reach out to. And that's how we do it. And sometimes they just need to know what template to use for a book proposal, if they are going to try and get a literary agent. Most authors these days, I think, really just want to self-publish, because they maintain more control. But the biggest thing to remember is it still needs to be edited. It needs to be packaged and needs to be good jacket design. You have to know who your audience is, how to write, jacket copy, getting some endorsements, there's So, 1000 little pieces that people don't realize, once they've actually typed up those pages.
Josh Steimle
So can you walk us through one of your client engagements, or what a typical client engagement looks like? Kind of from beginning to end? How you start out how you kick things off? What do you do at the different stages? And what would an author need to know or be prepared for to engage somebody like you?
Lori Ames
Well, it depends when they come to us if they've come to us. And their book has a publication date, either through Green Leaf or a Morgan James or, or an Amazon publishing or from any traditional publisher, McGraw Hill, or Wiley. We have a pub date. So the key is, for me is when is the book available for pre-order on Amazon. You don't really want to do too much before then, because people have very short attention spans. So a lot of times books are available for pre order two months in advance. So as long as people can click a button and know that they've ordered it, you're not losing a sale. So the first thing we do is we have to find out what an author's goals are. It's always part of the introductory conversations. You know, what is it that you want to get out of a publicity campaign? What are your goals? And of course, what is your budget? Those are questions that are asked right up front. I write a proposal, they say yay or nay, perfect. If we're moving forward, I have an early copy of the book, hopefully an edited PDF. I give that to my press release writer who works on writing a press release, it takes about seven to 10 days to turn that around. We have a style we like for our press releases. We're working mostly with the business press. So we know what works for them, goes through the approval process, the client always gets to approve. And then we start pitching that we take the press release and we put it into an email format and we send it out to people that we're pretty sure are going to want coverage and to the outlets where we think that they are going to ask for guest peace and it's a repetitive process throughout the campaign. We don't send to everybody all at one time, because we can't process it and an author can't write it. So we space it out. That's why four months is a good time, because if somebody has to write an article a week or an article every other week, that's better than going to them with, hey, these 10 places want articles. Why don't you write once a week, it's too overwhelming. So we try to space it out. And during the course of the campaign, some things work some things, don't we, we send updates to our clients written updates every other week. And we try and have calls on the alternating weeks because you never know if there are new ideas, I always want to know what's going on in a client's business? Are they doing any speaking engagements? Have they come across anything else that they'd like to talk about that we can add to our pitch material? And then we schedule the podcast interviews, we do everything and send them you know, are you available? Yes. Okay. And then we try and give them a little briefing document. Let them know what they're going to be talking about, on follow up to make sure it runs help them, you know, gather all the links and clips and such.
Josh Steimle
When you engage with a client, you go through this process, of course, nothing's 100% guaranteed in the client can impact this process, your actions impact the process, obviously, circumstances like pandemics or natural disasters or other stuff in the news, there are all sorts of things out there. What have been some of the challenges you faced with campaigns in the past? And then how did you work around that whether it was a difficult client or difficult circumstances?
Lori Ames
Well, it's kind of interesting. So we've been through, gosh, Hurricane Sandy, which took down all our stuff for weeks on end here, made it a little difficult to communicate with people, we have the pandemic, you find workarounds to things. Difficult clients have So, a different meaning here. For me, a difficult client would be a client that doesn't do what we've asked them to do doesn't write the article doesn't see the importance of something. So I try to take on clients who are open to lots of different things, I won't take on a client that only wants to be in Harvard Business Review, fortune, Forbes, or the New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. It's not a realistic project for us. And it's too limited a scope on what we're able to achieve. A well-balanced campaign is a little bit of everything. And it's how you use it. I've had clients get tons of coverage and complain nothing happened. Well, nothing happened because they didn't put the clips on the website. They didn't share it on social media, they didn't have social media. Nowadays, that stuff makes a difference. I recently took on a project where the client was not clear about goals. And we got some really nice stuff, everybody got along. But we had different working methods, you did not have social media, and we actually stopped the campaign after a month, it was a mutual agreement. So I've learned to be much more specific about goals, client goals, because then you can manage expectations. Sometimes clients don't know what their goals are. So you have to ask a lot of questions. Asking questions is key to discovering information.
Josh Steimle
How do you identify a client that you know is not going to be the right fit? Or I mean, they might be an entrepreneur, they're established, they've got their book, like everything's the right fit, but what are some of the other things that stand out are red flags that let you know, you know what, this probably isn't the right fit for us not for our agency?
Lori Ames
Um, interesting question. Let's say, somebody who says, Well, for my last four books, I did these 40 things, and they didn't do anything for me. So I don't want to do those. Again, I want to do something different. That's a red flag right away. Because maybe the interviews weren't that good. It's not always the publicity person's fault. When I worked in house, we always said if a book goes to success, sales gets the credit. And if a book has a failure, somehow it's always publicity is fault. It's never the other way around. So you know, it has to be somebody who really knows what they want. It's the wish the author who's not sure why they wrote the book. Why did you write your book? Should be a simple question. But people, you know, sort of like why do you want this job? It's too generic. So that's why I always say you've written this book. What are your goals? What do you want to come out of it? And then it's easier when I haven't clarified the goals. Then we have those issues where things don't always work out. Clients who have jobs and have things to do during the day, are usually better clients than clients who are retired with no, nothing to do during the day, but call. So I like the client to be somebody. I don't mind. I love legacy memoirs are so much fun to work on, by, like retired CEOs and such if they're still involved in a non-profit, or charitable organization, or they're still doing some kind of consulting. If they're just sitting home, waiting for something to happen with the book, that can be totally, totally a bad sign for me, because I can't fill your day up 12 hours a day. So I prefer working, active authors who are fitting this in to everything else they're doing, because it's a stepping stone to something else.
Josh Steimle
Mm hmm. And just as we said, there's no guarantees in this business? Or can you share some of the results that you've gotten for clients, whether they were extraordinary or fun or interesting? What can you tell us about some of the more interesting campaigns that you've worked on?
Lori Ames
Um, I'm not prepared for that question, because I was thinking future not past. So that's sneaky. Well, we're work, I can tell you about some of the ideas of the things that we're doing right now we're working on a project on philanthropy. We're working on a project of philanthropy and a project on non-profits from two different sides, one from the donor side, and one from the non-profit side. And it's on building the non-profit and one from the person who gives the money. So it's kind of interesting, just the position to see what's been going on. And the interviews are fun. We've set up a lot of podcasts. But what we've done that's interesting there is there are universities all over the world that have non-profit management programs. So I put my team on researching all these programs. And we've been able to reach out to professors, and deans and we're starting to get some nice response, asking for these books that they might want to recommend to their students. So, to me, that's kind of fun, because it's a non-traditional part of a typical publicity campaign, because it's not TV, radio, print, or are online. We have, you know, we're working with one author who's a little bit of a computer Luddite, and, but he likes to record videos. So in that case, we're helping with a YouTube channel and linking stuff to his website. And just, you know, making him really happy. We get coverage all over the place in Forbes, Inc. You know, all kinds of online publications. It's exciting when it's a new and bigger podcast. We don't usually get people on podcasts like Joe Rogan, and stuff like that. And we'd like to we have a couple of people who are kind of cool. But we plug away at it, we try and become connected with the producers and we follow what people are covering. There's a very cool TV station out of New York, that airs on Facebook called bold TV, we've had a couple of people on there, we worked with Chris Duffey, who wrote a book called Superhuman Innovation. And he wrote the book with an AI agent. So it's him writing and the AI agent rating and, and stuff. And he that was kind of fun. He came in it was at a conference and flew in and used his by Xen and went right over to the studio and did that. So there's all different types of things we do. And to me, they're all fun. I'm just I have just as much fun. Having a top Amazon reviewer, give a book a five-star review as I do on getting somebody on a national TV. For me, it's five-star the same. It's doing what it's supposed to do. And no, there are no guarantees. But you know, if a campaign is not going well, I might just say to somebody, hey, let's totally switch up our approach. And let's just add a month or something at the end to see if we can figure it all out. But sometimes the media just is non-responsive. We're working on this wonderful book called Taking Flight. It's about helping students, diverse learners. With college, he set up something called Mansfield Hall. It's an offsite campus, it's offsite living for students with autism and ADHD. And other diverse learners, so that they can still go to college. But they have their support network at like a Mansfield Hall, which is like a private dorm, let's say. And we were just starting to get interest, National Public Radio did this huge interview with them. But what happens we have a pandemic, nobody's going to school. So they pulled the interview, we're hoping they'll still do it. But that's one of the disappointments you can't control the news cycle.
Josh Steimle
So one of the questions that, of course, people are going to be asking when they listen to this is how much does all this cost. And I'm guessing it's different depending on the level of service that you're providing.
Lori Ames
I have a, I have a range that I offer everybody, depending on done what they need. I don't want to give numbers here because every agency is different. So there are agencies in the city that charge five times what I cost, there are people who can't charge 50% of what I done charge. So part of hiring an agency is not only the money, I mean, money is part of it. But you have to have a connection with your publicist. My advice is to interview three firms, not 12, I had somebody do that. I was like, if somebody is interviewing 12 agencies, I bow out, it's just too much noise, there's no way to make a choice. I advise three, because it's usually a good mix and see who you connect with. And if you're going with a bigger agency, one of the things is, is the person who's selling you, the person who's going to be involved in the campaign the whole way? Or is it going to get pushed down to somebody so Junior that you don't feel like you're So, getting what you should be getting? And in non book publicity agencies, that's always the bigger brands get the higher account executives and the smaller brands get pushed down. I mean, authors don't have limit limitless funds. So they have to decide upfront, do you have $1,000? a month, 20 $500? a month, $500 a month, $10,000 a month? The range can be that that different per month? So you have to decide what you're getting for that? And are you really getting it? And who you're going to be working with? And who's everybody on the team? And do you get along with everybody on the team? So I try to introduce everybody, because I'm a small shop, you're going to work with all of us. I'm involved in every single campaign, though, if I'm selling you, I'm going to know what's going on in your campaign every step of the way. You don't get pushed down, there's no where to push you. So there are benefits to smaller agencies. And then there are benefits to bigger agencies.
Josh Steimle
Some of the most
Sorry, go ahead.
Lori Ames
Oh, there was there was one author, we were working with who we were work doing work with the So, publisher, the publisher, and he wanted to meet us in person. I'm in suburbia on Long Island, I am not on Fifth Avenue. And this was a Fifth Avenue, dude, he wanted somebody in the city. So he actually hired another agency, and I just did a different project for the publisher. So it's you have to know who you are. And you have to know what you want. I'm not putting on high heels and airs and moving my office to the city. Just because that's that looks better. We do all kinds of international work right here. From my office on Long Island. I have a business partner in India, we get coverage all across the world. I have clients from California, to Moscow to Melbourne. So, you know, you have to you have to go with your gut sometimes.
Josh Steimle
Have you noticed a difference working with authors on projects that are self-published versus going through a traditional publisher?
Lori Ames
If a self-published book has been edited, well, and as well-packaged, most of the time, there's no difference. There's very little coverage you can get with one and not the other. It's really what the platform is, and what credentials the author brings to the table. So, you know, if somebody is writing a book about, let's say, and I don't work on these kinds of books, but let's say somebody is writing a book about divorce, if it's a woe is Me, I'm divorced, here's my story book. That doesn't work for me, it would have to be, you know, a credentialed book by a psychologist or a psychiatrist or someone, I only work with people who have that kind of a platform. If you're coming to me with a memoir, then the memoir has to have lessons. I just was advising a small author group. And I said, that's great to do a memoir. Memoirs are the toughest category to sell. What lessons are you offering, are you going to have lessons at the end of each chapter? Somebody's going to learn something that that helps them not make the same mistake. So you have to also see what your book is offering. And sometimes in the self-published books, you lose that because they don't have a professional editor working with them every step of the way. But you want your audience to be getting something from the book, it's not, if you just want to tell your story and your writing what I call legacy book where you're writing it for your family, then you can publish it any way you want. But you don't need publicity. If you want to be imparting information or sharing a story that's going to help somebody do better, do something different, grow - then you have to make that clear. And that's sometimes where the self-publishing and traditional publishing falls apart a little bit, unless they've worked with a private editor. And there are some really excellent editors out there who do work with self-published authors.
Josh Steimle
You know, it is so hard for authors though, because they, you know, they hear that you saying this about memoirs and how tough it is to sell them. But then they see a memoir, like Educated by Tara Westover or something, and here's a unknown author, publishes this book goes on to be wildly successful. And then everybody says, "Well, I've been through hard things, too. I should write my story. Maybe that would be helpful. Maybe I will become a bestselling author just like Tara Westover". But do you have any insight into what the difference is between the million people who say that, and then the one person who actually becomes the next Tara Westover, or whoever it is, who's a bestselling memoirist?
Lori Ames
We ever been to a casino? Sometimes you hit. And sometimes you don't. I don't have any kind of I could take out a magic wand and wave it. But there's no way to guess. There are times where I think a book is going to do super super well, I just do and it doesn't. And then a book that I don't expect to do well, will. It depends on what the public needs at that moment. So you could have the most fabulous story in the world. And it might not sell right away. But that doesn't mean it'll never sell. Books live forever. You have to remember back in the '80s books had a shelf life. Your book was published, you had six weeks, if it wasn't moving the bookstores were gonna return it. Amazon really changed the playing field for that. Amazon, Barnesandnoble.com. Any of these online booksellers not to take anything away from the independence. I love my independent booksellers totally, but they have limited space, and they can't keep a book forever. But your book lives forever on Amazon. I've worked on books for four years, I've worked on books a year or two after they've been published. It just depends what the market is ready for at that time.
Josh Steimle
Have you noticed any trends with the pandemic going on? I mean, we're recording this in October, almost November of 2020. And so we've had this pandemic around for several months now. Have you noticed? Are there any books that are selling better than they might otherwise sell during the pandemic? Are there other books that normally would sell better, but they're selling worse during the pandemic? Or?
Lori Ames
I'm not aware of that I haven't been following it. But I know that books that are being bought, when I see books listed, I subscribe to Publishers Marketplace, which has Publishers Lunch. So you see who's buying what when, of course, you have a lot of books that were purchased having to do with COVID. You have a lot of books that were purchased. You know what we did right? What we did wrong, you have now have a lot of books, publishers are trying to be much more inclusive. So you're seeing a more variety of authors whose books are being chosen for purchase and publication. So I don't know about the selling part because I'm just so sort of focused on what I'm doing and just worrying about how my books are doing in particular, but I see that there's going to be probably in six to eight months, a ton of books, obviously about COVID How is handled politically way politically, scientifically. What will work what we've learned, you're going to see a lot of business authors talking about leading post pandemic, you're going to see a lot of future of work. Now, there have always been future work categories. One of my clients has been a future of work consult for the longest time, and I had him write a piece called the future of work is now for CEO World. And I shared it on my LinkedIn. And it's probably one of the pieces that had the most conversation. Go on about it. And I very rarely will share articles from my clients on LinkedIn, I try to keep it that for other platforms. So I think you'll see a little shift in in that the future of work, because now there's so many remote workers who's going back who's not what's going to happen to the real commercial real estate industry. So there are just newer topics coming? I don't know, I haven't looked at the bestseller list in a couple of weeks, we've just been inundated with other things. So I don't know a better answer than that.
Josh Steimle
That's great. That's interesting. So as we wrap things up here, what are some of the top lessons you have for especially first-time authors who are thinking about publicity. For example, Seth Godin says you should start preparing your marketing plan, three years in advance of publishing your book. Now, of course, most of us, we don't even know we're going to write the book three years ahead of time. So it's hard to do that kind of planning. But let's say there's an entrepreneur out there. And they're thinking, "Yeah, I'm ready to write a book, you know, maybe it'll take me the next six to 12 months or something to get it done." What advice would you be giving them right now, so that when it comes time to actually launch that book, they're ready for it?
Lori Ames
Build your social media platforms, connect with people start sharing some ideas that you think you might write about. Maybe write some guest pieces, there are plenty of blogs that are always looking for guest content, start building your platform now. I know writing the book takes up so much time. But if you see a good topic that you can write maybe 400 to 600 words on, write it, submit it to a blog, see if they'll see if they'll run it. But really building your network. What's interesting about book publishers now is if you look at the template for a nonfiction book proposal, one of the first questions is "What's your competition? How are you going to market the book? How many books do you think you're going to sell?". Then they asked for the content. So whereas 20 years ago, it was more about the content of the book. Now it's more about how you're going to sell the book and how you're going to use it. And it's different now because a lot of speaking engagements aren't happening. So that's one revenue stream that that sort of disappeared, at least for the foreseeable future. So you have to come up with other So, ideas, what are you going to offer? Are you going to have a training program? Are you going to do a course? The book is just one piece of whatever your bigger plan is, and it's something to think about. But definitely expanding your LinkedIn connections, Facebook, Twitter, whatever it is that you're using. Let more people know who you are. And add a tagline that says writing a book about, you know, how to build your small business, how to do this, how to do that. Put it out there and start using the terms. And you'll actually see responses when people say, hey, that's a great idea, then you know, you're on the right track. If the response is no more lukewarm, you have to think about maybe changing your positioning or changing how you're presenting your idea to see what clicks
Josh Steimle
You're speaking my language here. I love it. So is there any question that I you wish I would have asked, but I haven't asked yet about publicity, marketing, PR for authors.
Lori Ames
I think you've pretty much covered it. There's your so there's so much out there. I mean, if anybody who's listening to this has a question, please send them to me. I love brainstorming with authors. I love talking to them. There's no fee to talk to me.
Josh Steimle
Which brings up the last question, what is the best way for people to find you?
Lori Ames
Send me an email at Lori@theprfreelancer.com that's lori@theprfreelancer.com and that's also my website, thePRfreelancer.com You can see some of the titles, we're working on some of the coverage we've been able to secure for our clients. I really do like brainstorming with authors. Sometimes an author will say to me, oh, you spent so much time with me. You know, what are you? What? You know, is there a charge? I feel like I should pay you. And then I'll usually say, just make a donation either to the children's Brain Tumor Foundation or the Michael Backrow Foundation in honor of my son.
Josh Steimle
Well, thank you so much for spending this time with us today. Lori, appreciate your insights into the world of publicity for authors. I know this will be valuable for a lot of authors to listen to.
Lori Ames
Well, thanks for having me, Josh. You know, I'm a Josh fan.
Josh Steimle
Thank you so much, Lori. I'm also a Lori fan. Thank you so much. Have a great day.
