Julie Schoerke: Book Publicity, Part III, Graduate Degree
Interview with Julie Schoerke.
Part III. Book Publicity Graduate Degree.
JKSCommuncations, founded by Julie Schoerke, is an established freelance literary publicity agency. Julie and agency publicist Marissa DeCuir specialize in providing publicity and promotion for YA/MG books and authors.
The conclusion of my interview. Here Julie responds to my very specific questions about the role and expertise of an outside book publicist in the successful publication of a DEBUT YA/MG novel.
[Randy Russell.] Why would I need a publicist for my first MG/YA novel? Since the publisher will create a base number of sales for the book, and they don’t anticipate a debut author getting much attention (and they didn’t invest a lot in the book) to begin with, wouldn’t I be better off to wait until Book 2 or Book 3 is out to spend resources on publicity and promotion?
JKS: If you blow the doors off the sales numbers for the first book and the publisher has to go back for second and third printings, then you’ve made them money and they’ll want a second and third book. You’ll have their attention and you’ll probably get more of their resources the next time around because you’ve proved you’re a “winner.”
If your first-book sales are weak, those numbers will follow you forever, and will make it harder to sell your next books, even to a different publisher, and your advance will likely decrease if you get a deal. You have ONE CHANCE to be a debut author and receive the attention for that hook. Don’t squander it!
Do you actually read a book you are hired to promote? Does the content of a novel have anything to do with the way you would approach publicity and promotion for the author? Or do all MG/YA authors fit into the same pattern of steps you take to garner publicity?
JKS: 1. I absolutely will not do publicity for a book unless I’ve read it. We’re really fortunate that we get to choose which books we work on since we are able to represent about one out of every five books we are sent.
A few months ago an author contacted us about doing publicity. A number of large publicity firms contacted him because his book was getting some really early buzz from the publisher. He had pretty well decided on an LA firm when he and I got the opportunity to talk by phone. I told him that although he was ready to make a decision, I couldn’t give him a proposal until I’d read his book and knew whether we’d be a good fit for him.
He went back to the other publicity firm and asked if they’d like to read the book (since they hadn’t mentioned it). They told him, no, that they’d read the book when it was in ARC form. I read the book and was blown away by how amazing it is. He went with us because he said we were the only firm that asked to read the book and he wanted someone who cared about his book talking about it.
2. The content of the book has everything to do with how we do promotion! We never do two publicity campaigns the same way…we tailor them to the author and the book. If the author is an intellectual, we go for serious author interviews with the media and it affects who we solicit. If the author is bubbly and connects well to people, we are more likely to find high-profile public events for them to do.
Our authors become like family to us and they often get to know each other even though they are with different publishing houses. Sometimes our authors will have a party in their own town for another JKSCommunications author who is coming in for a book event. Sometimes we all travel together when there is a conference that is especially important for their networking. It’s fun to see our authors exchange ideas and swap stories when they are together.
Do you accept all authors who approach you for publicity and promotional services?
JKS: No. We want to be sure we’re a good fit. If we aren’t, we recommend other firms that we think will be a better fit.
I had an author that had a very specific niche need that another firm I knew could do better promotion for that particular book than we could. I encouraged her to hire the other firm…we had about three conversations and she really wanted to work with us because of our communication style. I finally convinced her that the other firm was going to get her some promotion that her book specifically needed.
We work on about one out of every five books that we are offered. It’s not a matter of not liking a book when we turn it down, it’s a matter of being a good fit. Ultimately that’s important for the book, the author and for us. The media members and bookstore owners get a kick out of how enthusiastic we are about our books because they say they get pitched all day long, but we seem to genuinely love what we bring to them. I represented a cookbook and decided I better make the recipes to be sure it was good. It turns out the people at the publishing house had never tried the recipes! They were great! The authors got booked on television repeatedly because I could talk specifically about the taste, the cost, the ease of the recipes.
We have some good credibility built up with our contacts because we shoot straight about the books we represent.
Do I need to ask my editor or my agent if I can hire you? Will you talk to my agent or my editor about what you’re doing, or is the additional publicity you do just between you and the author?
JKS: This is a great question! Almost always editors, in-house publicists and agents are delighted that an author is committed enough to the book to hire an outside publicist. We work so well as a part of the team. We all want the book to do well and some of the best referrals and recommendations we’ve gotten have come from publishing houses and agents. Only once have we had a publisher that didn’t want an outside publicist involved…the author insisted. And at the end of the campaign, the head of marketing of the publishing house wrote me the nicest note saying that we had changed their opinion of working with outside publicists and that he hoped we worked together more in the future.
I like to get on a conference call at the beginning of the campaign with the author and inside team….find out what they are planning to do and how we can support those efforts. More often than not we’ll throw out some ideas that the inside team agrees to fund for the author that will hold down the costs of the author to promote the book.
Our authors know they have a group of people behind them that are rooting for the success of their book about as much as they are, and it’s reassuring on some of the tough days that authors inevitably have when their books come out.
Do you find out what my publisher is or is not doing to promote my book before you decide where my for-hire publicity efforts should be concentrated? How can I make sure my own efforts at publicity aren’t at cross-purposes with what my publisher is already doing?
JKS: As noted above, we have a conference call at the beginning, the author shares the action plan we’ve presented to them and we all divide up duties. There is more than enough work to go around, so we haven’t run into any turf problems and we are there to support what the publisher is already doing. The more resources the publisher puts into the project, the better and we don’t want authors paying for things that they can have for free from the publisher.
I have a fondness for traditional ink (I am way behind the times, I suppose). But, since my publisher is already sending books or copies of ARCs to reviewers, both in print media and on-line, is there really anything a publicist can do to help my book get reviewed?
JKS: Yes! We often have slightly different lists than the publishers do (publishers are just getting up to speed with on-line reviewers and bloggers with whom we’ve had rather long relationships) and they’ll send out extra ARCs to new ones we present.
The in-house publicists are usually incredibly hard workers and have huge amounts of work because they are launching many books at a time. One in-house publicist told me that she has two weeks tops to work on a title, so she gets the ARCs out, make two or three calls to television and radio producers and then has to move on. That’s not always the case, sometimes they create amazing book tours for authors (that are paid for by the publisher) and have more time to spend.
But we always offer to do the follow-up to the media who has received the ARCs. Although media lists are quite valuable and not shared often by in-house or outside publicists we often have a trust built up in which we sign confidentiality agreements so that we can work their list too. Then too, there are going to be ARC requests that come out after the buzz has started and we often do the work on those media contacts also. We tend to schedule the majority of the radio and television for our clients.
If I asked you who Jason Boog or Carolyn Kellogg is, could you tell me? And could you tell me why I should care?
JKS: Yes! If you aren’t reading Jason Boog or Carolyn Kellogg now, you better get RSS feeds and start paying attention! Jason is the editor of MediaBistro/GalleyCat - one of the best on-line publications for the book business. I start my day by reading GalleyCat. Ron Hogan, who was an editor there for years, and I are speaking together on a panel next month at the Alabama Book Festival about book publicity and we’ll be speaking again at the Decatur Book Festival in the fall. It’s important to understand what an impact Jason and GalleyCat can have on a new author and book’s success.
Carolyn Kellogg is the social networking guru for the LA Times book reviews and writes the Jacket Copy Blog for the venerable media outlet. As you may well know, the LA Book Review print publication has gone the way of so many newspaper publications. You want to grab her attention and you want her to love your book!
We’re all aware of the “faux” review Ya-Ya websites, and of the ones who charge to have our covers posted there, etc. Is there anyway we can tell which on-line sites are worth messing with and which aren’t? Do we simply check the number of “followers” to create an on-line review A List?
JKS: You could make a career of trying to figure that out…and that’s when you go from being an author to a publicist. This is one of the reasons you want to hire your own publicist. You probably don’t want to have to figure this out on your own. It’s a new world and there are good reasons to send ARCs to certain book bloggers who have a small following and there are valid reasons to avoid some huge book blogging sites for certain books.
Thank you, Julie. I could ask a hundred more questions, but I know how busy you are right now. If any of our authors have specific questions for you, would you mind if we contacted you directly? And, uh, while you’re at it, how do you pronounce Schoerke?
JKS: Thank you so much, Randy, for inviting me to The Elevensies. This is a great support service you provide each other and I am honored to be here! I also admire the support you are providing other authors at your blog, Randy. I can’t wait for DEAD RULES to be published. I think you may have a game-changer on your hands and plenty of people will be scrambling to jump on the new dimension your book will be bringing to YA literature.
[ Randy Russell notes: I left this last bit of Julie’s comments in as an example of how a publicist can talk up your book in ways you can’t. ]
JKS: I’d love for authors to contact me with questions. We all have to work together to keep the book business vibrant and help readers find new voices in literature!
I can be reached at julie@jkscommunications.com or julie.schoerke@gmail.com or 646.318.1193 or 615.476.1367. Or visit www.jkscommuincations.com for more information. Follow me on Twitter at @JulieSchoerke and find me on Facebook, Shelfari, GoodReads and JacketFlap.
Schoerke rhymes with “perky” - I used to say it rhymes with “turkey” but my mom said that wasn’t as appealing. J