How I Got Publicity for My Book

A breakdown of how I placed some companion pieces, excerpts, podcasts, and interviews

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If you are trying to promote a book or build a platform for a book, you will likely be pitching your writing or yourself at some point. Before I got a book deal, I was publishing humor and freelance pieces (and I think those published pieces did help me sell the book on proposal).

When my book was coming out, I did a bigger push for publicity pieces in the form of things like companion pieces, excerpts, and interviews. The publicist from my book publisher got some publicity for the book too, but I also did a lot of pitching myself.

Because authors looking to build a platform for a book or promote a book are likely trying to do similar things, I’m going to outline some of what I did here.

Placing companion pieces

A companion piece is just a piece of writing that is submitted around a book’s release to promote a book. I’m discussing things that I did for my book around release, but I think you could also strategically pitch ideas related to a book you hope to sell in order to generate buzz for it/build material for a nonfiction proposal. Also, placing pieces prior to having a book helps you establish relationships with editors that may be helpful down the road.

Types of pieces I placed

I placed a few pieces that were directly related to my book content (introverted parents) in places like Introvert Dear, Pregnant Chicken, and Frazzled. I tried to target markets that made sense for the audience of my book.

During and after my book launch, I was also writing humor pieces and essays for places like The New Yorker, Today’s Parent, Electric Lit, and McSweeney’s that weren’t directly about the book content but as these came out I tried to make sure the book’s name (and ideally a link to it) was mentioned in my bio that accompanied the pieces. Sometimes a chance to mention the book was offered up and sometimes I had to ask for it — so it can be worth it to ask.

Further down the road I also wrote some more “my experience with publishing a book” type pieces—one for Jane Friedman’s site and one for Brevity’s blog. These are often run in writing pubs and can be an option for authors of a variety of different types of books.

How I actually pitched/submitted

The vast majority of these pieces were placed by just writing the piece and submitting it following the submission guidelines on the website. In some cases where I had already written for the pub/had a relationship with the editor, then I submitted directly to them.

Not all my pitches found a home, and I had to submit a few around to more than one place before getting an acceptance on some of these.

What about excerpts?

I also had a few excerpts of my book run. One my publisher placed, one came about because of a relationship I had with an editor at a humor pub, and one came out as a result of my book placing in a category of the Colorado Book Awards.

I honestly think excerpts can be great because they give readers a sense of the book and they don’t require you to write something new. I have also bought books after reading excerpts of them, so I do think they can lead to sales.

How to find publications for companion pieces or excerpts:

• Think about what publications would have audiences that overlap with your book. Not every pub will be a good fit for every book, so considering who is reading and who you want to reach helps. Since my book is a humorous advice book aimed at introverted parents of young kids, I initially tried to focus on pubs that would reach these audiences

• What publicity have authors of other similar books gotten? In researching potential outlets I could submit to, I tried to reverse engineer publicity on other books that were similar to mine by seeing where they were placing companion pieces or excerpts. Reading author websites, social media, or newsletters around the time of a book’s launch can give you ideas of where an author is placing things that you may also be able to pitch.

• Follow pitching newsletters. I subscribe to Study Hall and

  The Freelance Writing Network
  which aggregate calls for submissions from publications. I read these pretty regularly as a freelancer, but if you are looking to place companion pieces, I think they can be helpful as sometimes an editor puts a call out for an idea you are already working on or could write.

Interviews

The other thing I pitched myself for was podcasts and interviews. My publicist got me booked on a bigger parenting podcast (One Bad Mother) but I cold pitched the others I appeared on including some bigger ones like The Minimalist Moms Podcast and Moms Don’t Have Time to Read Books.

Some other podcasts I did were a result of me knowing the podcaster previously and one came about after meeting someone at a conference.

One podcaster also reached out about me appearing after another writer posted about my book on Twitter. I think about this when I see people discussing how useful social media can be. There are no guarantees, but I think social media can help to get your book seen by the right person sometimes.

I also heard a guest on the Publishing Rodeo podcast mention that the value in posting on Twitter used to be that a lot of writers and journalists hung out on Twitter and they may see your book and want to include it in something like a book roundup. I don’t know that this is true of the current state of Twitter/X, but may be true of other social media.

Additionally, I did some written Q&A style interviews for different newsletters and websites. Most of these came about as a result of me having some sort of relationship with the writers or publications. A couple were a result of writers seeing me post about my book in Facebook writing groups I’m in.

So building relationships with writers/finding writing communities can be helpful.

But does this stuff help sell books?

This is the million-dollar question as I know many authors want to know how they should be spending their time on book promotion. As a traditionally published author, it’s hard for me to track everything, and since some of these pieces hit at the same time around launch, it’s hard to tell what led to what in terms of sales. I did see some sales bumps at times, but I don’t have great data on what led to what.

I’ve heard other writers say that big publicity pieces did not sell a lot of books, but I know they sometimes do. But I don’t think you can count on it. I think the point a lot of the time is to make people aware of your book even if it doesn’t lead to an immediate sale.

Some of the pieces I published also led to a bump in newsletter subscriptions or social media follows, which down the road might lead to someone buying a book. I also saw people coming to my website via things like a piece I was quoted in in Self, which may have led to it getting on their radar.

Some part of publicity is about the long game for your writing career, and these publicity opportunities can help with that. If it also helps you get a byline you have been seeking or some extra money, then I think that’s worth taking into account.

I think that is most of it! For more on things I tried for book marketing/publicity and how well they worked, check out this piece from the archives:

Thanks for reading! I’m considering doing another post that is related to some of this. If this is of interest, weigh in on this poll on which you would prefer to see:

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