Sending review copies of books to bloggers, Part II

Following up on my Sending review copies of books to bloggers post from yesterday, below is some information that book publicists find helpful to have about book bloggers.  We realize that some bloggers prefer to remain off the grid — and bloggers, you are free to provide as much or as little of the following information as you’d like — but for those who would like to cultivate relationships with publishing houses, you should know that the more information publicists have, the more likely we are to engage with you (and, equally as important, to pitch you appropriate books). 

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Name:

Email: *Include this separately in your electronic signature.  Don’t assume it will appear in your message because it doesn’t always.*

Twitter handle:

Blog URL:

Brief (one or two-sentence) site description:

What types (genres) of books are you interested in?

How do you “use” a book — reviews?  Author interviews?  Giveaways?

How frequently do you cover books ?

Best way to pitch you a book — do you prefer to receive email pitches first?  Or would you like to receive unsolicited review copies?

Snail mail address (if you would like to receive unsolicited review copies):

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All publishing houses use media databases, so the key is to get your information in there so you needn’t provide it every time you request a book.  (However, keep in mind that large publishing houses employ hundreds of publicists spread out over dozens of departments.  You may work regularly with one publicist; it doesn’t mean that everyone at the house will be familiar with your work or will be looking at your record at that moment in time.)

Publicists and bloggers — let me know if there’s anything else you’d like to see (or if there is information here you think is unimportant and should not be shared).

Sending review copies of books to bloggers

Yesterday, a publicist in another department here suggested I write a post about requesting review copies of books, but directed specifically at bloggers.  After all, book publicists are wondering: with all the blogs out there, how do we figure out to which bloggers we should be sending (free) review copies of books?  Meanwhile, bloggers are wondering: why don’t we ever hear back from publicists when we request books to review?  A thorny problem, this.

Here are some general tips for requesting review copies:

Media requesting review copies of books / trying to contact authors

Why haven’t I received my review copies yet?

Why haven’t I received my review copies yet? Part II

And here’s some additional information that might be particularly helpful for bloggers.  (Readers — please feel free to comment / ask questions).  I will modify the post to reflect feedback.

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All publishing houses want to get as much publicity for their books as possible.  Traditionally, this has been done by providing free advance copies of books (review copies) to journalists.  However, none of us have an unlimited supply of review copies that we can dole out gratis.  Therefore, we need to be selective about the books we provide bloggers (the very same way we need to be selective about the books we provide print and broadcast journalists).

Among our considerations:

— Publication date: For obvious reasons, the best time to promote a book is when we first publish it and shortly after.  We’re much less generous with review copies once the book has been out for a couple months.

— Type of book: Publishers of certain art and photography books simply can’t afford to send out lots of copies of very heavy, very expensive books very far.  There may be art available from these books, however, so if you’re serious about reviewing this type of book, it’s worth checking to see what materials are available.

— Blog traffic: Depending on the book and the department, a publicist might send out a review copy to any blogger who requests one.  Or, s/he might only provide review copies to bloggers who get a certain number of hits / incoming links.  (Either way, many book publicists do check sites like Alexa and Technorati to get some empirical information about blogs.  Of course, you should feel free to provide us with any additional information about your blog that you’d like us to know.)

— Type of coverage:  As with print outlets, “book coverage” on blogs runs the gamut from a mention to a full-fledged review / author interview.  Again, depending on the book and department, publicists may reserve review copies for bloggers who plan more extensive coverage of a book.  However, while we’re all obviously seeking more ink for our books, most of us also realize that it’s simply not feasible for bloggers to generate that amount of content (not to mention that many bloggers don’t run reviews or interview authors).  At the end of the day, many book publicists appreciate any and all mentions of our books and authors.  We appreciate it even more when bloggers link to either an online bookseller and / or to the author’s website; when linking a book to an online bookseller, please make sure to link to the latest edition of the book which will always be the paperback edition if there is one.

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In related matters, last week Hey Lady posted about the issue of negative reviews, particularly whether bloggers are obligated to positively review books they receive from publishing houses and whether publishing houses can refuse to provide review copies to bloggers on the basis of their reviews.  The answer is that bloggers can write whatever they want … and that book publicists can choose to send books (or not send them) to whomever we please.  It is true that a series of negative reviews could sour a publicist on a blog, although positive yet poorly-written reviews could have pretty much the same effect.  As noted above, there are numerous considerations when sending review copies to bloggers.

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Tomorrow I’ll post a brief  “form” that will give bloggers a sense of what basic information book publicists need to know.  Stay tuned.

Email — can’t live with it, can’t live without it

Last week, The Bad Pitch Blog, recognizing the prevalence of email, posted some rules to consider when sending email.  I don’t agree with all their points — like answering all email messages within an hour — but they do provide some valuable tips such as, “Answer all questions, and pre-empt further questions.”  (In book publicity, for example, a good pitch will answer — and pre-empt — questions like what the author can talk about, where they are located, what their availability is, how they can be reached, etc.)

And on Friday, Phenix & Phenix Literary Publicists, also recognizing the prevalence of email, posted What to do when your email goes down!

NPR Books Watch — 4/17-4/23

Here are the NPR interviews for this week.  Anyone who emails me the imprints of all the books listed (or houses if no imprint is available) will win the NPR Books Grid for the prior week that includes, in addition to the information below, interviewer, pub date, imprint, genre, post-interview Amazon ranking, pre-interview ranking (if the book was mentioned on Shelf Awareness and I was able to look up the number before the interview), and interview hyperlink.

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TOTAL book stories for the week: 27

All Things Considered: 5

Diane Rehm: 4

Fresh Air: 4

Morning Edition: 3

NPR.org: 4

Talk of the Nation: 4

Weekend Edition Saturday: 2

Weekend Edition Sunday: 1

* rebroadcast

All Things Considered	Ruins	Achy	Obejas
All Things Considered	Book Reviews / Columbine	Dave	Cullen
All Things Considered	Don’t Cry	Mary	Gaitskill
All Things Considered	Remembrances / ‘Empire Of The Sun’ Novelist Ballard Dies
All Things Considered	Three Books … / Stone Soup: Three Cookbooks For Lean Times
Diane Rehm	Crash of 2008 and What it Means	George	Soros
Diane Rehm	Different Life, A*	Quinn	Bradlee
Diane Rehm	Readers Review / Elegance of the Hedgehog, The	Muriel	Barbery
Diane Rehm	Pearl in the Storm, A	Tori Murden	McClure
Fresh Air	Empire of the Sun*	J.G.	Ballard
Fresh Air	Shadow Of Sirius, The*	W.S.	Merwin
Fresh Air	Fetish Art of Superman’s Co-creator	Craig	Yoe
Fresh Air	When You Lie About Your Age	Carol	Leifer
Morning Edition	Arabian Knight	Thomas	Lippman
Morning Edition	Columbine	Dave	Cullen
Morning Edition	Not Becoming My Mother	Ruth	Reichl
NPR.org	Books We Like / Pilo Family Circus	Will	Elliott
NPR.org	Books We Like / Don’t Cry	Mary	Gaitskill
NPR.org	Books We Like / Spoiled	Caitlin	Macy
NPR.org	Book Tour / Rag and Bone	Peter	Manseau
Talk of the Nation	Garden of Invention	Jane S.	Smith
Talk of the Nation	Columbine	Dave	Cullen
Talk of the Nation	Getting a Grip	Monica	Seles
Talk of the Nation	Challenge for Africa	Wangari	Maathai
Weekend Edition Saturday	Numbers	Dana	Dane
Weekend Edition Saturday	Closing Time	Joe	Queenan
Weekend Edition Sunday	Humpty Dumpty Was Pushed	Marc	Blatte

Don’t know anyone on Twitter?

Last week a college friend posted a question about Twitter as his Facebook status.  He’d just signed up, he said, and was having trouble finding friends who use Twitter.  Several of his friends — Facebook veterans, obviously — said they’d tried Twitter but “didn’t get it” or couldn’t find anyone.  (Although Oprah, who finally got on the bandwagon and started tweeting, picked up almost 500,000 followers in less than a week.)

Just in time, Wendy Kaufman of NPR’s Morning Edition explored, earlier this week, how businesses are using Twitter as a marketing tool and how individuals use it to keep up with the news in Thumbs To The News: Public Turns To Twitter.  Yesterday, New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd debated — in her typical sardonic fashion — To Tweet or not to Tweet.

The dirty, little secret of Twitter is that it’s really basic: it lacks the bells and whistles of Facebook or LinkedIn, no photos, no audio or video, no groups, just 140-character status updates.  The Twitter website isn’t pretty.  It crashes all the time (displaying the much hated “fail whale”).  Still, it works well enough that fire departments use Twitter — among other tools — to track wildfires, doctors use it to share information and L.A. foodies use it to hunt down mobile taco trucks.  (Not to mention it’s a handy tool for those of us in book publicity, allowing us to follow the news and network with authors and others in the industry.)

Guy Kawasaki, Internet guru and How to Change the World blogger, showed How to Demo Twitter earlier this week, covering why one would want to use Twitter, how to find people to follow and what desktop applications can run Twitter.  (That’s the summarized version; for more, check the Twitter section of his news aggregation site Alltop.)

For more Twitter basics, I’ve posted about how to get started on Twitter and how to figure out the Following / Follower lists.

And for a glossary of Twitter terms, try this recent post from Phenix & Phenix Literary Publicists.

Lastly, for those of you inclined to regurgitate at another mention of Twitter but who understand that one must nevertheless adapt to change, Dave Fleet suggests (non-Twitter) Social Media Baby Steps.

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For those of you in the publishing industry, don’t forget that Jennifer Tribe of Highspot maintains a directory of bookish tweeps.

Morning Brief — Wednesday, April 22

I’m trying not to gripe so much (what can I say — I’m a complainer) so today I’m just linking to a few fun (and informative) posts.

Allan Mott from Bookgasm provides an amusing “analysis” of books vs. Kindles in Paper or Plastic?: The Books vs. Kindle Showdown.

Via Booksquare, Joanna Penn from The Creative Penn introduces us to The Publishing Quadrant: Where do you belong?

And you must check out this priceless photo from Moonrat over at Editorial Ass.

Working with speakers bureaus

Yesterday I had to check in with our speakers bureau to find out about some events scheduled for an author, which reminded me that a reader had written in with a question about speakers bureaus.

I actually don’t know a lot about speakers bureaus — anyone who does should feel free to comment — but I’ll throw out a few preliminary thoughts.  This might seem odd to someone who doesn’t work in publishing since both book publicists and lecture agents schedule author talks, but we don’t work together closely since agents schedule talks for a fee and publicists schedule them for free.  Typically, publicists will set up author events around the time the book is published, while lecture agents set them up at other times.

Some publishing houses like The Penguin Group and HarperCollins have their own speakers bureaus.  (Authors can have multiple lecture agents unless a contract has an exclusivity clause.)  For authors interested in signing with a speakers bureau — or for publicists looking to give advice to authors — my not very specific suggestions would be to get advice from someone who has worked with a lecture agent / speakers bureau and also to simply Google “speakers bureau” for some general information.  (And keep in mind that some literary agents double as lecture agents.)

The advantage of a gig arranged by a speakers bureau is the speaking fee, which is split in some manner (ironed out in the contract) between the speaking agency and the author.  The downside, not suprisingly, is that paid speaking events are harder to come by than free ones.  Also, host organizations are looking for engaging speakers — not necessarily book sales.  Authors who want their books sold at speaking engagements should consider having it spelled out in the contract that the host venue will arrange for books to be sold.  (The publishing house can arrange for books to be sold at talks, but depending on the venue and the size of the audience, arranging for book sales at non-bookstore venues can be dicey — check my What you need to know about off-site book sales post for more information.)  Some organizations will ticket events and the price of the ticket includes a book (or a discount towards the purchase of a book).

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Authors and publicists — Have you worked with lecture agents?  Any advice for someone looking to sign with a speakers bureau?

Talking 2.0

Last week, The Buzz Bin wrote about Five Quick Tips for Enterprise Adoption.  I’m not into the business jargon thing, but I assumed the post didn’t have anything to do with a starship.  Whaddaya know — turns out I was correct.  I’ve lifted a rather hefty chunk of the post because I think there are some very useful and time-saving tips here (always a good way to kick off a Monday):

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From Five Quick Tips for Enterprise Adoption:

1) Communicate using social networks. In reality, social media represents a new form of communication. For example email became an easier way to send a letter or fax.  Encourage employees to communicate with the external world (such as members of the media or sales prospects), not via email, but through social networks like Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook.  This forces them online, and at the same time, simply replaces a task that’s already being done with another tool, and one that’s free…

2) Set up an internal blog or wiki to share links.You know that guy, the one who emails links to everyone?  Well, it’s likely that you have some sort of enterprise software or can set up a free account on WetPaint or Ning that will allow employees to log into a closed network and share links. So set it up, and ask employees to share resources on the internal social wiki, blog or network instead of email everyone.  It will actually increase productivity for those not clicking through, and provide a means of discussion for those who do, and a historical record/bookmark for the link.

3) Use an internal blog for project management. If you  have a far flung team across several offices use a private/internal blog to provide updates on progress and solicit feedback.  Again, this is another activity that’s usually done via email and Word, so you are not requiring new work, just changing the way it is delivered. You can also use a tool like Basecamp for filesharing.

4) Think people are tweeting or Facebooking during work?Some enterprises get in a real tizzy about this.  But maybe instead of policing this, the right approach is to encourage microblogging across the organization with Yammer!Some companies let teams use IM or email to electronically chatter, too.  Again, this is another way to harness that activity and build an enterprise wide conversation.

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And now, think good thoughts for everyone running the Boston Marathon!

NPR Books Watch — 4/10-4/16

 Here are the NPR interviews for this week.  Anyone who emails me the imprints of all the books listed (or houses if no imprint is available) will win the NPR Books Grid for the prior week that includes, in addition to the information below, interviewer, pub date, imprint, genre, post-interview Amazon ranking, pre-interview ranking (if the book was mentioned on Shelf Awareness and I was able to look up the number before the interview), and interview hyperlink. ***

TOTAL book stories for the week: 22

All Things Considered: 3

Diane Rehm: 5

Fresh Air: 3

Morning Edition: 1

NPR.org: 3

Talk of the Nation: 4

Tell Me More: 1

Weekend Edition Saturday: 1

Weekend Edition Sunday: 1

All Things Considered	Beyond Heaving Bosoms	Sarah	Wendell
All Things Considered	Three Books … / Get That Book Deal
All Things Considered	Almost An Evening	Ethan	Coen
All Things Considered	Drunken Driver Has The Right Of Way	Ethan	Coen
Diane Rehm	Little Bit Different, A	Quinn	Bradlee
Diane Rehm	No Right to Remain Silent*	Lucinda	Roy
Diane Rehm	Crazy Love	Leslie Morgan	Steiner
Diane Rehm	Sultana	Alan	Huffman
Diane Rehm	Lucky Child	Thomas	Buergenthal
Fresh Air	Means of Reproduction	Michelle	Goldberg
Fresh Air	Little Bit Wicked, A	Kristin	Chenoweth
Fresh Air	Books We Like / Woman Behind the New Deal	Kirstin	Downey
Morning Edition	Can Poetry Save the Earth?	John	Felstiner
NPR.org	You Must Read This / An Unquiet Mind	Kay	Jamison
NPR.org	Book Tour / It Will Come to Me	Emily Fox	Gordon
NPR.org	Secret Wars	Gordon	Thomas
Talk of the Nation	Flotsametrics	Curtis	Ebbesmeyer
Talk of the Nation	Soul of Medicine	Sherwin	Nuland
Talk of the Nation	City Kid	Nelson	George
Talk of the Nation	Elements of Style, The	E.B.	White
Tell Me More	No Right to Remain Silent	Lucinda	Roy
Weekend Edition Saturday	Tall Man	Chloe	Hooper
Weekend Edition Sunday	Settlement Cook Book	Simon	Kander

Reading between the lines

Those of you who are 24fans will remember that in Monday’s episode (semi-spoiler alert for those of you who have squirreled away the episode on the DVR) the President tells Jack Bauer to “do what [he] feels is right.”  Jack interprets (correctly) that the president is tacitly authorizing him to use any means — legal or illegal — to stop the terrorists.

Fortunately, in book publicity — and book publishing in general — we do not, in fact, need to resort illegal means to sell books.  (Or not yet, at least.)  But the point I’m trying to raise is that it’s worthwhile giving instructions some thought rather than blindly following them.

For example, when a book editor asks an assistant or an intern to “Call the publicist for a copy of Fahrenheit 451,” they may not necessarily mean call.  The publicist.  For a copy of the book.  What they mean, really, is get the book, and quickly more often than not.  (For the record, calling a publicist you don’t know from Adam for a book is an inefficient way to request it because it’s difficult to pass on a message if the call comes to the wrong person — or department, as is often the case — it takes time to write down contact information and there’s no way file, and therefore follow up, on the request.  Not to mention this process is made 10 times more difficult if, like yours truly, your handwriting is illegible.)

I’m not advocating disrespect for direction / instructions.  I myself am a bit of a goody two-shoes when it comes to rules: heaven forbid I recycle a #5 yogurt container when only #1 and #2 bottles and containers are accepted by the sanitation department.  And certainly, some times instructions should be followed to the letter — as in 1040A, for example.  But some times, in some situations, it’s really the end that matters, not so much the means.  For those of us accustomed to — quite literally — reading the lines, some times we need to read between them.