Why do authors write books? For most, their primary reason is clear: They want to build their personal brand — a smart first-line strategy, particularly now when the average nonfiction book sells less than 250 copies a year.
Today, book publicity — a must-have marketing tool in the new, overcrowded publishing world — does more than promote books. It is purposely designed to build brands.
Consider these key reasons, all proven brand builders, why.
Book publicity builds awareness.
Brands inarguably start with awareness. If people don’t know about you, they have nothing to discover, gain, or act on.
Book publicity, above all, generates awareness. Through a critical mass of media interviews — across print, broadcast, digital, and online outlets — and numerous guest articles and blog posts, book publicity creates a next-level visibility that builds, and subsequently grows and sustains, an author’s brand.
Book publicity builds credibility.
Brands need credibility like plants need water and sunlight. They can’t grow without it. In this post-truth era, people are especially wary about the unknown or untested.
They ask, How can I buy into a person or company, a product or service, with little to no reputation?
Book publicity may be less controllable and take more time to work than advertising, direct marketing, or other paid promotion, but it has far greater credibility. In trusted media environments, it makes an author’s unknown brand, a better known and more reputable being or entity.
Book publicity builds buzz.
Yes, brands must begin with awareness and credibility. This becomes meaningless, however, unless people are continually talking, writing, posting, and sharing about them. In other words, brands, like busy bees, thrive on buzz — something marketers might describe as energy, momentum, or traction.
Book publicity, to be sure, builds buzz for an author’s brand. This more often starts with media placements. But then, and most notably these days, it rapidly propels social networking — a now-essential marketing strategy whereby brands can tell their stories; launch new products and services; promote special events; increase, often exponentially, their followers; and help an idea or image to go viral. No matter which social sites and apps an author uses — Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Snapchat, LinkedIn, and rising newcomers — book publicity is a powerful vehicle and leverage point.
Book publicity builds speaking engagements.
When authors give keynotes, do readings and lectures, and teach seminars or workshops, they create a high-value cycle of PR that builds awareness, credibility, and buzz, and inevitably boosts their brand.
A well-publicized book, in particular, is widely known to give authors better standing with speakers’ bureaus and other agents or groups with an “in” at important speaking venues. Such venues may represent local, regional, or national opportunities, and include a whole host of entities — corporations, small businesses, entrepreneurial enterprises, associations, think tanks, institutes, nonprofits, and retreat centers. And, by virtue of it increasing visibility and credibility, book publicity also helps an author command higher speaking and training fees — one more way to elevate his or her brand.
Amazon head and billionaire investor-entrepreneur Jeff Bezos once said, “Your brand is what other people say about your when you’re not in the room.” If you’re an author seeking to build your personal brand, why not let book publicity, alongside a successful book publicist, help start the conversation?