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Publicity vs. MarketingNovember 14, 2008 About once a month, publicists arrange to meet with me and pitch their books for PW reviews. I happened to have two of those meetings this week. At one meeting, the publicists handed me their press packet, which had one elaborately laid-out page per forthcoming book, and then gave me spoken summaries of each book's plot (which were quite similar to the summaries in the packet). At the other meeting, the publicists handed me a list printed on two sheets of paper, black text on white, one paragraph per book, with consistent formatting for title, author, and pub date. They were sorted and clearly separated by month. Rather than talking about each book's content, the publicists explained why the books might rate review attention: a big author, a debut, the third in a series that's selling well but didn't get PW reviews for the first two books.The main value of the first approach is that it's extremely visual and information-dense. Each page in the packet is much like the book résumé that I recommend sending with review copies: it has a big color image of the jacket art, blurbs, author bio, everything that might appeal to a reader. The main value of the second approach is that it's efficient. I have a handy reference in compact form, cues as to how to prioritize the books (very important given that I can only review about a quarter of the mass market titles I receive), everything that might appeal to a reviews editor. In other words, the first is marketing and the second is publicity. If you're in the position of promoting books, keep these distinctions in mind. As an editor, I don't much care about the wry twist or funny gimmick; I care about which of these books most warrants review attention. On the other hand, my reviewers would probably value that elaborate info sheet, especially if the review copy has a plain jacket rather than the finalized art. I do have one other reason to prefer the publicity approach: it's so much faster! We went over that list in maybe five minutes, tops. With the marketing approach, I was left fidgeting while the publicists read to me off of press materials that I could have read to myself much more quickly. The more efficient you are with the nitty-gritty, the more time you have for the more interesting side of the conversation. If you're taking the time for meetings, and if you're asking other people to take the time for meetings, put that time to good use providing information that can't be found on paper or online. (For more on this, see Edward Tufte's famous PowerPoint essay and other discussions of how to give good presentations. They all hold just as true, or more so, for more intimate meetings.) Marketing materials aren't going to tell me things like "We discovered this author through her work writing erotic e-books" or "We're giving this dog show mystery a really big marketing push because it's coming out right around the major dog show of the year". That's the information I want to get from a chatty face-to-face meeting. If all the information is in your press packet or catalog, just mail it to me and save us both the trouble of finding time to get together. Posted by Rose Fox on November 14, 2008 | Comments (13)
November 15, 2008
In response to: Publicity vs. Marketing Kaolin Fire (GUD Magazine) commented: Thanks for the scoop :D
November 16, 2008
In response to: Publicity vs. Marketing R.W. Ridley commented: Outstanding explanation! I talk marketing everyday in my job. I've never read a better distinction between marketing and publicity.
November 17, 2008
In response to: Publicity vs. Marketing Nettie Hartsock commented: Superb insight!
November 17, 2008
In response to: Publicity vs. Marketing Rose Fox commented: Thanks! The distinction between marketing and publicity eluded me for a long time, so I was very glad to have such clear examples of the difference.
November 17, 2008
In response to: Publicity vs. Marketing JILL MAXICK commented: Funny--I used to worry about the fact that I rarely talked in-depth about plot (with Pyr titles) or content (with Prometheus) in my in-person presentations, and mostly focused on notable marketing points such as sales feedback, author activity, important endorsements, interesting tie-ins, etc. Thanks for making feel more comfortable with my approach, Rose! You're right--we should not just be reading from our catalogs, a trap I do fall into as well. Good post.
November 17, 2008
In response to: Publicity vs. Marketing Marcia Z Nelson commented: Rose: Thanks for tips on how to run my own meetings more efficiently.
November 17, 2008
In response to: Publicity vs. Marketing Renee (Ijustfinished.com) commented: Thanks for explaining the difference so clearly. Some days they seem to get muddled, it is a good way to keep it straight for others, and in my own mind. Very useful!
November 17, 2008
In response to: Publicity vs. Marketing Rob Preston commented: Very interesting, thanks!
November 18, 2008
In response to: Publicity vs. Marketing Shirley A. Roe, author commented: Excellent advise. As the Managing Editor of Allbooks Review I understand exactly what you are trying to convey Just keep it simple ! Thank you for setting authors straight.
November 18, 2008
In response to: Publicity vs. Marketing Franke James at frankejames.com) commented: Excellent explanation as to why one book would get reviewed and another miss out. Dang, it's the publicists who hold the magic elixir not the marketer!
November 18, 2008
In response to: Publicity vs. Marketing Elge Premeau, www.eMarketingStrategist.c commented: This post is an awesome example of why/how you need to tweak your content to the audience regardless of your industry.
November 23, 2008
In response to: Publicity vs. Marketing Heather Massey commented: Neato post--thanks!
January 21, 2009
In response to: Publicity vs. Marketing John Francini commented: Interesting comments about publishers' info packets, artwork, etc. My wife does mystery reviews for Mystery Scene magazine, and takes a very straightforward approach: she ignores everything but the words written by the author her/himself. Doesn't read the marketing (or publicity) blurbs, doesn't look at the pictures, doesn't read any capsule reviews of previous works. "Just the story, Ma'am" is probably a good summary of this approach.
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