It comes as no surprise to established authors that they are responsible for a number of the public relations duties involved in promoting their books. For new authors, it is understandably a bit of a shock. You do all the hard work of coming up with the idea, writing, revising, rewriting and finally, dutifully placing a final manuscript on an editor’s desk in a timely manner. And then… your real work begins.
It’s time to set up book signings, send out announcements, start a blog, revamp your website, etc., etc. Yes, your publisher will assign a publicist to help you but her help may be far short of what is needed to successfully get your book into many hands.
The author MJ Rose offers an interesting proposal to ease this dilemma. If a publisher is requiring an author to do, and it follows, pay, for a lot of her own publicity, then why doesn’t the publisher take this into account when giving the author an advance? Shouldn’t an author get more money for these extra duties?
Check out her piece, and some reactions to it in www.publishingperspectives.com.
