Out-of-the-blue Publicity

[Peg Herring]

Yesterday a newspaper reporter called and asked if she could interview me for a feature article. Let me think about thatYES!

Marketing campaigns are tough, competition for print/radio/TV is fierce, and beginning authors aren't big news. So how did I score a feature article? Friendship. You see, a woman in the church choir I direct has a daughter in a slightly larger town who was my friend in school, way back when. The woman bought my book, read it, and then handed it off to her daughter. The daughter passed it on to her husband, who happened to know a reporter in an even larger city and handed it to her. She liked the book and VOILA! I'm in.

Of course you have to work at promoting your book. These days no one will do it for you. But it's great when the promotional opportunity calls you, satisfying to know that it isn't due to your fifteen phone calls that a reporter slides your name into the paper. It will be a little easier today to visit that bookstore that just opened, a little less stressful next week if my book signing doesn't garner dozens of people. Sometimes a book just speaks for itself. And for its author.