Run outreach and events
Establish who sends each type of outreach
Before any pitch goes out, agree in writing which contacts the publisher, the publicist, and you will each handle, so nobody is pitched twice and nobody is missed.
Why it matters
Duplicate pitches burn contacts, and gaps waste the campaign. A written division takes fifteen minutes and prevents both. It also tells the author what is theirs to do, which is the honest answer to the question every author asks about how much the publisher is doing.
Your part
- What you do
- Ask. Someone else normally owns it. Get an answer, then record it.
- Who normally owns it
- Author and Publisher and Publicist. All three agree; author holds the document
- When
- Before outreach starts, usually 3 to 4 months before publication (Run outreach and events: three months before publication through the first months after)
Your part changes with your publishing route.
How to do it
The full walkthrough
When more than one person is doing outreach for a book, the first question is who covers whom. A journalist who receives the same pitch from the publisher's publicist on Monday and the author on Tuesday concludes that nobody is in charge. A bookseller who receives nothing because each party assumed the other would write concludes the same thing.
The fix is a short division of labor, agreed before outreach starts: the publisher's publicist takes trade media, national outlets, and review publications; a hired publicist, if any, takes the lists in their contract; the author takes local media, personal contacts, specialist and community outlets, and anything that arises after the campaign ends. Write it down, share it, and update it when someone adds a contact.
Traditionally published authors should raise this with the publicist early, and should expect the publicist to want to hold the trade and national contacts. That is reasonable; those relationships are the publicist's stock in trade. Hybrid authors need to know exactly what the publisher's package includes. Self-published authors working alone still benefit from the exercise, because it separates what they will do from what they will not.
Also agree on the sequence: who goes first with a contact both parties know, and how a response gets shared.
Common mistakes
- Assuming the publisher is pitching everyone, then finding out at launch that it pitched twelve outlets.
- Pitching a national outlet the publicist has a relationship with, without asking.
- Never telling the publicist about the local and specialist outreach you did.
- Leaving the post-campaign period unassigned, so outreach stops the week after launch.
A template for this
Subject-matter trade publication pitchA pitch to a professional journal, association magazine, or trade publication that explains what the book contributes to that field and offers a review copy, article, or comment.
When to use it: Use this when you are writing to a specialist publication whose readers work in the book's subject area, after checking how it accepts books for review and contributed pieces. It suits nonfiction most often, though fiction with a strong professional setting can fit. Do not use this when you have not read the outlet's contributor guidelines, or you are pitching the same article to competing outlets at the same time.
What done looks like
- A one-page document listing each outreach type and the person responsible.
- Shared with the publisher's publicist, any hired publicist, and the author, and agreed by all.
- A rule for contacts known to more than one party.
- A shared record, or at least a weekly exchange, so responses are visible to everyone.
- The document updated when a new audience or contact type appears.
Ask your publisher
Copy this into an email. Replace the bracketed parts with your details.
Sources and last checked
- Official source
- No single official page for this step.
- Last checked
- Not checked against its source yet.
- How confident we are
- Verified