Planning Your Own Book PR Campaign

(It takes time and thought)

When my 19th book came out, I knew from working with previous publishers that I had to take an active part in publicity and so I launched my largest PR campaign ever.

My Germany is a memoir about the role that Germany, real and imagined, played for me as the son of Holocaust survivors and a Jewish author. I assessed who my audience could be aside from general Jewish readers and readers of memoir. Having spoken widely before at colleges and universities around the country for other books, I researched Jewish Studies and German Studies programs in the U.S. and Canada, read their websites, and studied the bios of faculty members.  I targeted each query letter about the book, which was published by Terrace Books at the University of Wisconsin Press, to someone who I thought would be most receptive. 

Every email of the dozens I sent out was individualized and I often cc'd faculty at the same university in Creative Writing, English, or History after researching those departments too. Having done many college gigs before for other books of mine, I’d learned that the best author events on a campus have several sponsors. That helps the school with funding and also helps build a potential audience.

Along the way with this campaign, I discovered that there was a German cultural organization in the U.S. called the Goethe-Haus with branches in various cities and so I added them to my list.

The responses were quick to come and over several years I did a few dozen paid speaking engagements across the country and in Canada.  But the greatest success happened when I spoke to an SRO audience at the D.C. Goethe-Haus, introducing myself and my book in German, which I was studying, before switching to English.  I had chosen a short but powerful part of the book that was a kind of short story with a clear beginning, middle and end.  I had basically memorized it so that I could look at the audience as much as possible during my reading.  At the end, after extensive and enthusiastic Q&A, an official who was being transferred to the German embassy in Berlin said to me, "We have to bring you to Germany." 

She made it happen.

The U.S. State Department ended up sponsoring two speaking tours for me across Germany where I spoke at venues large and small, reading the selection in German when asked to.  My evening always starting out with a German introduction which a friend had helped me write to make myself and the audience comfortable.  Each tour lasted several weeks, was thrilling as well as remunerative, and the first one gave me a new epilogue for the paperback edition of My Germany.

Yes, it was luck that the right person heard me in D.C.--but I wouldn't have found that lucky moment without working hard to create my own publicity campaign.

A friend whose father was a POW in W.W. II wrote a memoir and contacting veterans’ groups helped him sell 10,000 copies of his book in the first year alone. As one senior editor has noted: “There is no general audience for most nonfiction books, and chasing after such a mirage is usually far less effective than connecting with one’s communities.”

Targeting the right audience(s) can really change your life. It definitely changed mine. I made friends, deepened my knowledge of German, had tons of fun, and most of my events offered healthy honorariums.

Oh, and there was also a lot frequent flyer mileage. . . .

Berlin image by wal_172619 from Pixabay

Lev Raphael edits, coaches, and mentors writers at writewithoutborders with forty years of experience publishing, editing, and teaching at universities, writing conferences, and online. He’s authored twenty-seven books in many genres and has seen his work appear in fifteen languages and taught at colleges and universities as well as widely anthologized.