How to Get Your Book Published in 7000 Easy Steps – A Practical Guide. STEP 6: THE PUBLICIST AND INGRAM

Last week I explained why it is so crucial – if you can possibly afford it – to hire a publicist, leaving you dangling at the secret reveal that the publicist and Ingram are intimately intertwined.  Hopefully I haven’t left you too breathless and you’ve had enough time to recover from the shock to now absorb the relevancy.

Ingram, of course, is the largest book wholesaler and distributor in the world and essentially your only way onto the shelves of a bookstore.  Without being traditionally distributed by someone such as Ingram, you are virtually invisible to booksellers.  Up until very recently, only the Big 5 had relationships with Ingram, but now many hybrids do as well, which is actually what really sets them apart from self-publishers.  A different day we will look more closely at Ingram, but suffice it to say for the moment that they are your ticket to sales, as they are the middleman between the publisher (and thus you) and the retailers.

Assuming that you are going the traditional or the hybrid route, your publisher at some point will meet with Ingram to get them excited and interested in all the new titles she is publishing that season.  Ingram then looks at all of your data (put together in what’s called a Tip Sheet – more on that some other day), which includes your cover, perhaps a chapter of the book, your comparative titles, your target audience, your platform, and – here’s where it all connects – your publicity plan to determine, among other things, how big a sales force – how big a push – they’re going to put behind your book when they tuck the list of titles under their arm and stroll into Barnes and Noble or Target or any random independent bookstore to secure an order.

The bigger and more legitimate your PR plan, the more oomph they’re going to put behind your book.  If you have no publicist – no major plan in place – you’re a dead horse to them.  Why should they bet money on you even finishing the race when they don’t see you as even having entered it?  See the problem?

And that, darlings, is the truth.  That’s the real reason you need a publicist.  Even if you somehow find the time, energy and dogged devotion to run a successful media campaign on your own (good luck!), you’re still left holding a limp rope at the end.  Sure, Ingram will list you, but they probably aren’t going to go out of their way to push you.  Why should they?

And here’s a good place to tell you, if you haven’t already somehow heard this by now: publishing is a business.  Period.  I still have to be reminded of this on an embarrassingly frequent basis.  Especially when I begin to wax lyrical about some part of the creative process or art for art’s sake and all of that.  Remember, dear readers, they don’t want to hear any of that.  Publishing is a business!

If by chance I have at this point convinced you of the necessity of securing some sort of publicist, I will leave off and next week examine exactly how to go about procuring said services.  This will allow you ample time to go check your bank account balance or possibly siphon some change from the kids’ college fund as previously suggested in Step 5. Don’t worry.  You’ll find a way.  Don’t despair just yet!

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STEP 6: THE PUBLICIST AND INGRAM appeared first on Michelle Cox.