If you are searching for how to market your book without a publicist, you have most likely already found out what one costs, and decided that a monthly retainer is hard to justify for a book that may never earn it back. That is a reasonable conclusion, and it is less of a sacrifice than it sounds. A publicist does a small number of things, and most of them can be done by the author, because the author is the one person who knows exactly what the book is about and who it is for.
This guide covers what a publicist is actually paid to do, which parts you can take over, the order to do them in, and the point at which hiring one does make sense. It makes no promise about sales, because nobody can make one honestly. It describes the work that tends to keep a book moving after launch week, which is where most books go quiet.
What a publicist is actually paid to do
Take away the language on their websites and a book publicist sells three things. The first is pitching: writing to producers, editors, hosts and event organizers on your behalf, and following up when they do not answer. The second is positioning: working out which side of the book is interesting to someone who has never heard of you, because the angle that excites the author is rarely the one that gets a booking. The third is persistence, which is mostly a willingness to send the fourth email.
None of those is a secret skill. A good publicist has contacts, and contacts help, but a well made pitch to a stranger works on its own merits, and hosts are used to receiving them from authors directly. What you give up by doing it yourself is speed and some polish. What you gain is that every conversation is with someone who has read the book and cares about it, and plenty of hosts prefer that to a pitch written by a third party.
Start with the author, because the book is only the evidence
Most book marketing advice is about the book: the cover, the categories, the keywords, the launch price. That is the right place to start for a retailer page and the wrong place to start for everything else. The people who book guests, run events and write about books are looking for an interesting person with something to say, and the book is the proof that you have said it before. A reader who hears you on a podcast rarely goes straight to the retailer. They search for your name first.
So before you pitch anyone, look at what that search returns. Type your name into Google in a private window, then ask an assistant such as ChatGPT who wrote your book. If the answer shows a namesake, a bio from five years ago, or nothing beyond the retailer listing, every appearance you earn will send people to a dead end. What does ChatGPT say about you walks through the check in detail. Fixing what comes back should happen before the pitching, because it makes every pitch work harder.
The fix is plain. Use one exact form of your name everywhere. Put one page on a domain you own that states who you are and lists your books, and make your profiles match it. That page is the thing you hand to every host, reporter and reader, and the personal brand website that works for search describes what belongs on it. If you would rather have it built for you, our page for authors explains how, but nothing else in this guide depends on it.
The order that works
The sequence matters more than any individual tactic, because each step makes the next one cheaper.
- Claim the pages that already exist. Your book already has pages you do not control, including the retailer listing, a Goodreads entry and a handful of directories. Retailers let you claim an author page where you set the bio and photo. Amazon calls its version Author Central, and Goodreads has an author program. Use the same name form and the same headshot on all of them, and link each one to your own site. This takes an afternoon, and nothing else on the list is as cheap.
- Write a one page media kit. A host wants a short bio, three topics you can discuss beyond the book, a few questions they could ask, a headshot they can download and one way to reach you. The media kit a podcast host actually wants lists the parts. Without it, you are asking a busy person to do your research.
- Choose twenty targets by audience fit, not size. A show with two thousand listeners who are exactly the people your book is for will sell more copies than one with fifty thousand who are not. Which podcasts to pitch covers how to build the list.
- Pitch an angle, not the book. Hosts book conversations, not products. Offer one specific thing you can tell their audience that they have not heard from other guests.
- Follow up once, then move on. One polite reminder after a week or so is normal and often what produces the answer. A third message is a poor use of your time.
- Log every result and reuse it. Every appearance becomes a dated page that names you. List it on your own site, link back from the notes and add it to your bio, so the next host can see you have done this before.
The last step is where the effort pays twice. An interview that is listed on your site, with the show, the date and the topic, is evidence for the next host and for anyone searching your name. An interview that is shared once on social media and then forgotten is a good afternoon and little else. Podcast appearances are the new press clippings explains why keeping them matters.
What a good pitch contains
Most pitches fail in the first two lines, before anyone reaches the book. The table sets out what each part of a pitch needs to do.
| Part | What to write | What to leave out |
|---|---|---|
| Subject line | The angle in a few words, with the show or topic named | The book title on its own, or "guest request" |
| Opening | One sentence showing you listened, naming an episode and why it connects to your work | Praise with no detail, or "big fan" |
| The angle | Something their listeners have not heard from other guests | A chapter by chapter summary |
| Proof | Two lines on why you: the work behind the book, a result someone can verify, one earlier appearance | Superlatives and awards nobody can check |
| The ask | A specific offer with topic, length and a link to your media kit | A request to "pick your brain" |
The angle deserves the most time. The question to ask is what the host's audience would want answered that you happen to be unusually well placed to answer. For a business book, that might be one counterintuitive finding from the research. For a memoir, it might be the single decision the story turns on. For fiction, it might be the real event the plot grew from. The book supplies the material, and the angle is the part of it that fits that particular show.
If you want a longer treatment of the pitch itself, how to get booked on podcasts goes through the process from first email to recording.
Reviews and early readers, done honestly
Reviews are the part of book marketing where the shortcuts are most tempting and most expensive. Retailers prohibit paid or incentivized reviews and remove them, sometimes along with the account behind them, and readers have become good at spotting a page where every review reads as though the same person wrote it. The legitimate route is slower.
Send free copies to people who are likely to read the book, with no conditions about what they say. Ask readers directly, ideally with a short note at the end of the book requesting an honest review, because that reaches people at the moment they finish. Paid review services exist, and they are best treated as advertising: sometimes useful for a quote, never independent, and they should be described as paid if you use them.
Libraries, bookstores and the local press
These three are ignored because none of them has a dashboard. Libraries buy what patrons request and what review journals recommend, so ask your own library to order the book and ask friends in other towns to do the same. Independent bookstores will often stock a local author and many host events, particularly if you arrive with an audience of your own. A local paper, a regional magazine or a city newsletter is far easier to reach than a national outlet, and it tends to produce real sales because the readers are close enough to show up.
None of this is glamorous, which is why the competition is thin. A feature in the paper of the town where you live is also a third party page that names you, so it counts toward everything else you are building. A short press release is the usual way to give a local editor something to work from.
Where not to spend money
Three kinds of spending tend to disappoint. The first is any service that promises exposure without naming where: listing sites, banner packages and anything described as a campaign with no list of actual outlets. The second is awards that charge to enter and are judged by the people selling the entries, which you can usually tell by whether anyone outside the entrants has heard of them. The third is advertising before you have checked that the retailer page converts, because a weak cover, a vague description or a handful of old reviews will waste every click you buy.
Spend time first, and spend money on things that leave something behind: a page you own, an appearance that stays online, a release that becomes a permanent link.
A weekly routine that fits around a job
Most authors who market their own books do it in the margins of another job, so the plan has to be small enough to survive a bad week. This is one way to spend five hours:
- One hour on research: find five shows or outlets that fit, and read or listen to a recent episode of each.
- Two hours writing three pitches, each with an angle written for that audience.
- One hour on follow ups and on preparing for anything that has been booked.
- One hour on your own site: list new appearances, update the bio and check that the links still work.
That adds up to roughly twelve pitches a month. Not all of them will land, and that is expected. The aim is a steady trickle of appearances that all point at one place, so each one is worth more than the last.
Two authors, the same book, the same budget
When a publicist is worth hiring
There are good reasons to hire one. Your book has a news hook tied to a date and you are aiming at national press with weeks of lead time. You have already built the foundation and pitching is the only gap. Your time is worth more than the fee. A good publicist also knows who is accepting pitches this month, which is worth something.
If you do hire one, ask what they will pitch and to whom, who they have placed recently with a name you can check, and what is left when the contract ends. A good answer to the last question is a list of appearances you can put on your own site. A weak one is an email thread. Hire for the work you cannot do, and keep doing the work that only you can.