Hiring a publicist, and whether to
Of everything an author can buy after the manuscript is finished, a publicist is the service most often bought at exactly the wrong moment, for exactly the book it suits least.
That is not an argument against publicists. Good ones exist, they do work you cannot do from a laptop, and for the right book they turn a launch into a rollout. It is an argument for knowing what the job is first, because the marketing around this service is vague in a way the service itself is not.
What a publicist actually does
Strip away the language and the work is narrow and specific.
- They pitch. Editors, producers, bookers, reviewers — a named person rather than a submissions inbox, followed up when it is ignored, which is most of the time.
- They book interviews. Podcasts, radio, local television, panels, festival slots. Someone has to ask, repeatedly, and be someone worth answering.
- They chase reviews and features. Getting copies in front of outlets that review books, inside the window those outlets accept them.
- They work relationships they already have. This is the part you are actually buying. A pitch from a stranger and a pitch from someone an editor has worked with for eight years are not the same email, even with identical words in them.
- They run the logistics. Mailing copies, scheduling, briefing you before an interview, keeping a record of what went where and when.
What a publicist cannot do
Make the book good. Publicity points attention at a book. If the book will not hold that attention, a larger audience only watches it fail faster.
Create an audience from nothing. A publicist reaches people who already have audiences. Building your own — a list, a following, readers who come back for the next one — is a different job on a slower clock. See What an author brand actually is.
Guarantee coverage. Nobody can. Editorial decisions belong to editors and no fee moves one. Anyone guaranteeing placements is selling something else under the word publicity: paid placement, a wire service that reprints your release verbatim, or a contact list you could compile yourself in an afternoon. Those are real products. They are not publicity, and they should not carry a publicist's price.
Timing decides most of the value
This is where the money is usually lost, and it has nothing to do with the publicist's skill.
Publicity runs on other people's calendars. An outlet decides what to cover well before it appears, and the outlets that review books formally work furthest ahead — several want a finished copy or a bound galley months before publication day, and will not consider a book already on sale. Their terms sit on their own submission pages. Read those pages before you plan anything: they are strict, and they do not make exceptions for good books.
So a publicist hired in launch week has already missed most of what you are paying a premium for. What remains is the reactive half — podcasts, local coverage, anything that can move at short notice — and that half is the half you can most easily work yourself.
If you are going to hire one, have the conversation while the book is still in production and the publication date can still move. That is the single most useful sentence here.
In the tools. A publicist will ask you for a cover image, mockups they can attach to a pitch, and review copies to send. The Cover Maker exports an ebook cover at 1600 × 2560 alongside the print wrap, Mockups and the Social Pack turn it into images an outlet can run, and ARC Delivery emails each reviewer a watermarked copy and reports who downloaded it. Start your book → · about the tools
Who gets a return
Nonfiction with a subject a reporter can use. A journalist needs a story, not a book. Grief counseling, wildfire policy, a forgotten strike — the subject is the piece and the book is the peg it hangs on.
An author with a platform, a credential or an unusual history. Something an interviewer can build twenty minutes around that is not the plot.
A book with a real news hook. It arrives as its subject is in the news, or against an anniversary, a ruling, a season.
Who usually does not
A debut novel with no hook — which is, reliably, the book most often sold this service.
It is not that fiction never gets coverage. It is that coverage of fiction concentrates on names, prizes and houses with standing relationships, and a first novel by an unknown author has none of the three. A publicist can send it everywhere. The sending was never the hard part.
Before spending on publicity for a first novel, read Advertising a book, honestly. Money aimed at readers of your genre behaves far more predictably than money aimed at editors.
Four questions to ask before you sign
Ask in writing and keep the answers.
- Which outlets have you placed books like mine in, in the last year — by name? Not a client list, not logos in a footer. Specific placements, recent, for comparable books. Then look them up.
- Who does the work? The person in the meeting is not always the person sending the emails. Ask who writes the pitch, who makes the calls, and how many other authors they carry at once.
- What exactly is included? Number of pitches, which categories of outlet, how long the campaign runs, and what you receive as a record of it.
- What do you need from me, and when? Copies, dates, a bio, availability for interviews, a press kit. A publicist who needs nothing from you is not planning to pitch you.
The half that costs nothing
Local coverage and podcasts are the two routes most open to an unknown author, and both are worked by sending a short, specific email to a named person. That is the same motion a publicist makes, minus the relationship. Getting local coverage and Podcast interviews, and how to get on one cover the approach, and The press kit nobody asks for until they do is what you send when someone says yes.
Readers with audiences are the third route, and the one a publicity budget is least needed for — but it has its own etiquette, and it punishes anyone who treats it as advertising: Working with book influencers and reviewers.
Work those yourself for one book. The replies will tell you whether what you are missing is a professional's contacts, or a hook.
Make your book
The tools are free to use: name your book, bring your manuscript or your artwork, and work as long as you like. You only pay when you want the files without the preview watermark.
Next: Paid publishing services: how to tell a deal from a trap · More: The press kit nobody asks for until they do · Launch week, without the panic · Getting early reviews without breaking a rule