Marketing Part 3: Working With Your Publisher

An approach to working with your publisher on book promo

AVA LIN, BEST FRIEND! will be my 16th traditionally published book, which means I’ve gone through a good number of marketing/PR experiences with various publishers at this point. Sometimes, I’ve had great experiences and sometimes I haven’t. And what I’m realizing is that there are ways that I can positively affect the process and help my publicists do their jobs. If there’s no story for marketing and publicity to share, their job is a lot harder. So how can we as authors help them tell stories around our books?

To be transparent, I don’t know how much my efforts actually move the needle. I think it’s clear that the publisher is the one who can actually make a significant difference through marketing dollars. But, as an author with multiple books, I feel like my efforts can make a small difference and maybe that small difference starts to add up across my titles for some overall beneficial effect. Still, I have to remind myself not to go overboard trying to move the needle on something that doesn’t have the backing of the publisher.

In this post, I’ll share the different types of legwork I have done to partner with marketing and publicity, and how they’ve responded.