There are the phenomenon types like Sarah Palin and Elizabeth Gilbert. Their personalities or experiences created a signature which made their books mass-market sellers. Then there are the rest of authors who don't have a prayer selling their books generically. For the books to move, they have to be positioned and packaged for separate target markets. That micro-marketing is nothing new. What is new is that it's a necessity.
More than a decade ago Westport, Connecticut book publicist Meryl Moss, who now operates Media Muscle, educated public relations groups about promoting books to niches. For example, if the book was on parenting, it would be pitched to trade associations representing parents, organizations of mental-health professions, and so on. We all agreed back then that seemed a good idea but an awful lot of work. Most authors or their publicists didn't invest that sweat equity.
Now, there's no choice. For most books the mass market disappeared along with TV as the dominant medium. It's almost a waste of money and time to issue a generic press release. Instead, there should be multiple press releases and other custom-made promotional tactics aimed at niches and niches within niches.
For example, Bob Dilenschneider's book AMA HANDBOOK OF PUBLIC RELATIONS can be cut up in bits and pieces. Then it can be served in individual dishes to college upperclassmen with their mind on getting the edge in the job market, correctional facilities with programs to lessen recidivism, Job Corps, small businesspeople, clergy trying to reposition their churches for 2010, the exiles from once-stable professions, ranging from law to journalism, and Hispanic entrepreneurs. [Disclosure: Because of my role in preparing the AMA HANDBOOK, I receive 50% of royalties.]
The same applies to Lloyd Constantine's book JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE YEAR. A very small part of it is really about Eliot Spitzer. A lot more of it involves issues of judicial activism, the role of the state attorney general, is leadership still needed, the mystery of marriage, dynamics of male friendship, and political public relations. If the book could be promoted through those perspectives, it could be right up there with Andrew Young's THE POLITICIAN. The latter has legs, I am convinced, because the John Edwards's saga contains so many diverse aspects. Young rarely covers the same ground on any of his myriad talk-show appearances.
There is a large market for books as people struggle to figure out this brave new world of 2010. To reach that market, authors and publicists have to work much harder.
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