YOU ARE YOUR BEST PUBLICIST –Part One

By Vicki H. Moss, Contributing Editor for Southern Writers Magazine

You have your baby published—now comes marketing. But how do you go about getting your book out there to potential buyers?

I must admit that one of the biggest challenges of book publishing is this: Marketing 101. And once you publish a book, how do you market to make the New York Times and Wall Street Journal Bestseller Lists? What about the Amazon Bestseller list? I’d once read that if you work for the New York Times and have a book out, your book is more likely to stay on the list longer and have a higher ranking than non employee books and that if you write a conservative political leaning book, you’re more likely to rank lower and drop off the list faster than those books with a more liberal political slant. But whether a conservative writer or a liberal one, how do you even make the list—does buying ad space through NYT and WSJ help? And unless you have a huge platform like fiction writer John Grisham and a fat bank account for marketing to pay $36,000 or more for a publicist if you don’t have a huge platform, how do you get your book out there?

After recently publishing Nailed It! The Nail Salon Chronicles with my co-writer Natalie Banda, I tried to come up with a marketing plan that would initially consist of advertising in three consecutive issues of Southern Writers Magazine. And of course, Natalie and I chatted up the book to friends and family before the book was published, drumming up curiosity and interest. Once the book was published by

Grace Publishing in July of this year, mine and Natalie’s major push would then be to have people we knew who planned on buying our book to buy on the same day, after hearing this was a ploy to make the Amazon ratings rise. But would this work or was this rumor/hearsay?

After sending out email blasts and posting on all of our social media sites which consisted of over 10,000 contacts, Natalie and I waited for the big day—the day we’d told everyone who planned on purchasing a copy, to buy. Should Natalie and I also buy in bulk that day? Some reports say bulk buying is a way of trying to game the system. What’s to stop a rich author from buying 30,000 copies or more to launch themselves onto a bestseller list?


Part Two of “YOU ARE YOUR BEST PUBLICIST” will appear on October 19, 2018.