Children’s Book Publicists – Are They Worth It?

The number 1 reason I sat down to write this article was because more and more Children’s Book University students and readers told me that they had been approached by a Children’s Book Publicist, and wanted to know if investing in such a service would be worth it. 

Proper vetting of such a serivce is really, really important – especially if you have been approached by them (as opposed to you seeking them out yourself). Every new author is so very excited to share about their newly published book. And this enthusiasm and excitement is so easy to spot, making us an easy target for those that prey on and benefit from newly published authors. 

Please trust me on this! I have been there and have spent thousands of dollars because I didn’t know any better, so in this article, I’m going to share with you how to decide whether or not investing in a book publicist might be worth it.

NOTE OF CAUTION:

Just like I shared in my article “How to Tell If a Publisher Is Legitimate or Not,” always be extra careful if it’s the agency that was the one that reached out.

In this article, I’m going to cover:

• What is a Children’s Book Publicist
• Vetting a Publicist BEFORE investing in them
• What services might be worth it and helpful (and WHY)
• What services you should NOT invest in (and WHY)
• Alternatives for each

What is a Children’s Book Publicist?

Publicists can be very helpful in two ways:

• Publicists can save us time 
• Publicists can connect us with people and/ or media outlets we ourselves wouldn’t have access to

Publicists can save us time, in that they’ll be able to do the research of potential media outlets for us. They’ll also be able to then facilitate and coordinate the outreach and the scheduling of interviews.

The value of well seasoned and experienced publicists often lies in their already established connections with media outlets. They know whom to contact, and how to go about pitching your book to others. 

If their connections are of high-quality, then building such a network of connections takes time and energy, which is why such experience often comes with a steep price tag. 

Newly aspiring authors are so very eager to get their message out into the world, so the demand of such marketing services is very high. And that’s exactly why so many “professional” book publicists have been popping up all over the place over the years.

But before signing with a publicist, we’ll want to make sure that they have the type of connections we are looking for. Because getting on a podcast with 10 monthly listeners, for example, is far less desirable than getting on one with thousands of monthly listeners. 

And anybody could get us booked for a podcast with only 10 monthly listeners…

So here are some things I wish I’d known and considered when I first started out as a children’s author nearly a decade ago.

Vetting Your Children’s Book Publicists BEFORE You Invest

Whether or not you should invest in a publicist for your children’s book depends entirely on your goals. So before committing to such services, we’ll want to be clear on our goals and desired outcomes. For example, your primary goal might be:

• To increase the exposure for your newly published children’s book
• To practice and hone your interview skills
• To gain some sort of social authority that you can then share on other social media platforms and/ or your website

Once you’re clear on your main goal, you’ll want to ask yourself the following:

1. How experienced is this Children’s Book Publicist in helping me get the kind of publicity I’m after?
2. What services is this Publicist going to provide and perform?
3. Which of those services offered by this Children’s Book Publicist could I do on my own?
4. How much value can the Publicist offer for the amount of investment I’m making?
5. Can the Publicist help me reach people or outlets I otherwise couldn’t reach on my own?

So before signing with a publicist, be sure to do your due diligence. Dive deep into their website, read some of their clients’ testimonials to see how successful the publicist was in getting results. Perhaps even reach out to some of their former clients and ask them about their experience. 

And don’t forget to check out their various social media platforms, such as Facebook, YouTube, or Instagram. For example:

• Look at the number of comments they receive after posting a book review
• Look at the number of views and/or the number of likes and perhaps even shares
• Look at the level of interaction

And if the Publicist is collaborating with others, be sure to check those out as well. 

Now if you do decide to use a Children’s Book Publicist, here are the individual services I would and wouldn’t invest in:

What Book Publicity Services Might Be Worth It And Helpful?

When considering whether or not to invest in a publicist always look at their offerings one at a time.

1. Connecting you with Bookstores

Oftentimes, a book publicist can help us get our newly published book into a physical bookstore, either to have them sell our book, or to arrange for a book signing. These are often local arrangements, meaning they would approach your local Barnes & Noble or one of your local bookstores, to ask if they would be interested in carrying your book. 

So if this is something you are looking for, but don’t have much time to make the arrangements yourself, then investing in a book publicist for this particular service might be very helpful.

ALTERNATIVES:

Alternatively, you can try to approach individual bookstores yourself. It’s actually much easier than you might think. It’s just a matter of starting locally, and simply calling your local Barnes & Noble or independent book store. Here is one of my very first articles I ever wrote for my blog. And while some of the things have changed since I have written this article, the process on how to go about getting your book into a bookstore is still the same:

How to Get Your Children’s Book Into a Bookstore

2. Connecting you with Media Outlets

Media outlets can be things such as:

• Podcast 
• Magazine
• TV Show
• Radio

If your children’s book publicist can connect you with any of these, they might be worth investing in. However, there are a number of things you should consider first.

Please do your due diligence! If the publicist connects you with a podcast, then be sure to ask about the podcast’s downloads per episode. With hundreds of new podcasts popping up each month, there are so many that have very few listeners (or none at all). So getting interviewed on these podcasts might not be the best use of your time as well as financial resources.  

This is where the Publicist’s established media network comes in. The quality of their connections is so important and so often overlooked. Again, be sure to read their testimonials and see what other media coverage they have been able to land for previous clients. Then perhaps even go the extra mile and actually check out that client’s interview.

ALTERNATIVES:

Beginning on page 141 in my book How To Self-Publish A Children’s Book, I share how to go about finding and approaching blogs, magazines, podcasts and the like. So if you want to give it a try yourself, this might be a wonderful place to start.

What Publicity Services You Should NOT Invest In (And WHY):

What follows are typical services offered by Book Publicists, and are some of the things I tried with some of my earliest books when I first started out as a children’s author. 

Most of these services are NOT worth it. Please trust me on this! I have been there and have spent thousands of dollars because I didn’t know any better.

1. Author Spotlights (also called Author Interviews) by a Children’s Book Publicist:

If this is a service provided that is meant to be shared on the publicity provider’s website itself, then I wouldn’t recommend it. The problem here is twofold:

Having your interview published on the publicity site itself means it heavily relies on YOU to drive traffic to the interview. So it isn’t much help in terms of exposure.

Second, it’s important to remember who it is that is coming to these publicity sites: it’s usually other newly published authors who, just like you, are looking for publicity. So they won’t be very interested in reading or sharing your interview, let alone purchase our newly published book. 

This is one of my earliest books, when I was still so very eager to try everything to get my message out into the world. And while I enjoyed the interview, the only people that saw and commented on it where those that I managed to send to this interview myself.

So having our interview shared on the publicist’s own social media assets (such as their website, Facebook, or IG) won’t be helpful when it comes to increasing our exposure.

ALTERNATIVES:

If you can connect with an influencer whose following is your target audience, then this would be a lot more valuable than having your interview sit on a publicist’s website. To help you find just the right influencer and how to go about connecting with them, I’ve created Influencer Outreach a while back. If you haven’t watched this masterclass yet, you can do so right here.

2. Book Spotlights by a Children’s Book Publicist:

This again pertains mostly to reviews that are meant to be shared on the publicist’s website. Just like with the Author Interviews I mentioned above, these rely heavily on YOU bringing the traffic to the interview. And if you are the one bringing the readers/ viewers to read or watch the interview, then you already know these readers, and aren’t getting any new exposure. 

As I already shared with you earlier, I really did try EVERYTHING to gain exposure for my first couple of children’s books. And while I loved being able to share about my book’s message, it sat very lonely on this publicist’s website, never to be commented on or looked at. (See comments and views).

ALTERNATIVES:

Instead of having your book shared and highlighted on a publicist’s website, look into finding influencers that share children’s books with their following. To find out what makes the perfect influencer that might be interested in sharing about your children’s book, be sure to check out my Influencer Outreach masterclass. 

Especially platforms like Instagram would be a fantastic place to look. Having been part of the military community for such a long time, I know that a lot of military spouses, for example, have blogs and IG accounts where they share about things such as books. A Sailor’s Wife, for example, comes to mind. Again, just be sure to do your due diligence and look at:

• Number of followers
• Comments/ Likes/ Views/ Interactions
• Who is their audience? Is it fellow children’s authors, or is it families who would actually be interested in purchasing your beautiful book?)

3. Book Readings by a Children’s Book Publicist:

Having someone read your book to little ones is such a wonderful thing to do. Oftentimes, children’s book publicists provide a service where your book is being read and then shared on their YouTube channel. But again, unless their YouTube channel has a large following, your book won’t get a whole lot of new exposure.

ALTERNATIVES:

The virtual reading of children’s books in the form of Virtual Storytimes has drastically increased this past year. So if you’re looking to have your book read and are willing to pay for it, you can approach many of the Storytime channels that have sprung up this past year all over YouTube. Again, look at the number of their subscribers as well as the comments below the videos to make sure they have a fair amount of interaction with and from their audience. This will be a lot more valuable than having your book read from a publicist that is then shared only on their own channel that is not being visited by actual buyers of your book (i.e. parents of little ones).  

To find some of these read-aloud channels over on YouTube, simply start typing in “Children’s Book” into the searchbar and see what YouTube brings up as suggestions:

4. Press Release:

Unless you’re using one of the high-end Press Release services you pay multiple hundreds of dollars for, please DO NOT invest in a Press Release service! Oh gosh, I can’t even begin to share how very silly I feel, having spent SOOO much money on Press Releases when I first started out! 

My Press Releases would always be picked up by 100s of media outlets. I really felt like I was getting my message out there, until I realized that even though some of these channels sounded impressive (like ABC, NBC, Wall Street Business Network, Daily Herald), they didn’t mean anything, because they weren’t on those channels’ main pages. Rather, my press release was buried on a sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-page, someplace no normal person would ever get to unless they had a direct link, which of course no one did.

So while the distribution looked really impressive, it was truly absolutely meaningless, and didn’t get me any actual exposure.

CONCLUSION:

In the end, it is of course entirely up to you whether or not you’d like to invest in services provided by a publicist. 

The main reason I wrote this article is because a growing number of my students and readers have reached out and asked me about such services, and whether or not it would be worth investing in.  

It’s always flattering to be approached by someone that saw our book and wants to help us spread the word about it because they too believe in its message (even if they didn’t actually read your book yet…). But I also know that we all have a limited budget for these types of things, so we’ll want to make sure we invest in the things that will bring true results. 

And I hope that with this article, I was able to help you see what we should pay attention to, and what we should and shouldn’t invest in.

Please be sure to SHARE this article with fellow children’s authors, especially if they have been considering working with a Children’s Book Publicist. 

xo
~ Eevi

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