Promoting Books and Music

Books and Albums - need to be promoted by the authors and musicians

Publishers expect authors to take a very active role in promoting their books. Many would say publishers expect authors to do most if not all of the promotion. Basically, if you write a book, whether self published or with a pubishing house, it's your responsibility to make sure it sells. A good portion of Shel and my book proposal (Blogging for Business, Dearborn Trade Publishing, Jan 2006) was how we will promote the book. Fortunately, we both speak publically a lot, blog, have newsletters, are somewhat media savvy, etc. Shel has a great podcast too.

I was speaking with Shaggy of Shaggy and the Hackers, my backup band for the original Ted Rap. When he had a record contract years ago, he was expected to promote his album. The record company did very little to promote the album and expected him and the band (Vision Thing) to promote it, despite worldwide distribution. They ended up hiring a publicist to help.

In speaking with Wayne from Maine, childrens recording artist and all around great musician (hey, I listening to him even when the kids aren't around!), I hear the same things about promoting music - it's the musicians responsibility.

The similarities between having a book contract and a record contract are immense! The promotion is primarily the responsibility of the authors and musicians. Even the definition of "success" is similar. The average "successful" business book sells between 5,000-10,000 copies, and a music album from a small label needs the same amount of sales to make the record company happy. Of course I expect to sell far more copies of Blogging for Business - I'm an optimist! And having a great publisher will help a lot too . . .