An insider's view of book publicity for writing groups

Recently, I had the pleasure of speaking to a writers’ group run by my friend and former colleague Jen Feroze about publicity in publishing. (Things being as they are, I got to do this from my own house, wearing tracksuit bottoms. Will we ever consent to a non-elasticated waist again? I think not.) It’s a privilege to work in such a creative field and it was fun to reminisce about dressing my colleagues up as zombies, carting slowly defrosting grouse carcasses to Crewe on a boiling hot train, taking Sir Roger Moore on three publicity tours and other, less dramatic, tasks I have undertaken in the course of my career.

I spoke about the role of Publicity in the acquisitions process and what the Publicity department will be looking for when a submission is put forward at a publishing house. We moved on to what your publicist will do, and how you can help promote your own books - both working with your publicist and independently. Having been an author and a publicist, I have the unusual privilege of having been both sides of the fence. And I answered a lot of considered and probing questions.

I love working as a book publicist, and I love talking, so I really love talking about my job.

If you’d like me to speak to your writing group via Skype or Zoom, please do get in touch. I have almost twenty years of experience (child labour laws were lax in the early 2000s) in publicity within trade publishing, across big corporates, small indies and as a freelancer, and over ten years’ experience as a published author. I’ve been lucky enough to work across literary and commercial fiction and non-fiction, memoirs, celebrity books, humour, children’s books, poetry, activity books, cookery, gardening, health, lifestyle, business books… all the books, really.

I have to emphasise that I will be wearing tracksuit bottoms throughout, but if that’s not an issue for you, do get in touch for details of fees.