Celebrity endorsements for your book

If you’ve just finished writing a book, don’t think the worst part of the job is finished.

If you really want the book to hit the best-seller list, generating endorsements from famous celebrities is a must–not at easy task. Take Jacqueline Marcell, for instance. When she wrote a book about her struggles caring for her father, who had Alzheimer’s Disease, she set out to get every celebrity endorsement she could.

Jacqueline already had known Regis Philbin from her days working in the TV industry. But she feared that if she approached him to ask for an endorsement, he might view her as a pest.

She mustered up her courage and asked anyway. Regis said yes and gave her this endorsement that’s now at the top of the front cover:

“I thought I knew Jacqueline until I read her book. Wow, what a story! If you’re caring for an elder, you won’t believe how much this book will help you.”

That gave her the confidence she needed to collect dozens more celebrity endorsements for her book “Elder Rage–How to Survive Taking Care of Aging Parents.” It also goes by the title “Take My Father…Please!”

After a long, painstaking and expensive task that made her feel like an amateur detective, she eventually received endorsements from this impressive list of celebs:

Jacqueline Bissett, Janet Leigh, Betty Friedan, Ed Asner, Ed McMahon, Hayley Mills, Joan Rivers, Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV, Tom Hayden, Leeza Gibbons, Art Linkletter and Erin Brockovich.

That’s just a small sample. You can read the entire list and see the photo of Jacqueline and her book on the cover of the AARP Bulletin at her website. The book eventually became a Book-of-the-Month selection and is being considered for a movie.

Along the way, Jacqueline learned how to penetrate the invisible wall that protects the stars and makes them almost impossible to reach. She learned exactly who makes up a celebrity’s inner circle. And she discovered how to use those people to get through to the stars and starlets for their valuable testimonials and endorsements.

She lays out her strategy in step-by-step detail for ContactAnyCelebrity.com, the subscription service that maintains a database of contact information for more than 54,000 movie and TV stars, sports figures, famous politicians and even reality TV celebrities. The November/December issue of The Publicity Hound subscription newsletter explains how you can hear the entire interview with Jacqueline for only $1.

The issue also includes an article by Jordan McAuley, creator of ContactAnyCelebrity.com, about how to get celebrity endorsements for a book. Other articles explain how an entrepreneur piggybacked off the YouTube sale, how to promote a special event through public speaking, a new magazine devoted to breast cancer, where to find examples of promotional campaigns in more than 30 industries, where to find great headlines for your how-to articles, how to use MySpace as a publicity tool, tips for writing a creative one-page bio, where to download a free White Paper on pitching, how to pitch Men’s Health magazine, and November and December story ideas. The newsletter is $10.