Dan Janal of PRLeads says no authors came forward to prove they made at least $10,000 in book sales after one appearance on “Oprah.”
Thousands of authors read this newsletter and some of them have been on “Oprah.” So I’m not quite sure what to make of it.
“I am so sick of hearing authors say, ‘If only I can get on Oprah, then my book will really take off,” Dan wrote in this post at his blog.
I agree. Too many authors are looking for the magic bullet that will propel their book to the top of the best-seller’s list. About the only time that happens is when Oprah anoints an author with star status in her Book Club. For the rest of the authors, it’s a lot of hard work, and it means experimenting with any and all marketing strategies just to turn a profit.
Does that mean you should cross “Oprah” off your media list? Of course not. But don’t even waste one minute pitching her producers unless you have a lot of experience with TV interviews, and unless your topic hits one of her hot buttons. Susan Harrow says one of Oprah’s hot topics is the welfare of children. Susan was my guest on a teleseminar called “How to Get Booked on Oprah” and said that if you’re aching to get onto the show, it’s far better to pitch an entire show than just one idea about you. I call that making the media’s job easy.
I think that’s correct.
In the book publishing community, for example, many book publicists are taking their clients on “Blogging tours.” This means they pitch bloggers who blog on topics tied to the book. These tours are incredibly powerful because bloggers frequently link to each other and word can spread like wildfire on the Internet.
I wonder if any authors have made $10,000 in sales after being noted by a number of blogs.
At an IABC blogosphere event this morning, I heard a suggestion that coverage by blogs might ultimately be more valuable than one placement in a big name publication.
What do you think?