Marketing and Publicity

As a medium-sized publisher, New Harbinger works in partnership with our authors to ensure that each of our books benefits from the most cost-effective and successful publicity campaign possible. As an author, you play an essential role in the promotion of your book. From the earliest stages, consider who your audience is and how you can best reach and impress this audience.

Team Effort

Authors work in tandem with a New Harbinger marketing and publicity representative to spread the word about our books. In addition to helping to arrange book signings, our publicists coordinate media interviews and send press kits to hundreds of television and radio producers, newspaper and magazine writers, editors, professional journals, and to any names, addresses, and contacts that you suggest.

Marketing Department Packet

Early in the book-development process, around the time your manuscript is due, you’ll receive a packet of information from the New Harbinger marketing department. When you do, read through it carefully. It contains important information you’ll need to know:

• Important dates
• Endorsement-gathering instructions
• Helpful tips for purchasing and marketing your book
• Contact information for New Harbinger staff members

Your Author Bio

Your acquisitions editor will request a biographical statement from you very early in the book-development process. It’s very important that the information you include in this statement be accurate, up to date, and ready for public release when you submit it to your editor. As soon as the New Harbinger marketing department receives this bio, we may begin using it to promote your book. Some promotion efforts involve wide broadcast on the World Wide Web and other media. It can be difficult to make changes to incorrect information once it has been distributed.

If you do need to make a change to your bio at any time, please get in touch with the New Harbinger marketing department. You can find contact information in the Marketing Department Packet.

Foreword

If you wish to include a foreword in your book, talk to your acquisitions editor as early as possible in the process. It is the author’s responsibility to contact foreword authors and make sure the foreword comes in by deadline. A foreword will count towards the manuscript page count.

Endorsements

Endorsements from respected professionals can influence consumers’ decision to buy your book. The New Harbinger marketing department will assist you in gathering endorsements, but it’s never too early for you to start thinking about a “short list” of well-known individuals who might be willing to read and comment on your book.

Look for endorsement instruction in the Marketing Department Packet, which you will receive around the same time your final manuscript is due, and be sure to make a note of your personal endorser submission deadline.

Promoting your Book

Wherever you travel, be it for business or pleasure, you should start thinking of your travel excursions as promotional affairs. Do you visit your sister in Alaska once a year? Do you spend two months a year on sabbatical or in a second state to avoid harsh winters? Are you planning to visit the Southwest this summer? Think of these locations and target a handful of cities to which you will be traveling once your book is published. With the assistance of our publicity department, you can arrange to have book signings or to present workshops in these locations. And, with enough warning, bookstores in these cities will purchase more copies of your book knowing that you are going to be promoting it actively and locally.