My book is self-published, can I get media coverage?

When it comes to media placement, it no longer matters whether your book is published by a major publisher or self-published. Only once in recent years have I encountered an objection to publishing a story because an author’s book was self-published.

A few years ago, CNN rejected a story we featured because the author we were featuring self-published his book. We threw it three times and received three passes. Well, we had been working on other media fronts as well, and a few weeks later we called back to explain that the author and his book had been featured in both Newsweek and USA Today.

Three hours later we got another call from CNN saying they had thought about it and wanted to go ahead with a segment. The author was interviewed on CNN. The moral is that if you get a “no”, keep working and offering different angles until you turn that “no” into a “yes”. The real struggle of a self-published author has to do with distribution and marketing.

When it comes to media relations, if you do it right, you can play in the same ballpark as the majors. In fact, I sometimes think that self-published writers do better than their publishing counterparts because they are under no illusions. They don’t assume that some big entertainment conglomerate is going to pull out all the stops and turn their book into an overnight sensation. They realize that if they are going to be successful, they had better get to work, and fast. His book was written to be read. Use the magic of the means. Get it out there.