Whether you're sending it to a magazine or newspaper, a journalist or blogger, potential ARC readers, influencers, or even event planners - a sparkling media kit boosts your chances of publicity success.
What is it? For an author, a media or press kit is a document that details everything someone who might share your book with their audience needs to know, from the genre and blurb to interview questions and images.
Having a media kit for your novel isn't just great for publicity. It's an organised marketing resource for your book that you can use as well.
In Part 1, I discussed the details your media kit should include. Now let's discuss the design, the attachments, and where to send it!
1. Design
The design of your media kit should be professional and clear, with your branding taken into consideration. By now it's likely you already have a website and social media, so you already have an idea of your author brand. If not, check out my Author Visual Branding blog series. From there, choose your colours, font and layout.
It's likely that your media kit is quite long, with a lot of information to sort through. Make sure you add headings, keep your text at a readable size and spacing, and consider adding a table of contents. (You could also add a list clarifying the attachments, which we'll discuss below.)
Remember, if the reader is struggling to find the information they need, you might lose them. As I mentioned in the last blog, it's vital to make it as easy as possible for Press to work with you. If this means sacrificing frills for clarity, so be it.
A journalist, for example, will be looking for articles they can write that are not just valuable, but easy and fast for them to publish. They're wasting no time, and if they get a lot of media kits in their inbox, they'll choose the one that looks the most interesting for their audience and is the easiest for them to sort through.
For all Press, the concept is the same. In our busy world, the best thing you can do is make someone's job easier.
As design examples, I've attached two media kits I've worked on below.
2. Attachments
Your press kit isn't done when all the written information is together. There are attachments you should add to further encourage Press to share your book. Author photos, photos of the book, and graphics for marketing materials should all be included.
These should also be in different sizes, including high quality versions and thumbnails, in both portrait and landscape. If you don't already have marketing graphics and need some, you can try creating a few using Canva.
I'll say it again: the easier you make it for people to share your book, the more likely they are to share it. If an influencer is deciding whether they'll share your book, then sees you have ready-made social media posts with images and example captions, they're more likely to go for it. Alternately, you might miss out if a magazine needs a landscape photo and you've only provided portrait photos.
You can also include a copy of the eBook. ARC readers will of course need a copy anyway, and Press may want to read your work before promoting it. Again: make this easy for them. However, be cautious sending out free copies. Look into ways of protecting your work so it isn't stolen or shared illegally.
3. What to do with it
So, you have a complete media kit - what are you supposed to do now?
Save your finished media kit document in PDF format. This prevents the design from being impacted when people open it on different devices.
Add the document and attachments to a folder (you can try a shareable Google Drive folder, so you can easily share the link with Press, but it's more acceptable to use a Zip folder).
Make sure the folder has a relevant title, such as AUTHOR NAME - BOOK NAME - PRESS KIT - YEAR. Give the main document and attachments relevent file names too.
At this point, having your kit just sitting on your desktop isn't going to help you. You can't expect Press to come to you. So, start researching who you're going to send it to!
How do you decide who to send your media kit to?
Find people who read and review in your genre (ARC readers)
Find journalists and other interviewers who share interviews with authors
Find local publications who may be interested in hearing from a local author
Find publications relevant to the book's topic
Find publications relevant to your target audience
Find publications that regularly post reviews in your genre
Find relevant events you might be able to attend and speak at
Most importantly, know your audience, and know the Press person you're pitching to. If they don't read your genre, you'll be wasting your time. Even if they love your book, if their audience doesn't, sending them your media kit won't be helpful.
Sending cold emails or DMs can be daunting, but being friendly and making sure it's personalised is your best bet. Remember, journalists need stories! You're doing each other a favour and you're both professionals. Try to personalise each pitch and tell Press why their audience will love your book.
Finally, upload the media kit folder to your website on your 'press' page so people can download it easily if they find you.
Want more? Head to my shop and use code AWSOCIALS20 for 20% off my book marketing worksheets!