Issue #900 March 21, 2015
Publisher: Joan Stewart
“Tips, Tricks and Tools for Free Publicity”
In This Issue
- Starbucks’ PR Disaster
- Use Book Trailers in Media Kits
- Where to See Me This Spring
- Hound Photos of the Week
This Weekend in the Hound House:
Thanks to Publicity Hound Mary Debono for sending me her book, Grow Young with Your Dog. I’m reading about how she has helped dogs heal completely from injuries and surgeries, move well despite arthritis and hip dysplasia, recover from a paralyzing stroke and run and play again after being classified as “too old to recover.” I’ll be introducing Bogie to Mary’s step-by-step exercises.
1. Starbucks’ PR Disaster
Consumers are putting Starbucks through the grinder over its silly #RaceTogether campaign, designed to encourage baristas slinging your coffee to talk to you about race relations.
There’s probably a Starbucks near you which makes this a PERFECT publicity opportunity, especially since Starbucks doesn’t appear to be backing down.
Check out the screenshots of the sarcastic comments on Twitter.
Then consider these ideas for publicity:
–Business owners, would you consider encouraging your own employees to talk to your customers about racial issues while trying to sell them life insurance, storm doors or new cars? If not, why not?
–Consultants, authors and speakers who are experts in customer service, employee relations and race relations can weigh in while this controversy is still brewing. Is Starbucks responsible if a customer doesn’t like the “race conversation” and dumps hot coffee on the barista?
–Starbucks customers, were you approached by a barista eager to discuss race? If so, how did you react? How were other customers reacting? Were coffee cups flying? Or is this just a cheap PR stunt that backfired?
–The #RaceTogether campaign started in cities like St. Louis, New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and Oakland, where protests have erupted over rising racial tensions. If you live there, you can bet the media and bloggers will be covering it.
–Share your commentary on social media, and don’t forget to encourage your friends, followers and fans to offer theirs.
This ill-conceived idea, which reeks of condescension, caused a PR train wreck. If Starbucks were smart, it would give its customers and employees a break and call an end to this campaign immediately. But in the meantime, take advantage of the publicity opps.
2. Use Book Trailers in Media Kits
During Thursday’s webinar on “The Indie Author’s Guide to Creating a Killer Media Kit,” an author asked about how to use a book trailer as part of a media kit, or in other ways.
A trailer is a short video–a combination of animation and music–that serves as a teaser for the book. Here are four ways to use it:
–Upload the trailer to YouTube.
–Include the link in your press release.
–Share the video on Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest.
–Include it in the Book Synopsis within your media kit.
You’ll love this collection of seven brilliant book trailers.
If you missed the webinar on Thursday, you have until midnight Monday to watch the replay and take us up on our offer. In addition to our set of 15 Microsoft Word templates that make it easy to put together a killer media kit, we’ve added hours of targeted training in the exact skills you’ll need to maximize your media possibilities. You can jump to the sales page at http://www.BookDesignTemplates.com/mediakit.
3. Where to See Me This Spring
I’ll be speaking Las Vegas, Denver, St. Louis and Milwaukee in the next few months. Hope you can join me:
–April 25-25 at the Las Vegas Writer’s Conference. I’ll be presenting two sessions each on how to generate stories for your book publicity campaign and how to get book reviews. Register at here.
–May 7-9 at the Author U Extravaganza in Denver. I’m presenting sessions on how to get book reviews, free graphics tools for book publicity and social media, and how to become the go-to expert in your topic or niche. Save $200 off the regular registration when you type AU2015 in the coupon code box at checkout. Register here.
4. Hound Photos of the Week
Thanks to the Huffington Post for “21 Reasons a Dog is the Best Investment You’ll Ever Make.”
Share Your Two Cents