What a PR Pro Taught Me About Launching My First Book
- Ari
- Dec 11, 2025
- 8 min read
I've made so many mistakes; learned so much and I want to share them all here
I truly feel so lucky, this past month I had a friend visit me from Hawaii and she has been working in Public Relations for huge companies in New York specifically around publishing books and she gave me some great advice that I want to share with you all. I honestly wish I read a blog like this before launching my book but too be honest I’ve noticed I REALLY learn the lesson when I make the mistake so I’m taking all of my mistakes as lessons and sharing them with you. Hope you like it!
Timelines
First of all I really have to stress you MUST begin messaging a lot of these places before you even launch your book. This was another one of my big mistakes and lessons learned moment. I would say start reaching out to places no more than 6 months before your book launches. Some places won’t even accept your book for review if its already out.
For Social media I would start talking about your book a year ahead. Talk about the process and show people what it’s like. This will pull people into your story and feel more apart of it once the book comes out.
Social media ideas
Before I come up with some content ideas for you I have to stress don’t try to do all of the platforms you will burn out, especially if you are trying to write and illustrate your book at the same time. First of all I didn’t even start posting on social media until I finished my book which was a big mistake but I can honestly say I got it done pretty fast since I wasn’t thinking about social media, it honestly takes time.
Find what your best at if you enjoy writing about your experience; I would use substack, medium, or just a blog site or your own personal website.
If you love vlogging or making videos talking about your experience you can do youtube and add in reels as well. I will say short and long form content are very different but somewhat go hand in hand. I personally don’t believe too much in just cutting videos from your longform video and posting it (even though I’ve done it). For shortform you have to have a hook, as well as a beginning, middle, and end all within a minute (if your using youtube shorts). For longform I think you can be more yourself like a sit down and chat sort of vibe depending on your personality and what your going for.
If you like designing cool stuff and making short videos go with instagram and tiktok. You can create rotating carousels explaining lessons learned, or things about you that let you use your amazing design skills. For reels you can just post both of them on instagram, and tiktok.
For smaller word content you can use Bluesky, X, or threads. There are apparently a lot of literary agents on bluesky but I just couldn’t get into it. I am such a visual person I got bored after signing up on the first day.
If you like being apart of groups and want an older audience do facebook. Yup! facebook is so great for joining groups, reading groups, publishing groups, creative groups etc. I honestly deleted my facebook about 15 years ago for no particular reason I just never got into it and it’s just not really my platform.
Anyways lets get into some great content ideas…..
Show what your desk space looks like
A typical day for you as an author/illustrator
Process shots such as sketches, close up environments
Show mistakes you’ve made and the lessons learned around it
Talk about why you wrote this book
The lessons you want your book to teach people
Books that have inspired you
What was it like finally holding your book in your hand
How it felt getting that first sale
Teasers around the book launch
Polls/Questions related to your book; (how do you deal with grief?)
My target blogs & media sites
My book is a Childrens book for kids (early readers) 4-8 years old and I am targeting book websites with my focus on Childrens books as well as Mom blogs for mothers looking for the right book that will help them teach children the right messages around self healing or dealing with grief. I will also be looking for sites around female entrepreneurship, starting a business and choosing their own path as a creator and business owner. Lastly I will be targeting mental health or spiritual wellness sites with topics around children who may have lost a family member, or who feel out of place and want to heal themselves within.
The List
Now here are some great places to check out for advertising, the prices are all different but overall they are mainly around $300-500 of course there are way more expensive options the larger the media company but this is honestly something I really wish I had before launching my book. (Another reason I want to write another childrens book and it better this time)
Before even messaging these platforms I highly recommend reading their about page and finding what they represent and if their voice and opinions match what you are going for. I’ve gone to many sites that looked like a fit but when I read the about page I knew I wasn’t what they would be looking for and that’s ok!
Book Sites:
BookRiot: An online platform featuring all sorts of books you can find their advertising sheet here along with advertising method, types of books, and prices.
Kirkus: A book review site where authors can have the opportunity to build some name recognition and get noticed by agents, publishers and other industry influencers.
BookPage: A trusted source for book reviews, recommendations and author interviews.
Goodreads: A Social cataloging website and app owned by Amazon that allows users to track the books they’ve read, are currently reading, and want to read.
WrittenWordMedia: Empower authors and publishers to grow their audience through specialized marketing services and software tools designed for book promotion.
Mom Blogs:
ScaryMommy: Parenting and lifestyle site for millennial moms who crave unfiltered and honest advice, opinions and news about motherhood and women’s daily life.
Motherly: On a mission to help every mother thrive with expert advice, inspirational stories, curated solutions and more.
Today Parenting: The parenting section of the new media site Today
Romper: Romper is an online magazine for a new generation of moms who are figuring out what parenting means together.
Mental Health
The Mighty: A growing community of people with lived experience sharing their honest stories around mental health, chronic illness, rare disease, disability, and more.
Dougy: Find support, resources, and connection before and after a death.
National Alliance for Children’s Grief (NACG): A national organization of professionals dedicated to supporting children and the networks and communities surrounding them.
Female Entrepreneurship
Rebelgirls: Inspiring girls to grow into confident young women
BDG: Bustle seeks to empower readers to fearlessly pursue life’s big adventures. We cover the basically brilliant and brilliantly basic, from the new TV show blowing up your text chains to the beauty product we can’t live without.
Designfully: Provides a fresh perspective on the design industry with a focus on underrepresentation and gender disparity.
Local businesses in your area
I also wanted to mention looking into newspapers, magazines, or radio stations within your area. They will more likely be interested in featuring local authors and featuring your story. I would even recommend having a copy of your book with you and just walking into stores with it so the bookstore/gift shop etc. can see it in person. You can also bring a business card, or a 1 page sheet about you and your book with images of pages from the book.
Media Sheet
An author media sheet is a promotional tool for writers, providing essential information about the author and their book(s) to journalists, media outlets, and other collaborators. It is a concise document that includes an author bio, professional photos, book cover images, book description, and contact information. I have an example of my media sheet (with links) here if you insterested in checking it out.
How to position yourself
This is something I never thought about till discussing it with my friend, She mentioned positioning myself the right way to each media outlet. I have a few quick examples just to give you an idea on how to message each website.
Cool Mom Pitch: I know that your readers are moms and my book helps children with grief and that’s not always an easy topic to discuss. My book is also a great tool for understanding difficult topics in an easy way for parents to talk about.
Publishers Weekly: I am an up and coming author who is also an artist and I recently wrote a Children’s book. I wasn’t fully inspired by the book currently out because I don’t think there are enough tools out there to talk about grief to children. I’d really appreciate it if you took a look at it.
Reelsimple: My book is a simple way for children to understand and cope with grief and I think your audience, mostly female and many are moms, would find this book useful.
Best places to advertise 1st
To be honest this list can be ENDLESS but we don’t want to give too many options because I would start off with just 3 places and to just see where it does the best. Then find the best platform and figure out where to continue advertising when needed. It also depends on whether your advertising for Amazon, your personal website, or a google merchant page etc. Anyways I really hope this helps you decide.
Also I have to mention you might not get any sales in the beginning, it’s all about learning and growing. I did a pinterest ad about a free digital coloring book after email sign up and got nothing. I spent about $70 on it but these are great lessons that you can learn.
Amazon Ads: This is of course the best option if your planning on advertising your book on amazon. I would recommend having at least 3 positive reviews on your book before advertising because reviews are VERY important when people are deciding to purchase your book. The way it works is you choose a budget and amount of days for example you can do $15 a day for 10 days and see how the results look.
Pinterest Ads: The reason why I recommend using pinterest ads is because based on data and my research people are most likely to make a purchase on pinterest vs. other places like instagram or tiktok (those are more for entertainment). The only thing is you will have to design your ads which I did here using ilustrator.
Conclusion
Ok…that was a LOT, I honestly did not expect to write so much but I actually think I could probably get into it more if you liked this one. I haven’t yet tested it but I plan to look into sending out my book to media outlets, influencers, and publishing houses so if you’re interested in that I could write about my experience from it. I also haven’t devled into influencers but from what I have done so far I don’t usually hear back from them or they message me a week later saying they are completely full on book reviews.
Anyways please let me know your thoughts around this topic or if you have any advice or experience yourself. I’m still learning a lot about it even with 10 years of experience in digital marketing. haha.
Love,
Ari
