Social Smarts Strategies That Earn Free Book Publicity

Book excerpt: Empathy and social smarts help you earn free book publicity by connecting you with key people, media, schools, and the publications of nonprofit agencies. As a writer, you can promote your own book and earn free book publicity by connecting key people, media, and nonprofits' newsletters with schools. Social intelligence used in book promotion is like a three-ring circus. Use empathy, that is people smarts, as a catalyst to bring together schools, nonprofit agencies, and authors. Observe, simplify, and offer commitment as charisma. Query editors of nonprofit publications. These nonprofit agencies often publish high-circulation newsletters and sometimes also publish sizable, glossy magazines. Some produce videos or documentaries. To connect with the nonprofit agencies' editors, use your social intelligence skills to make connections in the nonprofit agencies' public relations and communications departments. Join public relations societies, national associations, and help out the nonprofit agencies or organizations of your choice focusing on what gets published in their magazines or newsletters. If you want to earn free publicity for your book, supply these editors with facts, findings, and trends. Bring the nonprofits in contact with schools. When you talk to school assemblies or classrooms, relate your book topic to any specific work or project done by a nonprofit association for whom you could write an article for that association's newsletter or glossy magazine. Use social intelligence to connect to people. What you need to earn free publicity is self-awareness and an understanding of how the main topic of your book influences your own behavior and how others perceive your behavior.