Book Promotion Tip: Sign up for “HARO”

Today’s book promotion tip comes from Genevieve DeGuzman from Night Owls Press, a company that offers editorial services and e-book publishing for non-fiction authors. You can check out their upcoming release, Working in the ‘UnOffice’: A Guide to Coworking for Indie Workers, Small Businesses, and Non Profits.

Here’s Genevieve:

I have a tip on book promotion that has been particularly useful for us and our research in our various ghostwriting gigs and for our own book. Here goes:

Sign up with HARO (http://www.helpareporter.com/), which is a website for connecting media contacts, writers, and journalists with the general public. The idea is simple: maybe you’re writing a story and want to find an expert or various sources to interview for your piece; HARO puts out your query, which is seen by over “80,000 mainstreet and expert sources”. It’s a great tool for getting the word out. For NightOwlsPress.com, we’ve used HARO in two ways:

1) To conduct research: we have posted queries on research topics for reports, articles and books we’ve been tasked to write, and always get a great response. For creative fiction pieces, I can see authors using HARO to get in touch with experts to provide info for character development and period details (architecture, dialect, etc.) for historical depth and accuracy; and

2) To promote our own book: HARO e-mails out a listing of the queries for the day. Answering queries and sharing expertise has gotten us quoted and interviewed with a variety of media channels.