Smith Publicity

I am a book reviewer who writes reviews for a local publication. As a reviewer, I’m accustomed to seeing press releases from various author publicity companies. Some are sporadic, some are a mess, some don’t make any sense at all or are laden with so many typos that I just hit ‘delete’ more often than not.
Smith Publicity, however, always sends me beautifully crafted press releases. Since I’m the one on the other end of the business, I get to see their work in action. I get great offers, LOTS of them, and very often they repeat the same book which makes that book stick in my head. It’s a good strategy.
If they are as tenacious with formal magazines, radio and TV as they are with me and other book reviewers — which I know they are — you’re in good hands. The poor reviews on Unilocal are from customers who received the best of services, but whose books did not perform. This is not their fault — it is the author’s. Reviewers, like me, do not get paid to leave positive reviews. We leave honest reviews.

After a six week campaign with Smith, my advice would be: Don’t do it. Or, don’t do it unless you have $ 6000 that you can afford to lose. Smith very honestly promises you nothing, which makes it a great gig for them, but a tiny bit like tossing your money around in a casino. The house (Smith) always wins – customers much less frequently. That is not Smith’s fault – it’s just the way it is. If you consider that about 4000 books are published every day, and you do not have an agent (because none of them felt like taking a chance on your work?), you can see where the odds lie for you. People at Smith told me they were far from accepting into their program every book that came along, but my suspicion is that they accept a fairly large proportion of the books that come their way.
A few further surmises: If you do pay your money and take your chances, you will be asked to fill out a questionnaire which is ostensibly to help you focus on your message and your audience. Though it might well do that, it also obviates the need for anyone at Smith to read your book – or even a good part of it – since they ask you for various forms of synopsis and main message. You are also, incidentally, writing the «hooks» or lead ideas for a press release. So you essentially are doing a crucial chunk of their work for them. In my case, at their suggestion I even wrote a couple of ‘op-​ed’ pieces, meant to support a better profile for my book. These ended up in papers in Lima, Ohio and Bangor, Maine – if you get my drift. I had the feeling at the end of the campaign that I had worked harder than anyone at Smith. Which may or may not be true.
What Smith possibly understands quite well is that there are so many various media outlets today that many of them are starved for content. So it is possible they are shotgunning a large number of queries to these outlets in pre-​digested bits (that the authors could even have written most of) and some of it will stick. My feeling is that they live in a very gray area here, but their efforts will almost always yield at least a FEW results, just through statistical likelihood. Please note well: it will not necessarily sell books. It certainly didn’t in my case, which again is not Smith’s fault. But even though I had clearly identified my audience to them, they proved incapable of ‘finding’ them. It was only later I realized that the younger audience I sought were all tuned to the social media, something that Smith does not cover. They were very upfront about that.
In my view, the truth of indie publishing is: if your work has not made even a modest ripple in the great pond of books available, Smith is unlikely to be able to do much for you. But if you have generated even a bit of local interest in your work, there is just a chance Smith can help. In any case, as I say, you have to be someone willing to gamble with less-​than-​wonderful odds. You will not likely hear the «4000 books published every day» line from them prior to your signing, but you might well hear it after you have gotten on board.

After I wrote two books and tried my hand at some marketing I realized that I was out of my element and researched publicity firms. After looking into several firms I chose Smith Publicity. From the very first contact with Sarah Miniaci and all the way through the campaign Smith Publicity checked in with me and worked hard to help promote Quiet Water. My publicist, Anne Johnson, worked hard to pitch my book to many outlets and media opportunities. She answered my questions promptly and was always available for me. As a result I spoke on numerous radio shows as well as some online press. I feel I made a good decision in choosing Smith Publicity.

I’ll be honest, I am really surprised by the first review on here… My experience couldn’t be more the opposite.
Let me start off by saying that «Indie Publishing» can be a laborious, grueling and extremely rough road to follow. And now, being a seasoned indie author, I have found that FAR too many independent authors expect others to do work for them when they actually need to do the legwork that traditional publishers normally would.
I had no idea what I was getting into when I started down the independent publishing route having been frustrated by numerous rejection query letters to traditional publishers. In researching advertising and publicity, I decided to opt for publicity as it was more logical to get my name as an author out there rather than advertise my specific book. After doing some research I came upon Smith Publicity and was directed to Sarah Miniaci. Sarah surprised me in that she did nothing to try and get my hopes up or sell me something unrealistic but rather stated everything in real terms and gave me genuine facts and situations I could expect from hiring Smith. I decided to go with them and was assigned to Lauren Covello for the publicity of The Steel Van Man. I could not be happier with how the whole campaign worked out. Lauren and her team were in constant contact with me, provided me with hundreds of real contacts that did pan out globally. She eventually even landed me a blogging position on The Huffington Post which has proven to be very helpful in getting my experience with children and the internet out to the public. Is Smith Publicity the cheapest? No. Are they most expensive? No. But, do they provide the highest quality industry professionals, and know how to help you get the best ‘bang for your buck’ in publicity and getting the word out about your writing? Yes, hands down — absolutely!
You will still need to do your own leg work, but they will instruct you on what legwork you have to do, what you can expect from the media and how to handle them. In my opinion there is not a better publicity team out there for the Indie Author.

I was in contact with Smith for about 6 months when I self-​published my book. I was assured by Sandy that Smith would do a good job promoting the book. Their website promotes their services based on their any years of experience and the contacts they’ve developed over the years in the book industry. I felt confident when I signed the contract that Smith would give my book the push it needed to get it out in the marketplace. However, after my check to them for $ 4500 cleared my bank, the whole situation changed. I was contacted by an independent promoter who’d been subcontracted by Smith to handle the publicity campaign for my book. This person had almost no experience promoting books and no contacts in the industry with critics or media outlets that review books. My e-​mails to Sandy were then answered very curtly. The friendliness was gone now that they had my money. She defended my promoter by saying she assisted with Gene Simmons publicity tour for his book. «Assisted.»
It turned out that my book wasn’t reviewed by any book reviewer, big or small and it sold no copies. I wasn’t offered any interviews or book signings. The woman handling my book promotion seemed to be making it up as she went along as opposed to having a game plan based on my book and the audience she was trying to reach. When I sent an e-​mail complaining to Sandy, she snottily told me that she had warned me that self-​published books don’t have a good chance of selling or being taken seriously. This simply wasn’t true. She had been nothing but encouraging about my book — until she got my check. Had she told me that my book didn’t stand a good chance of success, I never would have hired Smith Publicity.