By Monday morning of Week Two, I was getting review copy requests in my Inbox. This was pretty exciting to say the least! And one of the first was from The New York Post! Holy cow! I rushed over to FedEx with a copy of the book – press release folded and placed behind the cover – and decided, in my excitement, to send it overnight. Now, for those curious about how much it costs to FedEx a copy of a one-pound novel from Los Angeles to New York overnight…it’s $93! Now, keep in mind that the adrenaline was pumping and I was excited to have a name as big as The New York Post interested in my novel. So, I did the rational thing and sent it overnight for $93.
Flash-forward:they ended up passing on reviewing the book, so lesson learned. And FYI, if I had sent it via FedEx to New York and had it take 4 days it would have cost $15. Face-palm!
Needless to say, the rest of my FedEx mailings took a bit longer but were much cheaper in the long run.
So, the first week I was sent many, many, many review copy requests, which was great! I advise anyone who does this to create a spreadsheet to track who you’ve sent to and when, when it was delivered, the date you followed-up, and what the outcome was (interview, review, dead silence, etc). I also recommend sending an email to the recipient the day it was sent letting them know to expect the package soon.
I made two trips to FedEx the first week, which was a really good sign. A lot of bloggers, some podcasters, and magazines were interested in my book. To me, it’s all good since people throughout the country are now reading the book and copies are all over the place.
What I didn’t anticipate was how many mailers I would blow through sending out copies. True, I should have planned ahead and ordered a bunch on Amazon or from Office Max, but I didn’t. This led to a couple days where both Targets in my area and both FedEx Office locations were out of the size mailers I needed. Luckily, one of the Targets re-stocked and I bought all they had.
At the end of Week Two, I had sent out 15 copies of my book and the NetGalley list had grown by a dozen more people. Tomorrow, I will write about my busy final week with Smith Publicity.
