Welcome!

Hi!
If you're reading this, then you are one of the few, the select, the chosen ones that have gotten our super secret link of awesome. I know you want to brag about the honor, but shhh...it's a secret for now.
But since you're reading this and thinking of joining the Psst.../Let's Talk Promotions family, there are a few things you should know before you take your blood oath , dance naked in the moonlight, and other promotional stunts.
Hey, you have to do what you've gotta do to get those YouTube views up. Don't judge.
But alas, time to get into the specifics.

Notice of Importance
The authors that are referred to us and that we deal with are definitely classy people, but just so that you know we’re classy as well, we reserve the right to drop any author that uses hate speech during  one of our tours like a hot potato, no refunds. While we will speak to the author to make sure it wasn’t some great mistake—for example, malicious hackers, we reserve the right to follow through on our threat to drop your tour, denounce your views, and refuse you future service, should this happen.
Our services are inclusive in the books that we feature, the authors we deal with, and the bloggers we utilize. Their race, religion, and sexual orientation/gender identity is of no consequence to us, except in how we may respectfully address them and, should their book be geared toward a non-mainstream market, how we word their promotions.
If you feel that our views impact your preferred promotional method/infringe on your beliefs, we're glad that we were able to provide you with this information before you got any further along and we wish you luck with finding services that are a better fit for your work.

Pre-hiring Checklist:

• You’ve come to us three to four months before the book releases.
• You have a completed, edited ​​​ARC ready two months before it’s due to publish.  (Note, neither of these are hard and fast rules as most of you know, but they do provide optimum conditions for us to really get your book some love.)
• We’ll need ARCs in AT LEAST .mobi and .epub file formats. We also love the third PDF format, but we’ve gotten some push back on this from certain publishers and it’s not a hill we’re willing to die on, but it will tie our hands with select reviewers. Oh, and the fourth file format, the coveted print copy is always well loved by reviewers, because let’s face it, who doesn’t love that fresh book smell when they’re reading? That’s why we ask you about that on the form our author form.
• Time, attention, and a way to reach you. Sometimes, we’ll need to ask questions. Sometimes we’ll need to get a feel on what you want out of your promotions. Sometimes we just e-mail to hear your voice. I know it seems simple now, but you’re going to go a little crazy with all that is required to promote your book. This is normal and we commiserate. But, we’ll still probably bug you. It’s our job.

Bronze Package:

A Press Release + A One Week Blog Tour

What do we do?

• We write up a press release, send it to you for your approval, take your notes, and distribute it to newswires, local papers and others at our discretion.
• We create a sign-up form with dates, options for the bloggers to use to promote you, a place for their contact information, and send it to you for review.
• We do a write up with general information about your book and distribute that as well as the blogger sign-up form link to bloggers for them to, well, sign-up.
• On our blog tour sign-up form we have the below options:
  Review
  Excerpt
  Author Q&A session
  A giveaway for the readers of that blog
  Other
• We contact the bloggers as they sign-up, sending them copies to review, excerpts, request for questions which we then send to you, or request whatever they put in the line marked “other”—such as a guest post of something else they might like.
• We create a form with your book information for bloggers to share the info over their blogs and social media, personalized to the blogger and the information they need.
• Post a blog tour schedule on the website and update it as blogs post and share tour stops via our social media.
• Post blog tour we send out a note from you to the bloggers, thanking them for participating in your tour. (Bloggers generally don’t get paid, but do this work because they really love books and authors and helping. They’re usually normal bibliophiles with regular lives and they’re just generally awesome people who could maybe, one day in the future, promote you again.)​

What do we need from you?

• As mentioned in the pre-tour checklist, we’ll need copies of your books to send out to reviewers. We try to stay with e-copies, because we appreciate your budget and the damage shipping does to it. If we think it’s worth it, however, we will contact you and give you the option to send a print copy to the reviewer.
• We’ll show you the press release we draw up. We’ll show you the form for bloggers we draw up.
• We’ll ask that you share the blog tour form with anyone and everyone who you think might be interested in participating. Friends. Cousins. That guy that said thank you that one time when you held the door open for him for a ridiculously long time, because who walks that slow? I mean, he owes you.
• We’ll contact you for excerpts. Answers to the questions bloggers send and potential guest posts.
  ​Excerpts – should be five to eight hundred words in length unless otherwise specified by us. If you feel the book is too short, please tell us what limit you’d like to set excerpts for. Our rule of thumb will be twelve unless otherwise specified.
  Q&A –  There are no rules for this. We recommend that you try to use clean language, no politics in this post (I mean, unless the post really calls for either,) and just generally keep it to what the readers are interested in—you, your book, and your pet. But this is your moment, so you do you.
  Guest Posts – We’ll ask the blogger what they had in mind, if they had a specific topic they wanted, and then we’ll work between you and the blogger until we have something satisfactory to you both. The same goes for anything else that is typed into the “other” option on our form.
• For our main giveaway, the one that lasts the duration of the tour, we find that a print copy of your book and a gift card tend to draw in the most entries. While not required, that is our recommendation.
• We ask that while you share the stops on your blog tour via social media, that you don’t comment on them unless it’s requested by the blogger. Especially, reviews. It’s been said before that the review is a safe place for the reader to decide on your book without you looking over their shoulder. So, while you may virtually look, do not comment unless we or the owner of the blog request it.
• A thank you note. It doesn’t have to be a masterpiece (we know the compulsion to write something pithy and insightful, but it’s not something we want you to stress over), just something to let the blogger know they are appreciated and even though you may not have commented on their post, you recognize the work they went through to put your book in front of potential readers

Silver Package: 

Two Week Blog Tour + Press Release + Cover Reveal

Gold Package: 

Lasts a year from the date of agreement. This includes the Silver Package as well as helping with social media, building a street team, helping to get author takeovers, guest posts and what have you funneled towards you. Help with keywords and categories on Amazon if self-published. Contacting bookstores and libraries to try to get your books in them. Trying to get virtual readings. 

Platinum Package: 

This includes the Gold Package, as well as a 3 month up-keep on your street team, and a minimum of four graphics (done at our discretion), continued blog contacts in attempts to get more reviews throughout the year, press releases on book signings and certain virtual events. 

Glossary

Click here to go to our Glossary Page.

What is a Rafflecopter?

This is similar to what your Rafflecopter will look like: https://www.rafflecopter.com/giveaway  We use it to help you gain more followers, by having them tweet a message about your book, visit your Facebook page, and follow you on Twitter for entries. You can get slightly more complicated by having them follow your newsletter or what have you, but honestly, the verification becomes a little more difficult--and entering into the contest is supposed to be fun and easy, so you don't want to make your entrants work too hard for a chance at the prize. ​

What is an Author Takeover?

This is generally done in a Facebook group or event. Usually it's done to celebrate a new book release or maybe a holiday type event--like paranormal books on Halloween. You, as the author, would "host" for about an hour. Generally you'd post a contest ("Post your favorite book title below and I'll choose one lucky commenter to win a free e-copy of my book."), some memes, a little bit about your work and ways to follow you, in case the people that joined the event would like to follow you. ​

What is An Arc?

An ARC is an "Advanced Reader Copy." It's generally a copy before the book is published, but after it has been edited, and is either awaiting copy editing or release day. Since this is the copy the bigger reviewers see, you want it to be as pretty as possible.

WHat is a Press Release?

This is the letter we send out to the press. It has to be short, of interest to them, and make your book seem like something they might want to read/be interested in publishing in their paper. ​

What are Keywords?

Generally when we talk about keywords here, we mean the search terms used by Amazon, and those are our focus.

What are Categories?

Again, this is reference to Amazon categories, or the genre sections in which your book can be placed.  ​