What is the difference between PR, advertising, and marketing when it pertains to books?
Marketing is the integration of advertising, PR, and sales. It’s the big umbrella under which PR and advertising sit. Some people confuse a PR firm with a marketing firm, or marketing agency, or even an ad agency. Basically a public relations firm handles media relations and is the interface between an author and the news media. PR is FREE. The media does not charge people to write an article about them or interview them for TV or radio. A public relations firm or publicist will “pitch” the media on a story idea about an author. A good pitch about a story that would interest the people who read, watch or listen to a particular media outlet gets coverage. Advertising is when the author or publisher pays for an ad in a media outlet. For the most part you can control when it’s published, what it says, and who is going to see it because you are paying for it. With PR you do not have those same controls. Marketing in the book world is when an author or publisher sells to specific markets li
