Publicist Jenni Tyler promotes the books of Arcadia Publishing. Her “territory” is the West Coast so we took the opportunity to ask her about promoting books and authors in our region. Here’s what she had to say about her job and our friendly book scene.

How did you become a publicist?

I always knew that I wanted to work in publishing, but I initially thought I wanted to be an editor. I attended the Denver Publishing Institute at the University of Denver in 2010, and there I got to see what each role was in the book publishing process. And I just fell in love with publicity. At the time it seemed so glamorous getting to speak with the media and go to events. After DPI, I ended up moving to Charleston, South Carolina and saw that Arcadia Publishing had a job opening in their publicity and marketing department. I’ve been there ever since.

Could you tell us a little about your job for Arcadia Publishing?

Arcadia Publishing is a publisher of local history books, and as such we very much work by territory. I manage the West Coast for publicity and marketing. I reach out to and work with the media, and set up events for my authors to give their book the best coverage possible. Our books are different in terms of publicity because they are so localized – while we would love to see our books reach a national audience, the local audience is going to be our primary audience.

How many books are you currently promoting?

I’m currently working on about 25 books. We work on a rolling schedule so I always have books that have already published, are about to publish, and are pre-publication.

How would you describe the book culture of the Pacific Northwest? 

From what I can see from my vantage point, the PNW is made up of readers. Most of our books do well there. I can only speak to this from that local history perspective, but it seems like people love to learn about the history of their towns and the stories surrounding them. Maybe it’s the rainy/foggy atmosphere, it definitely makes great reading weather!

Is it easier or harder to promote a book in the PNW than other regions?

I have worked on the East coast and the Midwest to promote our books, and I would say it is definitely easier to promote in the PNW. Everyone is generally enthusiastic about seeing new books come through and there is not as much competition when it comes to booksellers. The East coast is so small and congested, it feels like there’s a bookstore on every other corner (which, as a book-lover, I fully support!) but that makes it hard to market. If a bookstore has a signing event, the other bookstores within a mile radius aren’t going to also want to host the author because it will bring in the same (but smaller) audience. Whereas in the PNW everything is a little more spread out without taking hours to get between locations.

What do you think is the best thing a publisher or author can do to get their work noticed?

Social media is key these days. Authors need to have a strong social presence to get noticed. Again, our books are very localized, so the media attention we get are also localized (think the local paper or a regional radio station) – so in order to get noticed by a broader audience you have to have a strong social media presence (both the author and the publisher).

Picture of Jenni Tyler and Arcadia Publishing book courtesy of Tyler. To find out more about Arcadia Publishing, visit their website at https://www.arcadiapublishing.com/. Please note an earlier version of this article was attacked by autocorrect and misspelled Tyler’s last name. Our sincere apologies!

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