#307: Marketing Minute: Why Authors Need a Media Kit

Welcome to Kingdom Writers, where we help equip and empower Christian writers of all genres to share your unique gifts with the world. We're your hosts, C.J. and Shelley Hitz.

This podcast is filled with spiritual encouragement as well as prayers to help you overcome the resistance you face as a writer. Your story matters.

Why do you need a media kit? Well, you know, as we've talked about, having partnerships is one of the most effective ways to sell more books. And it doesn't cost money, right? You just have to be courageous. You have to put yourself out there. So this means podcast interviews, it could mean speaking engagements, it could mean guest blog appearances, it could mean that you're featured in your local newspaper, and it could even be TV or other media. I mean, the sky is the limit. You could be even featured on social media. But anytime you have these opportunities, there are typically similar things that they want over and over and over again. And so years ago I worked with a publicist and she told me, you know, Shelly, these are the things that you need to put together in your media kit. And you know, that way you're ready and you know it's a work in progress so that anytime you have an opportunity, you. You can easily just send one link to a Google Doc that that person has all the information they need. Your bio, your headshot, your information about your books, the links, all the things, and you also have it. So sometimes, like if you're doing a guest blog, you need your bio, you need your headshot for the end of the blog post, you can go right to your media kit and you always have it. So this is a great thing to have. When the media calls, will you be ready? The thing is, you have an asset. Just like your book, your media kit is an asset you can use in your marketing forever. This is not a one and done. This is something you can use forever. So it's not time wasted. Yes, it takes time and it will just make everything so much easier moving forward. When you do any kind of partnerships, even if you're doing like author to author partnerships, like an email swap or a social media takeover, you can just say, hey, you can check out more about me and my book at this link. Just, you know, you know, check it out and see if it's a good fit for your audience, right? Just send them your media kit and then they can see if it's a good fit. And then, you know, you guys can, you know, maybe work together, but everything is in one place. So, Lord, we just thank you for this time together. We thank you for every person that has been able to get their basic media kit going that this is an asset that they can use forever. And so we just thank you for this. We thank you for their ability just to take action and to do hard things and to persevere. And we just pray that you would just give them favor, help them to really be able to book the interviews that are going to be the best for them. We pray this in Jesus name, Amen.

Thank you for listening to this episode of Kingdom Writers. We believe that you as a Christian writer have a specific role to play in the Kingdom of Heaven to impact lives for eternity.

And because of this, we choose to pour out our lives into encouraging writers like you to not only tell your stories, but to take the courageous step of self publishing your stories in books that will outlive you and leave behind a powerful legacy. This podcast is sponsored by Christian Book Academy where we help you give birth to your books. We invite you to join our community of Kingdom Writers.