You have spent months, maybe years, alone, honing your craft, writing your book, and now it’s time to put your “baby” out into the world. It can be lonely, scary and frustrating. When you join the Books Forward, a JKS Communications Company, you aren’t alone anymore. We’re your advocate and help you navigate this crazy world of book publishing and book promotion.
We really get to know you and embrace your goals as our own. With more than 15 years of publicity experience, Books Forward can help you make educated choices and develop realistic expectations for what is possible for you and your book.
Whether an author is a The New York Times bestseller, a celebrity, or writing a first novel when we meet, we will join you on your journey to the next level.
We work with clients who share a commitment to integrity.
It is in our nature to be fiscally responsible. We treat your budget as we would our own to keep a tight rein on expenses.
Our business model takes into account the lifestyle and comfort level of authors to promote books in a way that works best for them so that they will enjoy the experience, be more relaxed and spend more time on making their book a success. Building platforms and promoting books is time-consuming. At Books Forward, we take the lion’s share of that work so authors have the freedom to write and reclaim their time.
Books Forward was founded on one simple principle: There is no substitute for working hard and smart to provide the best service for our clients.
We are here to complement and support your in-house team’s publicity efforts to create the most buzz for you and your book possible. Our approach with the publisher is always positive and collaborative. Many times authors want more support for their book than a publishing house is able to give other than to lead titles and the in-house team is generally pleased to have a competent publicity firm augmenting their efforts.
Chances are good that we’ve worked with someone at your publishing house before. We work with large publishers and boutique publishers to find the largest audience for the author.
Authors with traditional publishing deals usually have an advantage regarding appearances. If your publicity team walks you through the nomination and consideration process, you can capitalize on every opportunity available to you. With Books Forward as your seasoned partner, we will identify these opportunities and help you secure placement.
Publicity campaigns for indie and self-published books differ from those for traditionally published books because of one distinct reason: most indie authors do not have the infrastructure and marketing budget of a publishing house. Therefore, indie authors aren’t necessarily competing against authors with millions of books in print in thousands of bookstores (you know who we’re talking about!), because that would be a like a fabulous independent restaurant competing with a national fast-food chain – the independent restaurant may be much better on all levels, but the chain has a national marketing campaign with tens of millions of dollars behind it that an independent restaurant cannot afford.
Instead, indie and self-published authors are competing more specifically with choices that readers are making each day with the amount of time and money they have for watching movies, fiddling with a cell phone, taking care of children, etc. Books Forward is here to make your book an attractive choice for readers’ entertainment, not to put you in a David and Goliath battle.
Self or indie publishing is not for the faint of heart. It’s an uphill battle. Nevertheless, we’re up for the challenge and will support you and advise you, using the experience we have gained over more than 15 years in this field. This may be your first rodeo, but it’s not ours by a long way, and that makes us a good partner.
Books Forward is the publicity firm of record for large scale and boutique publishers, and for good reason! We recently learned that one of our established publishing clients increased sales by 50% in the first year after partnering with Books Forward!
Our goals are two fold: branding the publishing house in the industry and promoting its titles to readers.
We work with each publisher to create a campaign that fits the budget, goals, and opportunities available. Our publishers have been featured in Publishers Weekly, Shelf Awareness and other industry outlets, and our team has landed reviews and coverage for their titles in mainstream news media, blogs and broadcast programming.
Are you ready to take your book to the next level?
Marissa DeCuir
President and Partner
JULIE SCHOERKE
Founder
“Simply put, Julie is a publisher’s, bookseller’s, and author’s best friend.” – Charles Ghigna, author of Father Goose
A public relations expert with 30 years experience, Julie specializes in developing winning book publicity campaigns for authors and publishers. But it’s her infectious smile, always-positive attitude and die-hard support that welcomes authors into the Books Forward family. Her hallmark is creative campaigns that fit the lifestyle of the author. She’s been on the forefront of industry trends, being among the first to work with book bloggers, to produce and creatively distribute book trailers, and to secure book sale numbers reporting for indie authors to hit bestseller lists. And, in bucking trends, she reinvented the book tour to be more author-friendly. Julie is frequently interviewed on radio, literary blogs and asked to speak before audiences of all sizes. Most recently invited by The University of Chicago, Sarah Lawrence College, Decatur Book Festival, and James River Writing Conference among others throughout the United States, her advice and ideas for promoting books are endless, current and inventive.
