Public Relations agencies take care of a person’s or an organization’s relation with the public, building an image and enhancing the person’s or the organization’s reputation through media. Writers can gain a lot of media presence through a PR agency as well. However, there are several questions you should ask and answer before you hire a PR agency. You should ask the following questions because you might find yourself spending money to help promote yourself and your books, but you are not getting the desired results. This is especially true if you are an independent author who has just begun to build a fan base.

1. Do you need a PR agency?

As we noted previously, if you are an independent author, or a new author getting published the traditional way, it might not be the right moment for you to hire a PR agency. On the other hand, if you have an established fan base, hiring an agency to take care of the relations between you and the fans is something you can benefit from, especially in promoting your upcoming books to new readers. Getting a PR agency is a good idea if you want to switch genres as well, especially if it’s a sudden turn from romance to science fiction or vice versa.

2. Does the agency specialize in promoting writers?

The specialization of the agency is very important, and if they have other authors as clients, then you have a certain amount of reassurance that they know what an author needs when it comes to media. Of course, PR expertise in one field can be applied in another. However, there is still the risk of tactics, which worked for one being completely wrong in another. The best way to proceed is to try to contact some of the other clients of an agency and get information about the service they received, and whether they were pleased with it.

3. How does the agency measure results?

This is another important aspect of PR. What will the agency do for you, and how will they measure results? Will they be measuring by quantity, or quality, or both? Your media coverage is something you should always be aware of, which poses the question – how often will you be getting results, and how involved do you need to be? Sometimes, you might find yourself with more tasks than before you hired the agency, and you need to know firsthand the level of involvement they will require of you.

4. Is the agency traditional or innovative?

Before hiring a PR agency, you need to ask whether they have several methods that they ensure you will work, or if they are always on top of innovative techniques and are not afraid to use them. There are pros and cons with both traditional and innovative PR policies. Another thing you need to know is who will be working on your account. Remember, you may sign the contract with some of the agency’s best people, but have some low-level employee work directly with you. Ask to meet them before signing the contract, to ensure they are skilled and experienced enough to take on the task.

5. What are the terms of your contract?

It is very easy to slip and get locked into a long-term contract. Of course, if you are happy with the services the PR agency provides, then it is not a problem. On the other hand, if you are not happy with the way the PR agency is handling your account, you might want to switch to another, but be unable to do so because your contract is long-term. A good way to bypass this is to ask for a contract that’s short-term. If the agency hasn’t managed to provide successful results by that time, then you will be free to switch to another.

Image credit: Pixabay[author] [author_image timthumb=’on’]https://writingtipsoasis.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/photo.jpg[/author_image] [author_info]Georgina Roy wants to live in a world filled with magic. As an art student, she’s moonlighting as a writer and is content to fill notebooks and sketchbooks with magical creatures and amazing new worlds. When she is not at school, or scribbling away in a notebook, you can usually find her curled up, reading a good urban fantasy novel, or writing on her laptop, trying to create her own.
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