Publicity Director
Senior Level // Publicity Director
What does a Publicity Director do?
A publicity director is responsible for working with authors, journalists, retail partners and other audiences to reach a set of people to influence them to buy a book.
The publicity department will create a set of messages, decide which audience they want to talk to and then use different ways to deliver that message. This could be through digital channels, advertising, newspapers, magazines and social media with the aim to increase sales.
The publicity director will usually manage a team of people and lots of projects at the same time. Their job is busy and varied so they need to be good at multitasking and delegating. They also get to read unpublished books and contribute to the decision-making around which ones to publish.
What is a Publicity Director good at?
- Creativity; writing about books and coming up with ideas for projects to promote books
- Money management; planning on how to spend money and managing money
- Communication; making presentations, communicating with other teams, working with people in the press and media
- People skills; the ability to build strong working relationships. They are good listeners and collaborative workers
- Digital skills; understanding all kinds of social media channels
Who does a Publicity Director work with?
A publicity director will work closely with other departments including communications, sales and marketing and will be responsible for a budget and deciding how to spend the money. They are usually creative people with good project, money and people management skills.
They also work closely with authors and need good relationships with journalists to do their job.
How do I become a Publicity Director?
To become a Publicity Director, you first need to rise through the ranks of the Publicity department through roles such as Publicity Assistant, Manager or Head of. You will have relationships with journalists.
You might also have a background in a different industry.