All publicists know that the first step to obtaining good publicity is your media list. Knowing where to mail review copies and having the full contact information for follow-up calls and letters is vitally important. Many publishers have a publicity department that will handle this while the book is on the front list. However, once the next season is published, or you have published the book on your own, the job of getting publicity exposure for the book falls to the authors themselves.
Once you have your contacts in order, you will have to start writing press releases and dealing with the media. This is a very different process than that of writing a book. For authors who would rather not do it all on their own, contact the Book Promoters Association of Canada. Authors and publishers can contact BPAC to purchase a copy of their membership directory, which contains a list of freelance book publicists that operate in Canada.