Catalytic Leadership

Why Short-Term Thinking Blocks Your Long-Term Brand Growth

• Dr. William Attaway • Season 4 • Episode 10

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When you’ve poured months into a book, a campaign, or a launch, the last thing you want is to see it fade into the noise. But that’s exactly what happens when we rely on short-term thinking instead of building systems for long-term brand growth.

In this episode, I sit down with Marika Flatt, founder of PR by the Book, who has spent more than two decades helping authors, entrepreneurs, and leaders amplify their message with sustainable visibility. Marika shares why “hope is not a strategy,” how to avoid costly mistakes that kill momentum, and what it takes to keep your work from sitting on the digital shelf unnoticed.

We dig into practical publicity strategies, time-tested PR systems, and the leadership shifts that allow you to delegate with confidence and scale without burning out. If you’re building a 7-figure agency and want clarity on how to fuel long-term visibility without chasing hacks, this episode is for you.


Books Mentioned

  • The Little Engine That Could by Watty Piper

  • Unreasonable Hospitality by Will Guidara


To learn more from Marika and her team, visit prbythebook.com for full-service PR support, or explore the DIY resources at authortoinfluencer.com. You can also find PR by the Book on every major social media platform.



Join Dr. William Attaway on the Catalytic Leadership podcast as he shares transformative insights to help high-performance entrepreneurs and agency owners achieve Clear-Minded Focus, Calm Control, and Confidence.

Connect with Dr. William Attaway:

Dr. William Attaway:

It is a joy today to have Marika Flatt on the podcast. Marika is a seasoned book publicist and the founder of PR by the Book. After starting her career in the late 90s as a young, smiling and dialing publicist, she quickly rose through the ranks of a boutique literary PR firm before launching her own company in 2002. For over two decades, marika has championed authors, built lasting media relationships and adapted to the ever-changing world of book promotion with integrity and creativity. Beyond PR, she's a travel editor for Texas Lifestyle magazine and a regular on Texas TV sharing travel stories. Her passion for connecting people to powerful stories continues to shape the publishing industry today. Marika, I'm so glad you're here. Thanks for being on the show.

Marika Flatt:

So happy to be here, William. I love your podcast and I'm a regular listener, so this is a thrill.

Dr. William Attaway:

It is for me as well. I've been looking forward to this one, so this is a thrill. Well, it is for me as well.

Intro:

I've been looking forward to this one. Welcome to Catalytic Leadership, the podcast designed to help leaders intentionally grow and thrive. Here is your host, author and leadership and executive coach, Dr William Attaway.

Dr. William Attaway:

I would love to start with you sharing a little bit of your story with our listeners, particularly around your journey in your development as a leader. Marika, how did you get started?

Marika Flatt:

So I really cut my teeth doing internships in TV when I was in college and I really was on that path to wanting to go the TV route. And when I graduated from college I landed in the industry of book publicity and it was kind of a funny thing because I ended up writing an article called what is a Book Publicist early on in my career and it took off and people loved that article. Nobody really knew what a book publicist did at that time and I always say that my extended family always thought I was a book publisher for the longest time. Oh what are you publishing these days? And I would have to say well, actually, you know, we handle the media relations after the book comes out. We do not publish the books. So it was kind of that education of even my extended family trying to figure out what a book publicist is. As someone who grew up, you know, curled up with a good book in the corner of my bed, just reading a novel, just loving the joy of reading, and then being able to pair that with media that I loved so much I mean that was my track in college Book publicity just became the perfect industry for me and I think we can say that now I've been in this business 28 years total, so 23 for PR by the book. But you know, as you mentioned, I got into it with another small company and you know I'm so grateful and thankful to my first boss, annie Phoenix. She is still a dear friend to me. She's no longer in book publicity but you know she took me under her wing in a really small company, taught me everything she knew and put a ton of faith in me to lead that company in my 20s, which makes me laugh now.

Marika Flatt:

But when you say how did you develop leadership? Part of it early on was kind of sink or swim. I was in a small company where you had to do a little bit of everything and Annie put so much faith in me that when she was ready to kind of take a little bit of time and step away, she put me in that position and I have to say I made a lot of mistakes in that first job. I believe that I had inherent leadership skills but they needed to be trained and developed and so she actually hired a business coach for me before she stepped away from the business and that really helped me a great deal, working one-on-one with that business coach, and then I just became a continual learner and to this day, you know I am, I value continuing education so much that I just tried to put in the work. You know, I read articles, I read books.

Marika Flatt:

Later on in my career, when podcasts like yours became a thing, you know I make time for that. And so I would say that I became a leader. You know, in a hard fought way, that I really I had to learn very early on in my 20s what was missing, you know, and I couldn't just absorb the leadership styles that were around me because those weren't necessarily the right ways to lead. And so you know, I don't think about it that often. So thank you for asking this question. But you know, I really feel proud of that journey.

Marika Flatt:

You know, these last two plus decades of learning what it takes to be a leader, and you know I still slip, I still make mistakes, but you know I just I try to keep all those plates spinning, you know, and one of those plates is making sure that I'm leading in a way that our team can respond to. And so, yeah, that's a long, roundabout answer, but I mean that's kind of what it answer, but kind of nebulous. But I mean, that's kind of what it is when you're learning at an early age and then starting your own business 100%.

Dr. William Attaway:

You know. I love that you shared the story about Annie. I think that's so helpful. It is so easy for, I think, any entrepreneur to see potential sometimes in their team members, and yet so difficult to hand them not just responsibility for tasks but authority. Giving somebody responsibility and authority, that's true delegation. That is how you empower and build up a leader, and that's what she did with you. It sounds like I can imagine that was not the easiest thing in the world for her.

Marika Flatt:

No, it probably wasn't, and I think that's why she'll always have such a special place in my heart, because she believed in me from day one. I mean, I literally was one month out of graduating college when I went in for that interview.

Dr. William Attaway:

She hired me on the spot when I went in for that interview.

Marika Flatt:

She hired me on the spot and then we worked really well side by side as long as she stayed in the business and she eventually ended up selling that company to some other people and I stayed for a little while under that leadership but then knew that it was time for me to go out on my own.

Dr. William Attaway:

Goodness and you know I think sometimes that's a fear for a leader is that if they pour into and invest in somebody else, that that person will eventually leave. You know, it's like we have in our heads that everybody who's with me now they'll be with me forever, when the reality is that's just not the case. That is not the case for the vast majority of the people that we're going to lead. They're going to be with us for a season. Right, you know, and understanding that, I think, is so critical. Yeah, has that been something that you have carried forward into your business with the teams that you lead?

Marika Flatt:

I will latch on to my 20-something-year-old publicist and really want to mentor them, because I see so much of myself in some of them and it really inspires me to put in some extra time and nurturing into them, because I see I see the the real base instincts of a great book publicist in them and I want to really nurture that in a way that allows them to continue to grow. And you know, we, pr by the book, is a bigger team than that company was. You know, for a long time that company was only three people, until we started growing it, and we're a bigger team than that. So I probably don't have as many opportunities to just completely hand something off to those young publicists, but I do hand off things that they can own and oversee. So, whether it's, you know, something like, we built our author to influencer program in 2019 and launched it in 2020. And that's basically our give back to the literary community. It's kind of a DIY program that we developed where there's a lot of workshops in there. There's something like 70 workshops that I created.

Marika Flatt:

So I'm in every single video and once we got that up and running, I was able to hand that off to one of our younger people and she runs that now because it's now, because it's it's it.

Marika Flatt:

We're not creating new taped sessions necessarily, we just do monthly education and she does those interviews. So that's an example of something that you know, that's something she can own and do, and she knows that I'm here if she ever needs me to, to come back in. And and then we have another program that I was able to hand off to another one of our assistant publicists, called Next Level PR, which is it's a program that's very budget conscious for someone who wants to extend a campaign on a very minimal level, and she's the publicist that oversees that. So, again, able to say this is yours, own it, love it, take care of it, nurture it, let me know when you need help with it. And so I do try to find those types of programs within PR by the book to assign to younger people and let them, let them oversee them and grow them and make some decisions on their own with that decisions on their own with that.

Dr. William Attaway:

I love the intentionality of that. You know of looking for things that you can use to build up leaders, to build up team members. I think that's so important. Going back just a little bit, you mentioned that your extended family were not completely clear on what a publicist was. I imagine some of our listeners might not be as well. Could you explain what you do at PR by the Book on the high 30,000 foot view of what you do and how this benefits the authors that you work with?

Marika Flatt:

no-transcript out about the book, because if they don't, as I say, it's going to sit there on the proverbial online shelf and nobody's going to know that it exists. So they hire us to get the word out about their book and most times it's around the launch of the book, so pub date, publication date. However, we have worked on projects where somebody released a book, for whatever reason. They didn't do any publicity around it and they know that they need to promote it, give it another life, in order to build up that piece of their brand and maybe take their brand to the next level. They need to build up their name recognition and sometimes, as you know, the book is part of their business, so it might be a calling card because maybe they want to build up their speaking career, maybe they hybrid published this time and they would like to be able to land an agent in the future to traditionally publish books in the future. So when authors come to us, they have a wide variety of goals and that's something I like to discuss with them in that introductory free discovery call that I do with them is what do you want to get out of promoting this book? And it could be any of those things that I just said.

Marika Flatt:

It could also be book sales and I always say to people you know, we don't measure our success through book sales because there's too many variables that we don't have control over Distribution and sales. You know, how good does an author do when we get them on an interview? Do they say the name of the book enough? And you know, I'll listen to, especially podcasts that our clients do, and I'll go back to them with a couple of tips. And usually my number one tip for them is you never said the title of your book. You said when I wrote my book, you know when I was researching my book, and so I tell them, you know, say when I wrote Dear Dana, you know I did this. Or say you know it was a long process to put together the Power of who and when I did that you know. So they can merge and blend that book title in. But that could be a reason why an interview results in sales, or doesn't, you know? Because maybe the listener really loved what that expert said, but they only heard the book title at the very end and they were just busy writing notes of what they learned and then they didn't realize what the book was, to go buy it.

Marika Flatt:

So I always tell authors we measure our success through media exposure, and that's the name of the game, that's our lane, that's what we live and breathe, those are the relationships we have. So we're measuring, we're looking at that media exposure report and at the end of every month okay, are we where we want to be? Do we need to pivot a little bit? Do we need to use a different hook and angle? That's more timely? And so we're constantly looking at those things and we're not looking at book sales. That's up to them.

Marika Flatt:

They can keep their finger on the pulse of that with their publisher, or if they're self-publishing, they are their own publisher. I mean, that's the essence of self-publishing, and so we encourage them. You know you do that. You can track your book sales. We're going to track the media exposure that we land for an author and, like I said, sometimes publishers will hire. We have a lot of great relationships with publishing houses where if they've got a really big book that they need some help with in a season, they'll assign it to us. Or maybe they just have a really busy season and they need help on a couple of books, and so you know, we have those good ongoing relationships with publishing houses as well, and it has been 23 years, so most of our clients come to us either through repeat business or word of mouth, and we like it that way because we love those long-term relationships.

Dr. William Attaway:

I love that and I think there's such value in hiring an expert like you to do this. You know, I talk to a lot of people who are writing a book or writing a second book or whatever, and they're like, yeah, I'm just doing it myself. I'm like what's your plan, what's your strategy? Right, and so often it's well, you know we'll put it up on Amazon and you know people will find it. That's hope, and hope is not a strategy. Careful there.

Marika Flatt:

Hope is good in certain situations, but not necessarily when it comes to book publicity exactly one of the things I often tell them.

Dr. William Attaway:

When we did my last book, I went on a podcast book tour and I was on about 85 shows that year talking about the book, and now I'm scared to go back and listen to see how many times I said the title of the book. I'm like, oh man, did I, did I say it enough, you know? But that's such a simple, actionable piece of advice. I I love that.

Marika Flatt:

Yeah, and.

Dr. William Attaway:

I hope our listeners, wherever they are in this journey, are saying, oh yeah, okay, that's important, Don't lose that.

Marika Flatt:

Right, you know jot that down.

Dr. William Attaway:

That's so critical, right? What other mistakes do you see authors make as they are stepping into this journey?

Marika Flatt:

Yeah. So one of the mistakes that doesn't have anything to do with media training like the last one kind of falls in the media training category. But one of the mistakes that doesn't have anything to do with media training like the last one kind of falls in the media training category. But one of the mistakes is when they think that they're going to just shoot for the stars right away and they just want top tier media outlets. And I'm very honest and very transparent with authors in that discovery meeting to you know, I've prepped for the meeting, so I know what their book is, I know a little bit about their project and I'm very honest with setting those expectations of what media they are appropriate for. And they might just be starting out and this might be a debut book for them and they might have a little bit of a following on social media, but this is their first book. And so I prepare them and say, listen, we're going to start with your local and regional media because we need to get some clips that we can embed in our pitch to bigger media, because bigger media is going to want to know that you can handle yourself, whether it be in front of a camera or just in front of a microphone. They need to know that you can carry yourself. So we're going to start with your local press and you need to really appreciate those opportunities, because you can't just look at that as, as you know, oh well, that's my local tv station. No embrace that, you know. I mean, get excited about that, and so that's one thing. Another thing would be if they feel like they're too busy to do what's needed for some outlets.

Marika Flatt:

So what I mean by that is you know, there's some really great online digital publications out there that want to do a Q&A with an author. So they want to send over, let's just say, 10 interview questions and have the author answer those and have them be original. And so you know, here's another tip I tell authors get your iPhone, open up your notes app voice in your answers to those questions, send them to yourself via email, put them into a Google Doc and clean them up, and that is the quickest, easiest way, because then also, you're just speaking it, you're very authentic when you're answering those questions. And now, greg, don't just send that straight version, because it's going to need some editing, because I do that myself, you know, for different things, especially you mentioned the travel writing. I'll do that, for my first draft is I'll just open up that notes app and I'll just voice in the highlights of you know, like you're my friend If you say to me, mariko, what is your favorite place in the Florida Keys?

Marika Flatt:

And I just want to tell you all about my pick and why. I'm just going to voice it in like that and just tell you.

Marika Flatt:

Here's why you need to go to such and such place. And then, of course, I'll put that in the google doc and clean it up as the next draft, and it probably goes through three drafts. But you know, that's just an easy way for an author to provide what that media outlet is looking for and it really doesn't take that much time. So you and I could talk about this all day. I don't want to use up all of our time going and talking about the mistakes that I see, but you know that's we just have to. You know our clients hire us because we're experts in this field you mentioned that earlier and we want them to take our advice and know that we're not going to steer them wrong. We're not going to put them on a media outlet that's not appropriate for their messaging, but we're going to find the outlets that we believe you know have an audience that needs to hear their messaging, and sometimes it might take a little work or effort or time on their part, but you know they need to be ready for that.

Marika Flatt:

You said you did 85 podcast interviews. That took a good chunk of your time. That year.

Dr. William Attaway:

Yeah, it did, but it was worth it. You know, because of the relationships that I built, the networking that I was able to do, even with those podcast hosts that then turned into other things. You know, not to mention the reach Right, because when you're guesting on other people's platforms whether it's media, whether it's podcast, whatever you're leveraging their audience Right Without you having to build it.

Marika Flatt:

Yeah.

Dr. William Attaway:

They're inviting you into their system.

Marika Flatt:

Yes, I love that I can't tell you how many times I'm talking to an author in that initial discovery meeting and they'll say I just loved hearing you on that publishing podcast. You know, so I've done podcasts with, let's just say we as an example, we've got some hybrid publishers that we've worked with for years and we're kind of in their top three book publicist recommendations when they give it to their authors because they don't provide publicity in-house. And so you know, I people will say I loved that interview that you did with Greenleaf, you know, and it was maybe like five years ago and they're still finding it and they're still listening and getting a lot of good information out of it. And so, yeah, I mean those come back around for sure for us. And you know, pr by the book is out there on the line in the World Wide Web, because I've been doing those types of things for over two decades in one form or fashion.

Dr. William Attaway:

Well, you know I often say that you know you hire a coach when you want to go farther than you can go on your own and you want to get there faster you know, because they're going to bring their knowledge base to bear.

Dr. William Attaway:

That's what y'all do. Y'all are bringing your knowledge base of decades of experience to bear for your authors or for the publishers Say, hey, we're going to help you go farther and get there faster. We want to help you take that shortcut that we can see, and it's hard to see the whole picture when you're in the frame. You know, you guys are on the outside, you can see the entire picture. You can say, hey, wait a minute, you probably haven't seen this, but we have Let us help you. Yes, I think that's so needed.

Marika Flatt:

One of my very first authors that I worked with as a baby book publicist in the late 90s, who ended up being a bestselling author. His name is Roy Williams and he's an advertising guru and he I still use one of his quotes that he says you can't read the label from inside the bottle. And I credit him for that.

Marika Flatt:

But I love that quote because you know whether it's I'm trying to write a pitch or I'm trying to write my own bio or you know any of those things. It's so hard to see the big picture from inside the bottle because you, as the author, yeah, you're in there and you know that book backwards and forwards and that is your baby and you know that content and you will know that content better than any book publicist. But that's different than knowing how to package it for media outlets to be able to pay attention and utilize it.

Dr. William Attaway:

So, so good, and that's why you have resources like the Author to Influencer you know this DIY program that you give me Seven plus resources inside. I mean that's crazy yeah.

Marika Flatt:

Like the time that it took to pour all that in Wow, month, maybe a year and a half period of time where I just thought, okay, because by that point I had been in the business 20 years not PR by the book, hadn't been around for 20 years, but I've been in the business for 20 years and I just thought what do authors need to know? You know, and who can I pull in to talk about this that knows more about that topic than I do? Those were the interviews. So, for instance, that could be the importance of good book cover design, for instance. So a lot of them were me interviewing an expert in a category related to book or you know how to get something done. But if it had to do with publicity and promotion, I was teaching on, like how to write a great press pack or how to how to um, I did a media training series so how to do a great interview. So it was a combination of the two Either I was teaching a course or I was interviewing somebody that could talk about a topic outside of just strict book publicity. So, yeah, that was.

Marika Flatt:

I call it our nonprofit because I just feel like that about that program that you know it's not. It's not what we're out there making a living on, but it is a resource that authors can tap into and it's extremely inexpensive can tap into and it's extremely inexpensive. And that's what I tell people. You can't hire a book publicist because not everybody can. You know it's an investment. So if you can't invest in a book publicist, go on to authortoinfluencercom and learn how to do what you can do yourself. And we do have a member benefit in there that if somebody goes through the program and they think, okay, there's just like these three or four things, I just I can't do them myself, I need help, Then they can get into a block of time, like an hourly block of time, where we can define okay, this person needs help with these three things, these five things. And we can help them.

Marika Flatt:

You know, on an hourly basis. Blocks.

Dr. William Attaway:

That's good.

Marika Flatt:

So they're not stuck out there, you know, on the boat in the middle of the ocean all on their own, oh, and they can get into a private Facebook group for the author to influencer, where they can use that as a resource. Their fellow authors are in there. They can ask a question.

Dr. William Attaway:

We go in there literally the day of and answer a question that's so good, so many resources that you are using and different methodologies that you're using to equip, to empower these authors to get their message out right, to put this thing that they have, that they believe so strongly in, out into the world to most people so people can actually see it right.

Marika Flatt:

I love that yeah, well, it's not one size fits all you know no, it can't be.

Dr. William Attaway:

That's exactly right.

Dr. William Attaway:

I love that yeah I want to ask you this you know you have to lead at a different level today than you did back in the days when you were working for somebody else, you know, or when you started your company, and the same thing is going to be true five years from now. You have continued to level up and you're going to have to continue to do that, because your clients and your team are going to need more from you. They're going to ask more from you. How do you stay on top of your game? How do you level up with the new leadership skills that your clients and your team are going to need you to have in the days to come?

Marika Flatt:

So I love that question, william, because the first answer would be that, well before I met you, um five years ago, um, we started working with a business coach, and I heartily recommend that for any business, because it's almost like I'm sorry, four years ago, not five years ago it was the very end of 2021. When we started working with that coach, it was like we here again, you can't read the label from inside the bottle, right? It was like my husband and I we run PR by the book together. We had taken PR by the book as far as we could in our being in the container and not seeing the label from outside the bottle. We had done all that we could in terms of our innovation at the time, and so I just can't say enough about the importance of hiring a business coach and having that longevity, because we are about to wrap up four years and that program and that coach was able to continually to continually help us innovate, and so that's one thing. And then the other thing is that I am just a major, major fan of continuing education.

Marika Flatt:

I spend a decent amount of my work week every week listening to podcasts, reading articles, reading nonfiction, and if I go out and do a walk, because I try to get moving a little bit five or six days a week. I'm either listening to a podcast and, let me tell you, even if I'm going out for a walk, I have a piece of paper and a pen with me, because if I'm listening to your podcast, for example, I'll just get like ideas just shooting in my head and I write them down straight away, because I don't want to, you know, think I'll get back from my 45 minute walk and then I'll write something down. No, I'm writing it down right away and then, yeah, I just I start my morning routine. I have a very specific morning routine. So after I get myself ready, I get my cup of coffee, I have a chair in the front room of my house. It's very calm and peaceful, I have some pretty little lights in that room and I spend about the first hour reading things.

Marika Flatt:

Whether it be so, I love, love, love my little book, morning Fuel that sits by my desk. It's well, it's not a desk, it's a little chair and a table and it's one quick little passage that I read each morning and then I might journal a little bit, and then I'm reading news of the day. I have two news aggregates that I read every morning real quick, and then I'll read an article or two that has come through that. You know, I'm not going to take the time during my workday once I get behind my computer to read an article, so I'm going to save it in my inbox and then I'm going to go back and when I have that, one hour before I go to my computer, I'm in the kitchen by myself cooking dinner, I'm listening to one If I am, you know, having to commute somewhere, let's say, you know, downtown Austin, and I've got 30, 45 minutes, that's enough time for a webinar or a podcast.

Marika Flatt:

And so I'm constantly, constantly educating myself in that way, because things are changing all the time and, like you referenced, we have to continue to innovate, we have to continue to grow, we have to continue to learn. The only constant in small business is change.

Dr. William Attaway:

That's right.

Marika Flatt:

We just, and we have to model that for our teams too.

Dr. William Attaway:

Yeah, that's so well said. I love the intentionality that you pour into this that you don't expect one day you're just going to have all the time you need to learn and grow. No, you're going to make it happen and it's a daily rhythm for you and, I hope, our listeners. If they are not in the habit of doing something similar to that, they would make a commitment. You can do this. You're in charge, right? Don't let what you can't do stop you from doing what you can. Oh, I don't have an hour. Okay, great, take 15 minutes. Something is better than nothing.

Marika Flatt:

Don't let what you can't do stop you from doing what you can. And William, another thing that really hit me hard these last few years really spending time on those webinars and podcasts podcasts is that it's not just the time that it takes to listen, it's also the time that it takes to implement the ideas that you got.

Marika Flatt:

Well said Well said I guess it just like hit me a few years ago of like well, you know what, If I'm not slowing down enough to implement these ideas, then they're just going off into the ether also.

Dr. William Attaway:

Yes, information never leads to transformation. Information plus execution, leads to transformation.

Marika Flatt:

Yes.

Dr. William Attaway:

You've got to allow and intentionally block time to do something with what you're learning. So so, well said, I love it Right.

Marika Flatt:

Yeah, I blocked out Monday afternoons on my calendar, you know, like two to four every Monday. That's set aside as a recurring calendar, that's, I just have it blocked out as ownership duties and I have that two hours where I am holding myself accountable to going to those notes and those ideas and working on implementation, because and granted, I do that stuff more than just two hours a week, but that two hours is set aside to remind me, okay, monday afternoon is my time to work on the business, even if I only am implementing those ideas, those two hours a week. It's set there, you know, and it's calling to me.

Dr. William Attaway:

That's so good. Again, the intentionality of time blocking. I'm going to set this aside. This is just for this and I'm not going to let something else overrun it. I'm not going to let the urgent crowd out the important. So so good.

Marika Flatt:

And you have to protect it, right, because?

Dr. William Attaway:

Well, if you don't, who will?

Marika Flatt:

You know I do that with my exercise too. You know, three days a week I use my lunch break to go to an exercise class and I protect that fiercely Because if I didn't, there's a million other things that can take over and I need that brain break. I call it a shower for my brain. I didn't come up with that. One of my employees did over a decade ago. But that's what it is. You know, I'm in that class and I'm thinking about things. I'm problem solving you know, it's just.

Marika Flatt:

It's a very important time for me to get away from my computer, in the middle of the day too.

Dr. William Attaway:

You know, for those of us who are staring at screens all day long, taking a break away from the screens is more important than I think we might remember sometimes yes, yes, absolutely you know, one of the things that we share in common is a love for books. Obviously, I have a little bit of a book problem, you can see it. Yes, you know. Is there a book that, in your journey, has made an incredibly big difference that you would recommend to the leaders who are listening?

Marika Flatt:

So I have two that I want to mention and they're worlds apart from each other, but one of them and this is actually a children's book is the Little Engine that Could. I love it, engine that could. About 15 years ago I had a mentor come back in and do a training day for our team and she was the book publicist that I looked up to when I started my career. You know, I saw her speak and I said that's her name's Jodi Blanco, and I said that's who I want to be when I grow up. And she came back and did a workshop and she said PR by the book is the little engine that could.

Marika Flatt:

In this industry you all work so hard. You are going to pull that train up that mountain and you are going to chug, chug, chug and you're not the biggest and you're not the most well-known, but you are going to work harder than any other train out there. And that visual stuck with me and I bought myself that book and it sits on my bookshelf and I remember that we are the little engine that could and we do work. I'll say we work the hardest and we work the longest and the most creatively to get that train up the mountain for our clients. So that's one, but I will tell you that about a year plus ago I listened to Unreasonable Hospitality by Will Cadera.

Dr. William Attaway:

Will Cadera yes.

Marika Flatt:

And you know, I just, I don't know. I just happened across it and I put it in my Audible and I just voraciously absorbed that book and I took notes and I was constantly you know every chapter writing things down. It was giving me those ideas and I have told so many people I should be the book publicist for that book because everywhere I go and it's especially especially comes up in my side hustle with Texas Lifestyle Magazine when I travel and I'm talking to people in the hospitality industry. But I will tell you that there were so many things that it gave me thoughts and ideas on for PR by the book and we're not in hospitality, that's not our industry, but I just soaked up so much from that book.

Dr. William Attaway:

Such a great read. Such a great read. Yeah, you know, you've been running PR by the book, you and your husband, for decades a couple of decades, you know and it's very easy sometimes for people on the outside to look in at a company like PR by the book and say, wow, you know, because we're looking at the highlight reel, we're looking at social media, we're looking at what's online, and it's easy sometimes to look and say, oh man, their journey's just been up and to the right, or like they've never really struggled, like I struggle, they've never dealt with the problems that I deal with as a small business owner, and, of course, we know the fallacy in that. And so I want to ask you this question with that in mind If I had the ability to snap my fingers and solve one problem in your business right now, what would you want that problem to be?

Marika Flatt:

Say that I want authors to understand the long-term benefits of promoting themselves.

Marika Flatt:

I find that as a struggle because authors come to us and they're thinking of this four to six month window and they're thinking, okay, I know I've got to promote this book for the next four to six months, but we have two clients that have been with us consistently for over three years each, for over three years each.

Marika Flatt:

And that is the type of relationship that I love to have with authors. We've got a lot of clients that have been with us for a year but the majority of PR by the book clients are thinking in terms of such a short-term window and I do my best to explain to them all the benefits of long-term promotion. And, like we talked about before, we have a lot of different programs that we customize where it's not as much of an investment as people, you know, drop down to other levels for maintenance and things like that. But I would love, I would love to eventually, you know, solve that problem where, when authors come to us, they think, okay, I'm going to see this as an investment in my career, in my business, just like I, you know, paid the bills for electricity. You know, one of my favorite quotes was from Bill Gates, and he said if I only had two dollars left, I'd spend one on PR.

Marika Flatt:

You know, it's just like that's, that is a cost of doing business or having this part of my career. And you know, and those two authors that have been with us for three years, yeah, we've dropped down to a very low maintenance for them for a lot of the time that they've been with us. But we've also gone up and down, you know, up to promote something big and then down to just kind of even out and then up again, you know, and so we work with them for whatever those needs might be, for that continual promotion. But think about it, think about all the companies for that continual promotion. But think about it, think about all the companies.

Marika Flatt:

You know Coca-Cola, they are constantly. They have an entire PR department that for years they have done PR month in and month out. And think about it, some months would be busier than others on the earned media side of things. Some months would just be planting seeds, but it's always happening and it's year after year, month after month, pr, pr, pr. So yeah, I'm constantly rolling that over in my mind, thinking how do we help these authors create a plan where they are willing to keep that investment as just a regular cost of doing business?

Dr. William Attaway:

Just like you would think about marketing. Right, that's cost of doing business. You've got to be investing in that. If you're not, how will people find out about you? This is similar. I love that. Thinking bigger, thinking longer, is a decision that I have never regretted. But thinking short boy, I've regretted that more than once. I love that you shared that. Thanks for that. That's very helpful.

Marika Flatt:

Yeah, well, I love that quote that you just said I might be quoting you in my discovery meetings.

Dr. William Attaway:

Very little is original. Most of the time, I'm sharing what I've learned, you know. Yeah, I mean, we're spenders. That's, I think, what we all do. That's it. That's it. We're always constantly learning. Marika, this has been such a masterclass today in everything we've talked about. I'm so grateful to you for sharing with such honesty and such generosity from these decades of experience that you bring to this topic and from your own leadership journey.

Marika Flatt:

I know our listeners are going to want to stay connected to you and learn more from you and more about PR by the book. What's the best way for them to do that? Well, prbythebookcom is our website. There's a lot of information there. They can email info at PRbythebookcom to receive our welcome deck, and we've also got author2influencercom for the DIY solution for authors, and we're out on every single social media platform as PR by the book.

Dr. William Attaway:

We'll have all those links in the show notes.

Marika Flatt:

Great.

Dr. William Attaway:

Marika, thank you so much.

Marika Flatt:

This has been a joy for me too. I just want to thank you because I just really loved being a listener to your podcast. So I just, I think, a listener to your podcast, so I think you're a very wise person and great interviewer, so thanks for having me on.

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Dr. William Attaway

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