How to Make a Military Book a Bestseller — by the PR Pro Behind ‘Black Hawk Down’

By the time the book arrived, we bargained that readers would want to see the author. Mark had been the first American journalist to return to Somalia and he’d interviewed fighters on both sides. He’d built up a reputation as both a military expert and a real reporter’s reporter.

Eschewing the usual author tour of bookstores only, we sent Mark to more than 20 Army bases, placing him at signing tables at exchanges — often sandwiched between tube socks and camouflage. Although not a military guy himself, Mark soldiered through this long trek around the country and new fans turned out in droves.

But the military market alone was not going to do it. We needed significant media coverage to drive sales. I began working my own contacts at newspapers and at television and radio shows. I was getting decent results, but not the kind that would propel the book to best-sellerdom.

In order to place an author with media outlets, we publicists need to put ourselves inside the heads of producers and journalists. They are not going to cover a book just because they like it, or they like us. Rather, they need to know how the book is relevant to their readers and listeners — why they should care, and why they should care now.

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Black Hawk Down was problematic in this regard. Not only did everyone want to forget about the horrific Battle of Mogadishu, but on the surface it lacked relevance in our relatively peaceful, pre-9/11 world.

Stretching things a bit, I initially pitched the story by pointing out a fifth anniversary — not of the actual battle, which was an inconvenient five and a half years earlier. No, the neat five-year label belonged to the U.S. military’s pullout from the region.

We also tried pointing out that it was the longest-sustained firefight involving American troops since the Vietnam War — even surpassing any skirmishes in the then still-fresh Gulf War.

The response: crickets.

Buoyed by a front-page review in The New York Times Book Review (landed by Morgan and Judy, who met with the editor), I persevered. Yet I still grasped for relevance.

Suddenly, the answer appeared out of nowhere. On March 24, 1999 — just two days after Black Hawk Down had been published — President Clinton initiated Operation Allied Force, the NATO air campaign against Serbia.

What did this have to do with Somalia? As it turned out, everything. Clinton had inherited the situation in Mogadishu from his predecessor. Surely with those images in his mind, we posited, he made the decision to avoid putting boots on the ground.

I encouraged journalists and producers to make the connection and this led to two big broadcast bookings for Mark — Charlie Rose on PBS on March 31, followed by NBC’s Today show.

Black Hawk Down has now sold almost half a million copies in North America alone.

So what makes an international bestseller? A visionary publisher who has the credibility to generate buzz thanks to his track record. It takes a dedicated core market of readers who embrace the book and want to share it with the world. And it takes investment in a team of people who will think creatively and work out ways to get the author into the public eye.

It takes relevance to the day’s news. And most importantly, it takes the greatest piece of writing about combat I’ve ever read.

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