Martketing idea

Are you a published author? Do you belong to a group? Do other published authors belong to the same group? Does your local news media pay any attention to their local authors or just the ones on the best seller list?
Here is what we did in Las Vegas to get some local recognition.
Our paper listed the top ten best sellers in fiction and non-fiction. They did special reports on books by the authors with name recognition such as Bill Clinton; John McCain; you get the idea. First we had a local book signing at a location and as usual sold one or two books, certainly not worth our time and effort. Then several of us in our group prepared letters to the newspaper applauding our local authors and listed some names and the titles of their books saying they were seen at the signing. We did that to add credibility to the letters. In the letter we asked why the paper did lit report on any of these local authors. With the letters and the envelopes prepared, we took the letters to friends and neighbors and asked them to sign the letters and then they were mailed. It only took about four or five of the letter (all different) to be received by the editor and the next thing that occurred was a section in the paper about some of us. The reporter went to the book store and found out who we were and contacted several. We sent them a book, personalized of course, and a short summary along with a short bio and we now have a continuing section in our paper title Local Authors featuring the book cover, the short synopsis and bio.