Yeah, it is generally a red flag when we hear from the author him/herself, rather than the publisher or a hired publicist.
Hmmm. I'm in the position of having to contact reviewers and talk show hosts and whatever myself. Praeger press is not generous with review copies, or with putting time into publicity (even compared to normal publishers.) And they certainly don't pay enough for me to hire my own publicist. When I contact people to offer review copies (at my own expense) how do I explain this without badmouthing Praeger. This is actually normal for academic presses. It is just that I believe my book has some value to a non-academic audience.
TB, I didn't mean to make it sound like we would never consider a book when it's the author who contacts us, or that it necessarily means the book isn't legit; all that it generally means is that the book is coming out from a press that doesn't do much publicity itself. For *us*, since we are a review publication with national distribution and readers with fairly middle-of-the-road tastes, we really tend to focus on the major publishers and the bigger of the independent houses, which means we rarely review books from academic presses, regional presses, or other companies that put out totally worthy and legitimate books. That's just us.
I don't know who you're contacting, but I wouldn't think you would need to explain why you're doing your own publicity for your book. It's not necessarily a bad thing -- it's a bit of a red flag for my publication, but might not be for others. (That said, please make sure your cover letter is scrupulously edited and proofread!)