Rejection is my middle name

New Client

Hillary Homzie, a Tween author (I so want to call her the Tween Queen) and I will be working together soon. She just posted this sharp book trailer - he 8th grader made it for her (now I feel really old).

Check it out here

Spring isn't quite here, but

I'm feeling kind of sprung. Jobs are coming in, starting a couple this week...Megan Smolenyakx2 and her book, Who Do You Think You Are? is a fascinating look at how to figure out - just that - who are you, what is your family heritage. Working with Lorna Garano on this one - going for radio interviews.Megan is on the tube a lot, too.

Should be starting a tour for a forthcoming novel - yes, I like the challenge - early next week...details to follow.

Ongoing work for my dear Lynn Ponton and her first novel, Metis: Mixed Blood Stories, coming in April.

Happily ensconced in my new home office - plenty of heat, a wonderful dog to listen to snore frequently, and the space is getting more and more organized.

I promise this blog will become less boring as time goes on. Really

Love those Crime Fiction writers

Last year I had the pleasure of working with Barbara Pope, author of The Blood of Lorraine. Publicizing mysteries, or crime fiction can be daunting, but when it goes well, it's fun. I have read crime fiction since I was a teenager, and written about it for many years. Barbara's book transcends the genre, as they say, and offers readers a striking window into a time and place most of us aren't particularly familiar with - late 19th century northern France, bordering on Germany. What made Barbara's book fun to publicize? Well, it has that one element we need to take it outside of the box: a hook...and that hook was its theme of antisemitism of the era. So we learn, we are entertained, we leave just a bit wiser...and we have something besides simply a well-told story to use for pitching media.

If you visit Barbara's website, be sure to read her blog. She's been back to France in the dead of winter researching her next book, and she also talks about her return to her hometown of Cleveland, where I set up an event for her at AppleTree Books. (Thanks Jane!)

 

Back. Yes, it's true. After a year of website-mania and the utter collapse of said website before it EVEN went live, I have returned to the realm of book publicity..mucho changes, too. I've moved - not away far, and not away from the San Francisco Bay area, god no, but from the flats of west Berkeley to the hillside of underrated, under-loved, under-known El Cerrito. The office, after nearly 12 years was a bit stale. Plus, it just wasn't warm enough much of the time. And we all know how much I like warm. And I missed the dog.
I'm planning to post frequently, tips on how to cope with massive and ongoing changes in the world of boks and reading, paste links I like, get the ole FB presence amped (back) up, and rejoin the daily book publicity grind...
Talk soon.
Oh, new phone (thank you Sooo much, Comcast)
510-260-0230

It's a conundrum, for me anyway...

God, I vanish for a few, okay 6, months and look what happens, spam comments, which have been deleted and a whole freakin new typepad set-up that I know nothing about. Oh well, time to move on. As in, I want to get out of the office but EVERY year at this time I am torn between thinking I should be doing SOMETHING for a client and the fact that nobody else seems to be doing much of anything at work except probably like me, thinking about getting the hell out of the office. The guilt factor, people, the guilt factor...and of course, there's always SOMEONE who has SOMETHING that they want you do at the last minute, for christssake.

But overall there is a kind of stillness out there that is just begging me to respond. I have shopping to do, you know.

This year was a frazzled combination of wonderful and truly hideous. Two more control issue/money issue clients came along - please, do everyone, not the least of which would be yourself, a huge favor --if you are an author with these issues, just do not hire me. It's miserable - for you, for me, for the  world.

Lot's of lovely clients  also came around. I can't mention them all right now, but one whose initials are the same as mine will forever be dear to my heart.

Here's, in a nice, non sequitur way, a picture of the dog. And goodbye, for now.

Links for a foggy Monday

Yes, these links will brighten the day, I just know it. First, a link to the After Words (C-Span) interview with Tierney Cahill, a lovely client - well worth the time, believe me - you're the real deal, Tierney! And here is a link to my latest review in the Oregonian of Portland Noir - as with many short story collections, it's a very mixed bag...but when it's good, it's very good...
Otherwise, I think I'll just leave it here for now.

When good books go well

Oh poor neglected bloggie. Days rush by, moods are up, moods are down and one feels, well, sort of disengaged, virtually, that is...Since several of you - okay, a couple, seem to find the entries about publicity of interest, I have bee thinking about what I could write, after my masterpiece concerning what we can and can't do. Plus, I have a new mac mini and damn, it's SO FAST, GEE WHIZ, I never..
Anyway.
I was lucky enough to work on Eve Pell's downright enthralling memoir, We Used to Own the Bronx. I had a feeling from the start that this book would be a) fun to work on, b) of interest to many, and c) a hit, of sorts. I was right. The book has done very well and Eve also had much success in NYC recently. See her website for links galore.
As a publicist - and this blog's "name" is meant to be humorous but true, too, you get used to people saying no or worse, people saying nothing, when you try to get da media involved. But this time - and trust me kids, it really does happen fairly often - getting coverage was not akin to pulling teeth and banging head against wall. True, Eve is well known and friendly and articulate, but even so, in the end, it's about content - and timing, to be sure.
When you get to work with a book that hits a nerve - be it fiction or not, there has to be SOME angle, some way to capture the interest of the public and the media.The tricky part - okay, the depressing part - is that often we work on books that are extremely well written, deserve lot's of attention, have some cultural relevance, etc etc - but because they fall into a nebulous gray area - not topical, to literary, bad timing, people are just fucking stupid in the media...things don't happen, even though they should...
Eve's book  and its attendant success - at least from my perspective - is what keeps you going. I've always joked that I live vicariously through my cleints - but guess what? When it comes to the 9-5  (okay, 9-4) life, it's all too true.

Review time

I know, I know, it's always SO exciting when Rejection posts a new book review from the only place still allowing me space, The Oregonian. But try to contain yourselves, please. This is a review of a new novel by T. Jefferson Parker, The Renegades. You can read it here. The review is perhaps of mild interest because it points out a key issue for readers of mystery fiction: the ability to "suspend disbelief" and what authors do that makes it difficult, if not impossible. When we read crime fiction or mysteries, we know going in that much of what will happen in the story is not what would occur in real life - regular people don't turn into crack detectives and trap criminals or find missing loved ones. But when a skilled writer tells a story so convincingly we forget that it's not a fantasy, and the alternative universe we become submerged in is every bit as persuasive as the real life we actually lead. It takes a number of elements, expertly orchestrated for this to happen, and for me, a key one is plausible actions and dialog from characters, particularly the protagonist and supporting cast. In The Renegades, although Parker tells an amusing, sometimes exciting story, he falls flat on his face in this department. His lead protagonist doesn't act his age, nor does a 17 year old boy, who spouts off laughable lines and then does martial arts like Bruce Lee. Sorry, T, just couldn't buy it.

Enough already

Just as your car - at least out here in the vast West - becomes an extension of your home, the bloggie becomes a representation of your inner life. Or something like that. As a result of a 4:30am revelation - yes, one of those kind, I decided to take down that negative crap of recent weeks and start anew. It's still Rejection Central, of course, but I want to focus on tangibles. Like this: Eve Pell on KQED Forum - what a great interview about her book, We Used to Own the Bronx. I couldn't put it down when I read it in galley and had the feeling this would make a splash when it was published and damn if I wasn't right.
And let me call your attention to a bit of classic Tod Goldberg, from a post called This is what it means to say Tucson, Arizona. There's little I enjoy more than Tod's recounting his strange encounters whilst on the road.
That's it for now, stay tuned.

And what we can't/don't do

When you are a publicist, you deal with many different types of people. And since you often end up spending a considerable amount of time with them, you soon learn their particular strengths and weaknesses, much the way a teacher learns her students' abilities, or a management type comes to understand the dynamics of the work place around them. A cross section of society, then, is what we deal with. And like any widely diverse bunch of humanity, there are nice people, there are not-so nice  people and everything in between.
I've had clients who have had meltdowns, bad marriages, hissy fits, abusive behavior towards little ole' me and just plain general lameness. Thankfully, these people are not the norm - if they were I'm sure I'd be somewhere else by now.
As much as one wants to like all one's clients, (and many have gone on to become friends long after a job has ended) it's just not possible. Partly this is because  not everybody clicks and that's fine, but it's also a function of what the client thinks you should be and what you are in reality.
1) We are not your therapist. Yes, we will listen to your stories of stupid editors, low event turnouts, rude store employees, low sales, dashed hopes. But c'mon, we are here to enhance, not be prey to your vampiric needs. I had a client who complained that I wasn't giving them enough "compliments". I wasn't gushing over good reviews and I wasn't enthusiastic about what efforts they themselves were putting forth. Guess what? It's your fucking book, and you should be charging ahead, hired a publicist or not. It's not really about you - it's about doing the job and hopefully helping you.
2) We can't always read every word of your book. Yup. We do understand how much of you is in that book - we respect you immensely for writing it. We certainly want to be familiar with its content, its style, its quality - but you are not our only client. And to sit here and read every word of every book (although exceptions are not infrequent!) we are working on is flat out impossible - when would the work get done? The media won't read your book either. And that's where we can help. That's why we pitch you in a way that is enticing. Well, we try anyway.
3) The more you annoy us, the less we seem to be able to do. Funny, huh? Sounds unprofessional. Sounds childish. Sad perhaps, but true.
4) I've had many people think that by hiring me they will magically get reviewed. Just like that. Of course, now that hardly any of the traditional venues for books getting reviewed exist anymore, this may not be an issue much longer. It's true that sometimes it all falls into place, the editor listens to us - when we get their attention -- but most of the time the decsions are made regardess of our desires. Shocking, isn't it?
5) Despite all the above, don't forget that we live our work lives vicariously - through you. We get a real buzz when the NPR interview comes through. We are happy to get up at 7am on a Saturday morning to see your appearance on the morning news. We are thrilled to see the feature in the insert name here paper. Hell, we like to see the little "best bets" things that are sometimes all we can get for you.
6) We can't work those glorious miracles all the time, but trust me, we want to.