Morning Brief — Tuesday, November 18
I was walking to the subway station this morning when I spotted an ad for American Airlines on the side of a bus that was promoting non-stop flights to London. Now, I live in New York City. Which begs the question: where exactly could a flight from New York to London stop?
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Yesterday, Publishers Weekly reported on the PubWest conference in Portland, noting that one popular panel was “Authors Breaking Out” that focused on three authors discussing book tours and online marketing. It’s great when authors are willing and able to promote their books, even better when they work hand-in-hand with publicists. Conveniently, Phenix & Phenix Literary Publicists recently posted some handy tips from an author about how authors can best work with book publicists. (The author, Wendy Kays, spoke about her book, Game Widow, on the Dr. Phil Show, so clearly something worked.)
Departure at PW?
Beth from Rodale just sent over a link to GalleyCat‘s post about a possible departure (Dick Donahue?) from Publishers Weekly.
Morning Brief — Tuesday, August 26
There’s been a lot of debate about Katie Holmes’ baggie jeans and whether they belong to Tom. The latest issue of US Weekly (yes, I read US Weekly) quotes a stylist confirming the jeans do indeed belong to the hubby. Which brings me to ask: if 5’9″ Katie is wearing 5’6″ Tom’s jeans, why does she need to roll up the cuffs?
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Oscar Villalon of the San Francisco Chronicle has become the latest book editor to depart (as of this Friday). Publishers Weekly reported yesterday that deputy editor Regan McMahon will likely take over the book section.
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For authors who may be considering blogging but don’t quite know what makes a good blog, here’s some insight about substance and tone from 43 Folders via BusinessWeek Online’s Blogspotting.
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Rebecca from Oxford University Press discusses the different types of medical / health blogs. Her breakdown will be helpful for those who work on these types of books.
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Yesterday’s Publishers Lunch excerpted a Poets & Writer’s interview by Jofie Ferrari-Adler with literary agent Molly Friedrich. As a book publicist, I naturally feel compelled to quote this from their exchange:
Q: Did you like doing publicity?
A: In my opinion, the two jobs that are the most exhausting in this business are the jobs of the foreign scout and the publicist. The reason is that there is never an end to the job. If you’re a scout, there is always another book you can cover, another house you can do well by, another report you can write. If you’re a publicist, for every eighty letters you write, and eighty ideas you try, there are seventy-nine that don’t work. But the only ones that the author hears about–and the editor hears about and your boss hears about–are the ones that work. It is a thankless and really difficult job. But I did it.
Morning Brief — Monday, August 4
I was going to trawl through my RSS reader this weekend to find some juicy publishing stories to blog about, but I ended up spending a good part of yesterday trying to fix my iPhone (twice as long as it took me to run 20 miles, in fact). Now that’s just wrong. Hope everyone had a good weekend.
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There’s been lots of talk about book trailers lately and about whether they’re worth doing. Today, Publishers Weekly reports that St. Martin’s book trailer for the paranormal romance Acheron has landed on YouTube’s most viewed list (with 113,000 views). Make that 113,001. So that’s what paranormal romance is …
Morning Brief — Monday, July 7
Two days off was fun — lots o’ time to run which was good because The Coach has us on a 40 mile a week base to prep for the fall. (And by “fall” I do, of course mean “marathons.”)
Hope everyone had a good Fourth!
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For those of you who haven’t heard, Jana Reiss is leaving Publishers Weekly. The new religion contact is Marcia Nelson. If you need but did not already receive the mailing address, you can contact: pwreligion[at]sbcglobal[dot]net.
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GalleyCat reports that CNBC just launched a new blog, Bullish on Books. Gloria McDonough-Taub is looking for business books as well as tips, pitches and excerpts.
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Social media guru Chris Brogan posts about the process of blogging – how do you find stories to blog about? How often do you blog? etc. It’s a very useful post for people who are considering blogging but who don’t know quite how to go about it.
Morning Brief — Tuesday, June 24
For those of you who didn’t receive the postcard, Salon’s New York office is moving. As of July 1, the address will be:
15 W 37th St
New York, NY 10018
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Kassia Krozser of Booksquare posts about why publishers should blog. She brings up a couple examples, bad and good: St. Martin’s page for Janet Evanovich and Simon & Schuster’s page for Judy Blume. Which reminds me, I was on the Penguin Group website the other day and saw the DK imprint has begun introducing staff members on their blog. I think that’s clever move — as someone who works in publishing, I’m always interested to know more about my colleagues. And for authors, agents and other people who are interested in the publishing industry, it’s a good way to get a peek into a publishing house.
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Phenix & Phenix Literary Publicists recaps the Landing Ink, Airtime and Blog Buzz in Today’s Changing Media Environment panel at the Writers’ League of Texas Agents & Editors conference over the weekend. Among the panelists: Ron Hogan (GalleyCat), Michael Merschel (Dallas Morning-News) and Sara Nelson (Publishers Weekly).
What makes a good book publicist?
Sarah Weinman (you know her from the Confessions of an Idionsyncratic Mind blog) just passed along this blog post / query from Sara Nelson at Publishers Weekly about what makes a good (book) publicist. If you want to chime in, click through to Nelson’s post to comment.
The life of a publicist
Louise from Viking Penguin just passed on this link from Publishers Weekly about a day in the life of a publicist. Who’s the lucky guy/gal who gets to farm out mailings to the mail room *and* takes less than 30 minutes to get to work?! (That’s a rhetorical question — the piece was written anonymously so I’m not going to probe.)
