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Halloween's coming, which means it's time once again for Publicity Horror Stories. Send yours in today! Anonymity strictly guaranteed.
For starters, here's a creepy tale from a book review editor at a regional publication:
I occasionally get these nasty emails from self-published authors or authors whose books don't fit with what we cover. Here's one I got last week, from some sort of Ph.D. guy:
"Well, the books are in. Are you interested or not? I believe I have had enough of a career to merit a response."
It's always men who send these kinds of angry emails. When I was on maternity leave for 6 weeks with my last baby, some other guy was emailing me repeatedly, getting angry that I wasn't answering. Finally when I got back to work I told him that I'd been on maternity leave, he was like, "Oh, sorry. So will you review my book?"
Below is an email exchange between a book publicist (BP) and a publisher (PUB), who advertised for publicity help on Craigslist.
* * *
I do book publicity - but one would have to know what exactly these books are before knowing if one could help. Can you send more information? BP
Hi BP and thanks for the email. I checked your site out. Anyways, if you are able to do some book publicity, I do have a few authors who need the help, but right now, I was hoping you could focus on just one for now. My author is also a [local] author and her debut novel is a fiction based narrative called, [TITLE]. It's about a woman who [is remarkably similar to a character in "Heroes"]. The book also is about a guy who [is remarkably similar to another character in "Heroes"], but that's all I will say for now! Their lives intersect and well....it becomes a sad surrealistic tale of craziness and love. I love it.
Anyways, I would love to hear your thoughts on what to do with [Author]. My idea would be to get her ten bookstore interviews/book signings in the [local] area, and/or 5 book club meet and greets where she has a chance to direct sale her book.
After this, I was thinking to get her twenty interviews on talk radio/online radio/ and reviews on websites across the net.
So this is all I would need for now. I would like her to maybe hit up some comic shops too....her book kinda falls into the super hero power category.
What do you think? If you are interested, please let me know most of all what you CAN ACTUALLY do and by what time frame and finally what that would cost. Do you accept payments/commission, or a combination of these and a flat fee maybe? If you work with me, I got four other authors who will need your services.
Let me know and thank you so much for responding to my ad either way. Take care. PUB
I hope to hear from you very soon!!So, all very interesting. Perhaps I can help - but I must see the book first - can you send me a copy? I will return it to you if you like. I just can't start jobs without knowing more about what I am getting into. Let me know what you think, BP
I would love to send you a copy of the book. I am attaching it as a .pdf format. Please do me a favor and even if you can't do anything for her on a marketing basis, would you provide a small review or opinion so that I can use it on her amazon book listing and my website? Let me know. Thank you> PUBHi, started reading it - it did keep me going. But I need the actual book - are you sending that? BP
I can send the actual book once we are in some kind of agreement. I hope you understand I just gave you a free copy and once we are in agreement with a pay, I'll send you a copy of the book and subtract it's cost out of your price for work. If you need a book cover, I can send you that as well, unless you have some other reason for wanting the book? Let me know. I am glad to answer any questions you might have and thanks so much for reading it!!! :). I appreciate that and I know [Author] will too. Be kind and give her a review if you get through it and that would be awesome. Take care. PUBPUB, it is traditional in doing publicity to see and have a copy of that which you are publicizing - content is of course king, but how the book itself looks and is designed are important as well. If I were to help you, I would need several copies to use - we can't expect people to read a pdf all the way through.
Okay?
Best regards,
BP
Ok, fair enough. I understand. I will send you what you need once we are in contractual agreement and also you can let me know exactly what the books are going to be used for. I hope that m
Further to my previous post--and egged on by my friend Stefanie, the artistic, cultural & now literary doyenne of Schuyler, VA--I sent Dr E the following message:
Inquiring minds want to know:
- Did you often cut off horse legs?
- Why must the legs be put outside to "weather"?
- Most important: Are there many more in the backyard?
Under the header "Cadaverous," Dr E responded:
Well, Bella, it goes something like this:
In human surgery, rubber cadavers are made to hone stereoscopic skills like arthroscopy. No such luck in equine field. As such, to hone and retain skills, cadaver limbs can be harvested off horses that have died for other reasons. They are typically frozen and then thawed for practice.
I thawed this limb for practice but made the mistake of doing so on a weekend when I was on call. I got called in repeatedly and as such the limb was past its best, so I decided that it would not go to waste if I allowed time and microbes to ravage the soft tissue, leaving me with a nice anatomic specimen that could then be further cleaned (with acetone etc. to de-grease). Such specimens are helpful when explaining to a client a problem with a structure in the limb, since the anatomy is so different from a human.
I am completely at a loss as to whether there would be another limb. I never thawed more than two at a time, and in the majority of instances it was one at a time only due to time constraints. The only consolation I offer you is that the extreme length of time and overwintering the bones have encountered will render them no more noxious that digging in the garden.
I trust that satisfactorily answers your questions. I was talking to a friend and expressing amazement that you had a blog. We then discussed how amazing it is that we become so familiar with various things in our lives (like the use of cadaver tissue for learning) that it becomes part of our 'normal' and that we fail to recognize how bizarre it is in someone else's 'reality'!!!
As my uncle would have said--all a matter of perspective--his famous example being: "The grass is greener on the other side of the fence due to the palisade effect and does not look so green when you look down at your feet and see a mixture of brown earth and green stems!!!!"
Murder mystery writers may be interested to know that the horse leg in question still has some hair on it and is a bit smelly. Hence I covered it with more leaves, capped by a large stone to deter critters. And just in case Dr E's memory is faulty, I'm not doing any more digging in the 3-foot strip between the stone wall and back fence.
Email exchange between me and the previous tenant of my Gracious Home in Rhinebeck, a British equine surgeon who relocated to France.
Me: While tidying up the yard, I picked up a rectangular white plastic bin that was sitting upside down between the stone wall & back fence, to the right of the shed. Underneath it I was surprised to find a horse's hoof and foreleg protruding from a pile of leaves (now buried under more leaves, capped by a rock). I was wondering whether you know anything about this.
Horse doc: Oh I am so very sorry about the leg in the yard. I put them out to weather and they have been there a very long time. I completely forgot. Very sorry. They could prob go in normal trash now.
Them??? I am so not digging any deeper. Nor will I be putting any horse legs, weathered or not, out for the Monday trash pick-up.
From a movie writer/director:
I had to go to a festival screening of my film and answer audience questions afterwards. Suddenly the reel came on upside-down and backwards. Then it stopped. Then it came back on, but with only half the picture. Then it stopped. Half the audience had trickled out by then, to go to other screenings.
I just wanted to run away and hide in a manhole. But at these things you have to stand there as though it couldn’t matter less, and everything’s fine.
This person has completed another feature-length film, which is making the festival rounds. All the projectors have worked perfectly. So far.
It's Halloween, time once again for Publicity Horror Tales. This one's from the author of a bestselling social satire, which I'll call NOVEL.
I gave a talk about NOVEL. This 60-ish woman came and sat right at the front, all eagerness and taking notes. When we got to the Q&A session, it soon became clear that she was furious that I had had a success with NOVEL, and that she could have written the same book only much, much better. She went on and on. The moderator tried to shut her up, but the audience sort of enjoyed the coliseum aspect of it.
She said, "The thing is, I could have written this book."
I said to her, “I'm sure you could have. But the difference is, you didn’t and I did.”
From Anytown, USA:
Anonymized to protect the clueless.
An author is invited to present a workshop about creative writing at a writing center with more than 100 members. Said author accepts, then later backs out for reasons that are not the fault of the writing center.
Author, whose book is about...CREATIVE WRITING, then emails writing center and asks that the review copy of his book be returned to him, rather than left in the library of writing center with more than 100 members.
Halloween's coming, which means it's time once again for Publicity Horror Stories. Send the most spine-tingling tales from your crypt, whether you're an author, publicist, media escort, bookseller, journalist, reader. . .whatever.
Confidentiality 100% guaranteed.
Email: blog(at)bellastander.com.
This just in from an independent book publicist:
Few things are as scary as a client new to the book business, where there's an inverse proportion of knowledge to dreams. A sense of enthusiastic unreality, if you will.
The book? A nonfiction title discussing political movements among under-30 voters.
The company? Owned and operated by a 28-year-old.
The goals? Publicity for a book by a new author and new company.
The task? A press conference. Old style, with big-name talkers introducing the author.
When advised about the lack of worth for this type of publicity for a book -- after all, press conferences are for court cases, politicians and the Beatles -- the client insisted on forging ahead.
Hours upon hours spent on the set-up: calling dozens of media, finding the perfect room, massaging the message.
The day came and drew dark. Podium, microphone, rows of folding chairs. The moderately famous person talked. So did the author. Then a few polite questions from a modest turnout of media. Then lights out.
The next day, the fury of the book company's young 'un: "What happened? What went wrong?" the beast railed to the hapless publicist.
"Did we not just have a press conference?" she wondered.
Turns out the book company owner wanted a press conference just like in the movies, with photographers flashing bulbs and rushing the podium, and reporters shouting over one another. In other words, complete pandemonium.
So to all of you gentle book people:
Beware of the non-knowing...they will eat your brains.
Neighbors pray at a makeshift memorial outside Jennifer Hudson's family home. Photo from Examiner.com.
As yet no one has responded to my call for publicity horror stories. I guess everything went great this year, notwithstanding the plummeting economy and layoffs at publishers and newspapers. But Darling Husband came to my rescue (as always), pointing my attention to The Bad Pitch Blog.
Y'know how you're supposed to make your book or product newsworthy by relating it to some current event? (You don't? Well, you are, and a great way to monitor news related to your topic, and journos/blogs covering it is to sign up for Google Alerts.)
Well, some enterprising ghoul decided to shill a shotgun rack (!!!) by tying it to the ghastly murders of singer Jennifer Hudson's mother, brother and nephew. Here's how the original press release (since amended in response to general outrage) blasts off:
Chicago, IL (MMD Newswire) October 28, 2008 -- Tragedy strikes in a Chicago home leaving 3 people dead and an Oscar winner forced to identify the bodies of her family.
Jennifer Hudson's mother and brother were gunned down in their home Friday. Could an invaluable device have saved their lives? It's called The BackUp and it is a bedside shotgun rack.
In addition to its complete absence of taste, the press release omits some salient facts:
- Chicago bans handguns (and presumably shotguns).
- Guns should be locked away in a home with children.
- Per this timeline, the murderer hit the adult victims by shooting through a door around 8-9:00 a.m., when neither was in bed.
A
Chicago Tribune story contains this tone-deaf bit of spin:
A. John Peters, president of Home Back-Up Protection, said Tuesday that he didn't issue the news release to capitalize on the Chicago family's pain.
"I really feel sorry for these people," said Peters, 60. "I just don't want this to happen to someone else. Sometimes I think people need to be hit between the eyes."
I had so much going on yesterday that I never got to read the papers. So this morning I ate breakfast over Tuesday's New York Times. Then over my second mug of tea, I turned to today's paper. I pulled off the first section, flattened it and suddenly burst into tears. Just below the fold on the front page was a horrific photo and accompanying headline, Equestrians’ Deaths Spread Unease in Sport. I won't reproduce the picture here because I can't bear to keep seeing it.
It took me a few minutes to calm down enough to pick up the paper again, but I couldn't even glance at the front page. I opened to the middle of the A section, hoping to read political news. On the right-hand page there were stories about the campaign, but on the left was the continuation of the equestrian feature, with diagrams of monster cross-country jumps and photos of more crashes. I caught the words coma, concussion, death before I melted down again and bolted upstairs to my office. No NYT for me today; I'll read the top stories online.
What gives? My ugly little secret is that I suffer from PTSD: post-traumatic stress disorder.
On May 1 it will be two years since Gomez the Virginia thoroughbred (whom Darling Husband hopes has been rendered into glue) threw me into a steel-pipe fence. I was knocked out and came to consciousness in a helicopter, then spent a week in a hospital multi-trauma unit. I suffered a severe concussion, nerve damage to head and face, smashed-up front teeth; broken right arm, two ribs, nose, brow bone, maxillary sinus, palate and palatinate bone. Since August 2006 I've had six surgeries, including two on my right arm. The first was to screw a 6" steel plate to the humerus (see Well and Truly Screwed); the second was to free the median nerve so I could regain function in my dominant hand (see Pharmaceutical Fun).
The glasses I was wearing on May 1, 2006.Since then, my thumb and first three fingers have become partly to mostly numb, the base of my thumb is atrophying, and my arm and shoulder hurt all the time. The solution--we hope; no one can figure out what else to do--is to remove the plate and do carpal tunnel release.
During this writing the orthopedist's office called to give me the surgery date: Friday, June 13. (It could've been sooner, but I didn't relish negotiating BookExpo with my arm in a sling.) I'm hoping this surgery will be lucky #7, and that the third time will be the charm for my arm. And most of all, that the PTSD will lessen once I stop being retraumatized by pain, surgeries and complications thereof (the latest is ringworm along the new scar on my scapula; go figure.)
The first symptoms of PTSD manifested in the car. I gasped in panic whenever Darling Husband--whose super-cautious driving usually drives me nuts--made a left turn across oncoming traffic, or if a car came at us from the right (the direction I was thrown in). When I started driving again, I was so anxious that I stopped driving on side streets with stop signs; instead only going on ones with traffic lights. When I passed an ambulance stopped by a fender bender, I had to pull over because I started sobbing uncontrollably. On the way to therapy one day, another driver stopped and honked wildly at me and I was enraged for hours. At an outdoor reception, a helicopter flew by low overhead and I had to fight back tears along with the urge to run inside.
I went to see "Casino Royale" six months after my accident and thought I was going to faint and/or throw up during the chase and torture scenes. Fuggedabout the final episodes of "The Sopranos," or TV shows--or even ads--with crashes, explosions, fights, contact sports, horse races. I'd never been a football fan, but the sound of a scrimmage made me feel faint; I hid upstairs during the past two seasons. Of course any news shows were out. The Boy Wonder made fun of my new G-rated sensibilities. DH, while sympathetic, grew impatient with my tendency to bolt from the room anytime there was something remotely disturbing ("Jumbo Trucks!") on TV.
I started watching only comedies and/or old movies, but even they weren't safe. A short sequence with squealing car tires in "Born Yesterday" alarmed me. I covered my eyes during a scene in "Office Space," in which one of the characters is all bandaged up in a wheelchair. I started crying at the opening of a "Medium" episode, set in a hospital room identical to the one I spent a week in.
My therapist referred me to a counselor who practices a technique called
Somatic Experiencing, which helped me enormously. It took a few months, but, like Alex in A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, I knew I was "cured" when I could watch violence again. Till I was blindsided by a newspaper photograph.
My trauma resulted from just ten minutes of doing something I loved in a peaceful setting. What about all the soldiers and contractors serving in Iraq, many of whom have traumatic brain injuries in addition to PTSD? What about when they come home and read the paper, or watch TV, or get cut off in traffic, or are insulted by a drunk at a bar? What's going to happen to us all?
I have to admit I've never met BOMB editor Nicole Steinberg in person -- our connection was forged via an email chain, friend to associate to colleague etc. And I'm thrilled to admit I've never been to half of the Brooklyn literary venues she describes -- because that means there's so much more still to discover! Her responses to the Brooklyn Lit Life questions renew my optimism for the borough all over again (I love her thoughts on neighbors and neighborhoods), and inspire me to widen my own circle of literary experiences here (if only in hopes of running into her). Read on, and get out there!
Brooklyn Lit Life Interview:
Nicole Steinberg
Describe your particular literary project, and your role in it.
I’m the Associate Editor at BOMB magazine, a not-for-profit arts and culture magazine in its 26th year of publication. BOMB used to be located in Soho, but moved to Fort Greene in 2004 and is now a very visible publication in the Brooklyn literary scene. My position bridges both the editorial and marketing departments, so I get to contribute to the magazine’s content while taking part in events and public programming, much of which occurs in Brooklyn.
I also host and curate a reading series called Earshot, which takes place twice a month at The Lucky Cat in Williamsburg. The series is dedicated to the presence of emerging writers in the New York City area, and each event features three local MFA students as well as two featured writers, from all genres.
Why Brooklyn? What made you decide to live/work here, in both practical and emotional terms?
Earshot used to take place on the Lower East Side, but I really like hosting it in Brooklyn now. A lot of literary-minded people are here, and the series attracts a wonderful audience that didn’t necessarily attend before. The neighborhood has an extremely hospitable atmosphere that, I feel, encourages literary growth.
Oh, and I actually live in Queens! How subversive is that?!
Is there a Brooklyn sensibility or character? How would you describe it? How does it differ from the character of New York City as a whole?
It’s a really welcoming borough. The residents seem a bit more…worldly, in a more practical way than typical Manhattanites. And there’s something about Brooklyn that inspires literary folks. Maybe it’s the brownstones or the parks, or the way many of its neighborhoods feel wholesome yet rough-edged at the same time. Even the less popular and/or ritzy areas evoke a sense of nostalgia. I’d say the Brooklyn sensibility is a lot more laidback than Manhattan, and a lot less severe. There’s less of a black and white aura there, and more places for a person to fit in.
What about your particular neighborhood? Does it have its own unique character? This can include the kinds of people you tend to find there, particular characters or places that epitomize the neighborhood, etc.
I hold the Earshot readings in Williamsburg, which is pretty much full of hipsters, all of them really young.. I remember the first time I had an event there, it was an evening in January and the sky was dark by 6 PM, and I thought I was going to get killed walking beneath the BQE. Now I’m really accustomed to the neighborhood and marvel at how trendy it is. On my walk from the subway to the bar, I pass gourmet groceries, galleries, vintage boutiques, etc. Oh, and Luna Lounge, of course. I just hosted the first event of the 2007/08 season last week, after a two month summer hiatus, and couldn’t believe how many places had closed during the interim, and how many places were open. I saw a restaurant that had closed, and on the same block, an apartment building that was finally done with construction. It’s amazing how fast things can change there, how rapidly the neighborhood is growing, even after the initial boom. And unlike other parts of Brooklyn, I can almost always get a cab there.
As for Fort Greene, it’s also become really trendy in the past few years. It’s really neighborhoody, which is nice in terms of morale; there’s something great to be said for going to work in an area where you can actually enjoy taking a stroll during an afternoon break, or have a leisurely outdoor lunch, as opposed to bumping into a thousand people while walking down just one city block. There are quite a few gorgeous tree-lined blocks with wall-to-wall brownstones. Most of my colleagues walk to work from home and I’m always ever so jealous.
What do you think of the direction Brooklyn, or at least your neighborhood, is going? What does the future look like in terms of economics, demographics, culture, and other changes?
More babies. Lots and lots of babies. And restaurants that only open for business four months out of the year.
Why do you think Brooklyn has such a dense population of writers? Is there something particularly literary about Brooklyn? Where and how do people read here?
Didn’t most of the National Book Award winners last year come from Brooklyn? I might be wrong about that, but gosh, there are a lot of amazing contemporary writers there: Matthea Harvey, John Haskell, Mónica de la Torre…. Not to mention all of my writerly friends who can’t afford Manhattan (and don’t want to live there, even they did). A lot of Earshot readers live in Brooklyn, too. Like I said, it’s an inspiring environment. And it hasn’t yet gotten completely saturated in terms of real estate, so writers can still (sometimes) afford to live there. And since it’s more conducive to neighborhoods, it’s also conducive to neighbors, and writers/readers will find each other and start joint projects, reading groups, etc. Everyone is genuinely interested in what everyone else is doing. And there are more opportunities for people to build small bookstores, cafes, bars and venues that actually flourish, thanks to the word-of-mouth that keeps them going. As someone who once feared for her life walking down Metropolitan Avenue, I can definitely attest to the fact that the dearth of awesome, talented people located in Brooklyn makes the trek out there a lot more appealing than it used to be.
What events, series, readings, happenings, places, stores, publications, movements, etc. seem to you currently interesting or important in the Brooklyn literary world?
Earshot! And, let’s see… an excellent reading series venue is Williamsburg’s Stain Bar, as well as 440 Gallery and the Perch Café in Park Slope. Lots of small presses live in Brooklyn as well, including Akashic Books, Archipelago Books, and, once upon a time, Soft Skull. BookCourt is probably my favorite Brooklyn bookstore. Hmm. Thinking about it makes me realize that a lot of the Brooklyn literary scene is centered on Park Slope. I’d love to see an awesome reading series in, say, Bensonhurst. But then it might be tough to get people out there—almost as tough as it is getting people out to Queens.
Also, one of my favorite annual events is the Brooklyn Book Festival. I missed it this year, sadly, as I was out of town. But I just love seeing all those literary geeks in one place, selling their wares and ideas. They’re truly my people.
Imagine the ideal Brooklyn bookstore or literary venue, a place you'd like to read on your own or participate in literary community. What would it be like? What would it avoid?
I think one of the reasons Earshot does so well is because it’s held at an amazing venue: The Lucky Cat, on Grand Street between Roebling and Driggs. It’s a bar/restaurant that’s very atmospheric but also cozy and comforting. People feel really at home when they enter, and that’s an invaluable aspect to any literary venue, since it puts the readers and audience at ease. Also, they give the reading series curator free beer, and that ain’t nothing to sneeze at.
My ideal Brooklyn bookstore would have lots and lots of literary magazines and journals, a huge poetry section, a huge graphic novels section, and would reach out to the community by hosting lots of events, workshops and excellent readings, not just by Brooklyn writers (although that would be wonderful), but also writers from other boroughs. As much as I applaud the Brooklyn lit scene’s tendency to cheer itself on (“We love Brooklyn! Yay, Brooklyn!”), I feel it’s important not to be too exclusive. Or maybe that’s just the Queens Girl in me, demanding satisfaction.
So she just left her work email unanswered for six weeks? No auto-reply saying "I'm on maternity leave?" No backup from anyone else in the office? WTF?