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Airily attired ladies hawking THE BURLESQUE HANDBOOK (HarperCollins/ItBooks) across from the Saudi booth, whose all-male staff and visitors kept their eyes averted.As someone on Twitter commented after a day spent slogging through BookExpo, the book industry won't be dying anytime soon. However, BEA management wasn't on the ball, because many people were unaware that the show was down to 2 days (Wed & Thurs) from its usual 3. Thus they were miffed--to put it mildly--when they stayed at hotels Monday night and arrived for Tuesday appointments to find the show floor closed. That happened to 2 people I'd arranged to meet on Tues., who had missed the post-9am email "reminder" that the exhibition hall wasn't open till Wed. Due to popular demand (aka "complaints"), next year the show will go back to 3 days: May 24-26.
On Tues., after viewing Philippe Halsman's wonderful "Jump" photographs at the Laurence Miller Gallery, lunching with a literary agent and poking through fabric shops, I arrived at the Javits for a 3pm confab about the Virginia Festival of the Book with a Crown publicist. Fifteen lonely minutes later, I discovered that I was 24 hours early. Oops.
To console myself, I grabbed an ARC of Jennifer Donnelly's new YA novel, REVOLUTION, which entranced me until the 4:30 Editors Buzz Panel--and for the next 3 nights. It comes out in October. Don't miss it! I reviewed her first YA novel, A NORTHERN LIGHT, which deserved every prize it received, and then some.
As for the Editors Buzz, which unlike last year was SRO, I tweeted: "I see white people. They're all around me. And they're klutzy with microphones." Once again, most of the 6 panelists apparently hadn't practised their speeches beforehand, and droned/babbled on till I wanted to scream. Moderator John Freeman asked questions to help them out, but some were beyond saving. One notable exception was Cary Goldstein of Twelve, who--surprise!--started out as a publicist. He made a great case for THE EVOLUTION OF BRUNO LITTLEMORE by Benjamin Hale, a novel narrated by a talking chimpanzee who has an affair with a woman and commits murder. (I know: ICK! Goldstein says the book's fantastic, but I passed on picking up an ARC.)
After that I met Kevin Smokler, chief evangelizer for BookTour.com, for drinks & nosh at Hudson Yards Cafe. (Decent food! Reasonable prices!) Whether you're an author or a reader--but especially an author--you MUST check out BookTour.com. It's already good, but from what Kevin told me, it's going to get even better in the next few months.
On Wed. morning I attended an excellent program: "Designing & Executing an e-Strategy for Authors: A Publisher & Agency Perspective." No danger of being put to sleep by moderator Charlotte Abbott or panelists Kathleen Schmidt (Director of Publicity & Digital Media, Shreve Williams Public Relations), Ron Hogan (just laid off as Director of E-Strategy, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) and Jason Ashlock (principal, Moveable Type Literary Agency). They said a lot of the same things about online publicity that I've been telling my clients, only better, plus offered much information and thoughtful analysis. See highlights on Twitter: #eauthor.
5 Comments on BookExpo Wrap-Up, last added: 5/31/2010
I haven't been posting lately because not much has been going on in my life, except:
- I went to NYC for 4 nights for BookExpo, and also gave a "Polish Your Pitch" workshop with Ron Hogan at Backspace Writers Agent-Author Day.
- Then I spent 3 nights in the Kingston, NY, area, where I hope to live in the not-too-distant future.
- Just as I was returning the rental car in Poughkeepsie, Darling Husband called to say that he'd been laid off his job of 8 years--the one we'd moved to Denver for 3-1/2 years ago.
- I have to crank out the text (some 17 K words) for the Bella Terra Massachusetts Lighthouses map so it can go to press in 10 days.
- I'm giving another phone seminar on June 28. (Details in sidebar.)
- Last Thursday, I had 3+ hours of excruciating nerve tests on my dysfunctional right arm, which has had 3 surgeries since I broke it 3 years ago. Preliminary results: Further neurosurgery would probably do more harm than good; my 3 middle fingers will remain numb forever.
- I had 8 days of debilitating headache (technically neuralgia), caused by Denver's unusually damp & stormy weather. On the plus side, my garden has never looked more lush.
- Tomorrow I go back to Dr #13, a hand/arm specialist at Denver Health's Center for Complex Fractures (which I wish I'd known about 3 years ago, GRRRR...), who will tell me whether further orthopedic surgery will help. If he says not, I'm giving up.
- My wonderful dog Jenny, who turned 13 yesterday, is rapidly succumbing to arthritis. Once upon a time she'd run for hours without stopping. Now she can walk--slowly--for 10 minutes at most, and can barely make it up the 3 steps into the house. We've tried all sorts of meds, to no avail. Today I started her on Dog Gone Pain as a last-ditch effort, and tomorrow she'll get codeine too. There's a wonderful new book, HOW SHALL I TELL THE DOG? I keep asking myself (and the vet): How shall I kill the dog? And when?
As a palliative, I've been gardening and immersing myself in novels written or set in the 19th century:
- PRIDE & PREJUDICE
- RUDE AWAKENINGS OF A JANE AUSTEN ADDICT by Laurie Viera Rigler
- CONFESSIONS OF A JANE AUSTEN ADDICT by Rigler (again; even better after RUDE AWAKENINGS)
- LITTLE DORRIT, though Dickens's sentimentality & weakling heroines may have me reaching for Trollope's Palliser novels before too long
Thanks to Paul for pointing me to the Children's Bookshelf BookExpo photo gallery and their nice wrap up of the event.
Now that I can type freely with both hands again, here comes more coverage of BookExpo.
On Thursday, May 29, the second of three "Media Matters" panels moderated by publicist extraordinaire Kim Dower (aka Kim-from-LA), was "Southern California Top Radio Producers." Panelists were:
- Jacob Conrad, editor, Day to Day, National Public Radio
- Lyle Gregory, producer, The Michael Jackson Show, KGIL
- Michelle Kube, producer, The Bill Handel Show, KFI AM
- Terrence McNally, host Free Forum with Terrence McNally, Pacifica Radio, KPFK
- Mindy Steinman, producer Airtalk and FilmWeek with Larry Mantle, KPCC
- Marrie Stone, guest host, Writers on Writing with Barbara DeMarco-Barrett, KUCI
- Jesse Thorn, producer & host, The Sound of Young America, podcast & public radio stations
As a rule of thumb, you don't want to have more than four people on a panel, is it gets too unwieldy. But Kim did a great job of giving everyone a chance to speak and keeping the discussion on track. She started by asking the panelists to describe their shows and the types of authors and books they feature. McNally: I believe we [as a nation] can do better, and I want to find out how. That's the focus of my show. Almost always have nonfiction authors.
Conrad: "Day to Day" is news-driven. Listen to the show and get to know the voices of the hosts. [Pitch authors/stories for specific hosts.] We have fiction and nonfiction authors who have stories of their own [and not just hawking their books].
Steinman: Nonfiction authors, very few fiction with local interest. "Airtalk" is a two-hour daily news show. The last half-hour is the cultural segment. We get hundreds and hundreds of books a week; our eight producers get hundreds of emails a day. KNOW THE SHOW. No how-to, plastic surgery, celebrity bios. It's off-putting to be pitched what we don't cover.
Thorn: My show is younger-person oriented. I do all in-depth interviews: a lot of funny people, a nonfiction author on something unusual, musicians. No books with numbers in the title, or about John Adams. If Ted Turner wants to talk bison, I'm there.
Stone: We're a weekly show covering the art and craft of writing. All phone interviews. We do literary fiction, noir; no prescriptive nonfiction, how-to or romance. We get hundreds of books a week.
Kube: Bill Handel is a lawyer, he's crazy and has ADD. His attention span isn't long. An interview is no more than 15 minutes. KNOW THE SHOW. We're news-oriented, have 12 topics each morning. Our mission is to EDUCATE, INFORM & ENTERTAIN. Fiction must have a news hook. Bill hates how-to, dislikes self-help. We get hundreds of emails a day. Nothing makes me more crazy than getting the wrong pitch. LOOK AT THE WEBSITE.
Gregory: We are producers and hosts. Show is 2 hours a day. I went back on air [after being off for quite a while]. We're having fun with this, the 3rd act of our baby boomer careers. Sometimes we do a thing every 15 minutes, sometimes we do it the whole hour. Thank you all for being here!
Kim: Know the show! Educate, inform and entertain is what it's all about. For broadcast, it's more important to have a great guest than a great book. You must be engaging and a good talker. The producer must know if the guest has a speech impediment. TV is about looks, radio is about voice.
Kube: I do a pre-interview, set up guests for Bill. Sometimes they fall apart. Bill hates it when an author says, "As I said in the book..." or "You have to read the book." [I hate that too! An author who was a college professor pulled that on me. I killed the piece and repurposed an interview with another author I'd done for
PW.]
Gregory: If you're plugging your book [on the show], you sound like a used-car salesman. Don't plug your book; Michael will plug it for you.
Kim: On live radio, you have to be a self-contained unit.
McNally: It's about the radio show, not selling the book. If people like the radio show, they'll buy the book.
Kube: We featured
HOW TO DUCK A SUCKAH with a former pimp [Big Boom] as a relationship expert.
Kim: You have to talk to the author first [before you pitch him/her to media]. I knew to pitch Big Boom to Bill Handel.
Gregory: Sometimes we need that extra push.
Thorn: A lot of shows look for people who are really exciting. We don't necessarily do that. Scott Simon says, "If you're on tape, you can always wait till they answer some more." [You can't do that live, though!] Amy Sedaris is so good, she could come in and talk for an hour about ducks. I would marry her if I could. [You read it here first, folks!] For the interview, get the author to a radio station with an
ISDN line. Pitch authors who are experts on topics, not just because they have a book out.
Kim: How do you want to be pitched?
Steinman: When you're pitching, send a copy of the book. Be sure to include author contact information.
McNally: Pitch by email; address on
personal website. Send the book. Answer the question, How can we make society better? We can pre-record for Tuesday show.
Conrad: Email with engaging pitch with contact info. Rarely do phone interviews; must be on ISDN line.
Steinman: A one-page email and send the book. Don't call unless you're following up, nor when show is on the air, or just off the air. Include TITLE, AUTHOR, PUBLISHER, PUB DATE and 2-3 sentences about the book. [Books don't necessarily have to be current.] When Gerald Ford died during Christmas week years ago, we searched Amazon to find an author of a book about him.
Thorn: Galleys are great. Pitch me by email: jesse (at) maximumfun.org. I hate the phone. Feel free to send books, they're like the fruitcakes on "Pee Wee's Playhouse."
Stone: ARCs are best. We're already booked through August. The earlier you pitch, the better. Follow up with email.
Kube: Pitch by email. I don't check voice mail every day. Pub date is important. If offering times, use Pacific Time. The top or bottom of the hour is no good.
Steinman: Always include the author's tour schedule.
Gregory: Pitch by email. Don't send galleys. We can do cell phone interviews. We book guests anywhere from a minute to a month in advance. The book is a business card.
Kube: The big misconception [among publicists] is "I have to book TV first." It's not always true that the TV audience is bigger than radio.
McNally: TV is background. In the car, radio is foreground.
Question from audience: Will you take pitches from authors?
McNally: An email's an email.
Thorn: It's extremely rare for a publicist to pitch something appropriate for the show. DO NOT SEND ME A BOOK WITH A PINK COVER.
All: Use appropriate language on air! [They don't want the FCC coming down on them for profanity/obscenity.]
Ya gotta read Paul Constant's Text Message from Los Angeles in The Stranger, "Seattle's Only Newspaper":
On the demented, celebrity-crazed, surrender-happy, endlessly-on-the-verge-of-being-wiped-off-the-planet publishing industry. (Note to panicked book lovers: Everything is going to be okay.)
I've finally recovered enough from BookExpo last weekend to write about it. So here goes...
On Thursday, May 29, publicist extraordinaire Kim Dower, aka Kim-from-LA, moderated three back-to-back "Media Matters" panels. The first was "Southern California Top TV Producers." Panelists were:
- Maria Hall Brown, producer & host, "Book Mark" on Real Orange on PBS station KOCE, seen throughout Los Angeles and Orange County
- Carole Chouinard, senior producer, The Tavis Smiley Show on PBS station KCET
- Barry Kibrick, producer & host of Between the Lines with Barry Kibrick, seen locally on PBS station KLCS & nationally syndicated through American Public Television
- Greg Mantell, producer & host, The Gregory Mantell Show on cable TV
- Heather Rothman, host of Book Talk with Heather Joy, on Los Angeles cable TV & soon to be syndicated in 16 European countries
As usual, my scribbled notes are impressionistic; make of them what you will.
Kibrick: Some of the brand-name fiction writers really stink. I've read manuscripts by my friends and thought, 'If
my authors only wrote as well...'
Kim: There's a big difference between a great guest and a great book.
Mantell: Sometimes actors are terrible guests [because they're used to saying other people's words].
Kim: Sometimes actors need media training because they don't know how to talk about their books.
Chouinard: Most of the interviews on my show are 12 minutes.
WIZARD OF THE CROW had a quiet author [Kenyan novelist Ngugi wa Thiong'o] with an amazing story. The publicist sent me the hardcover and all these articles about the depth of the author's experience. When the paperback came out, I went to the executive producer and Travis and said, "We have to do this author!" Travis said, "We'll make it work." It was a combination of a good publicist, me deciding to take it on and all hell breaking loose in Kenya. [The show aired in Dec 2007.]
Kim: Caring about something and pushing for it might work.
Brown: Publicists, when you want to pitch a book, don't read a script about the book and leave it on my voice mail. My favorite guests give personal anecdotes. Nonfiction writers tend to speak in generalities [which isn't good]. Persistence without harassing me pays off. I love my authors most of the time.
Kim: You have to know that the author you're pitching is worthy to go on camera.
Mantell: I sent an author home who called me in a panic from the green room, saying "I can't talk about my book." I knew it was going to be a train wreck. [Ya think?! WTF was up with that author?]
Kim: Don't ever deceive.
Kibrick: Be persistent till we say no. Once we say no, give up. Be creative. I did a segment with the guy who designed the California quarter, Garrett Burke [
Quarterama]. Garrett approached me, he's a fan of the show and wanted to give me a quarter. I invited him on the show.
Kim: What about self-published authors?
Kibrick: No self-published. [The other panelists nodded in agreement.] There must be someone behind the book with deep pockets. I had Jack Klugman on for TONY AND ME [about him and Tony Randall on "The Odd Couple"] and only after the show did I find out that Jack self-published.
Kim: We have to be honest about the author and product, and what we're pitching. Know your material before you go on.
Rothman: Even a huge name can be so reticent on camera. Thirty minutes is like 3 hours. I prepare for my interview as if for a final exam. I had John Dean on and they sent questions in case I hadn't read the book--which of course I had.
Brown: I don't read press materials. [Sounds of breaking hearts throughout the room.] A lot of the time I scare interviewees because I know something about them they weren't expecting to hear. I spend the first 10 minutes breaking down their media training. [Sound of Kim's heart hitting floor.] I do my own research. I pissed off John Stossel [woohoo!!!]. The first thing I asked him made him angry for 30 minutes. I was intimidated about interviewing the late David Halberstam, but he was one of the sweetest, kindest, most gentle people I ever met.
Chouinard: I don't use the questions in the press materials. [More hearts plummeting.] I look for nuggets for Travis to mine. I usually pre-interview the author. Reviews are very helpful. I give Travis bullet points on a briefing card.
Kim: The idea of an interview is to be spontaneous, but it takes a lot of preparation to be spontaneous. [I quote Dolly Parton in my workshops: "It takes a lot of money to look this cheap!"]
Kibrick: I go deep, but I don't want to surprise the author.
Mantell: I look at a press kit for about 10 seconds, then if it interests me I look further. [More shattered hearts around the room.]
Kibrick: Author questions in a press kit are good for national a.m. TV shows.
Kim: Oftentimes that's all they'll look at.
Mantell: Send an
up-to-date visual. One author sent us her photo and it turned out to be from 30 years ago.
Kim: B-roll footage is always helpful.
All: Some look at DVD of author's past appearances.
Kibrick: Let me see the book. I'm going to make the author come alive.
Kim: What advice do you have, and how should people pitch you?
Mantell: Know the show. Pitch by email: greg(at)gregorymantell.com.
Chouinard: Know your show. Tavis is African-American. We don't do "typical" Af-Am material; most people pitch too narrow. We are politics, news, current events. Pitch by email: cchouinard(at)kcet.org.
Brown: Send me the book, even if you pitch by email or phone. If I don't get back to you, try again. Email: mhall-brown(at)koce.org.
Kibrick: Email is best: barrykibrick(at)aol.com. No is no. I get hundreds of books a month. I donate every one I don't use. Books are gleaned through by my staff.
Rothman: Pitch by email: hjrothman(at)aol.com.
The New Yorker likes to call in the early morning; they can't subtract 3.
Kibrick: You REALLY need to know the show.
Kim: To pitch the wrong guest to the wrong show is a waste of time.
Airily attired ladies hawking THE BURLESQUE HANDBOOK (HarperCollins/ItBooks) across from the Saudi booth, whose all-male staff and visitors kept their eyes averted.
Thanks for this report! Impressive number of business cards collected!
Nice recap. I also lost my voice as well! It will come back...eventually.
Awesome recap. I don't think we met, even though I was at The Algonquin (Mad I missed the cat!) and the Thursday BBC event, too, but it sounds like you are someone I would have liked to have met. I nearly lost my voice myself, and I had to giggle because not only did I get a picture of the Burlesque Girls, but I am writing a post about all of my business cards acquired, too.
Thanks, folks! TGFTG, we met at the HarperCollins bloggers party at the Algonquin. I'm the tall one who was talking with you and Simon Van Booy--whose work you all MUST read: http://www.simonvanbooy.com.
Hi Bella - Thanks for your clever tweets during my author e-strategy panel - the definitely kept the Twitterfeed lively!
I looked out for you at Book Blogger Con, but alas. Hope we can meet in person before too long.