Guess Who Isn’t Getting Along With Her In-House Publicist - And Why

Each of these stories is true. The names and some details have been changed to protect the guilty,

We all complain about how badly we get treated, but sometimes we’re the ones who make our own problems.

1. An author had a bookstore reading. Very few people were there. So the author proceeded to complain about her publicist to the bookseller for fifteen minutes. Guess who set up the reading? The bookseller worked with the publicist all the time, guess where her loyalty was?

2. A publicist set up an interview for an author with an online website. But the author didn’t think the site was big enough or important enough so she wrote to the publicist and said she didn’t have time for this and couldn’t she get her something more worthwhile like The New Yorker and then proceeded to blow off the interview. Little did she realize that the interviewer, who freelanced at the Internet site, also was a book reviewer for a city newspaper for a city with 3 million people. Guess who didn’t get reviewed?

3. It was the holidays. The author sent her editor candy, sent her editor’s assistant candy, she sent the head of publicity candy and the publicity assistant candy. She didn’t send her publicist candy cause she didn’t think she’d done a very good job. But they all work on the same floor in the same area, so guess who knew she got dissed?

4. It was her first meeting with the publicist and the head of publicity. As they started to talk about their plans she brought up what had been done for her friend at another house, then smiled sweetly and said, I’m sure you can do at least that well for me. Guess who got her hand slapped?

5. An author was frustrated by how her publicist was doing, so she started to name drop about an indy publicist she claimed she was talking to and wound up threatening her in house publicist saying: If you can’t do better than you’re doing I’m going to hire this person.

When the head of publicity heard about it, she told the author to go ahead and hire the indy publicist. The only problem was the author had never talked to the indy and had never intended on hiring a $12,000 publicist. But there she was. She no choice. So she called the indy. And guess what the publicist said no, she didn’t like the book. Guess who got nothing?

Congratulations are in order

To Ron Hogan, editor of the wonderful blog, Beatrice
and co-editor of Galleycat,
on the publication of his first book, The Stewardess is Flying the Plane

Comments

[katharine weber]

I know a writer of real talent who called her young and inxperienced publicist her "dumblicist" repeatedly and often, to anyone with whom she spoke. She also harangued bookstores if her book wasn't stocked, telephoned editors of book review sections to demand reviews, and made a general nuisance of herself in every way a publicist dreams of -- in her nightmares. Guess who can't get her next book published? Her editor wanted to go to contract, but the publicity and marketing people said NO.

[Nancy French]

Yikes. These stories make me want to puke. Thanks for the reminder...!

[jessica keener]

These instructive scenarios on what works and what doesn't in publishing are fantastic. Please keep them coming. By showing us how to get the most (and least) out of our publishing experiences, more of us will figure out how to pull that d-mn sword out of the stone, maybe even work some magic. Thanks MJ.

[Mark Terry]

Perhaps the real moral of the story is: Be a class act and treat everybody professionally and kindly.

And if that's too highfalutin', how about, What goes around comes around?]

Personally, I like my publicist. I think she's done what I hired her to do, more or less.

Best,
Mark Terry

[Frederick Smith]

Thanks for the words of advice and wisdom for all of us... especially us newbies!
fs

[Stacie]

I cannot imagine anyone being so nasty to another. Whatever happened to common courtesy?

[cj]

You're right. Everyone deserves to be treated with kindness...

[Rob Gregory Browne]

I'm one of those strange people who doesn't think the world revolves around him. I understand that publicists at any house are overworked, so you won't hear me griping that they don't pay me enough attention.

And I agree that kindness goes a long way. It'll help you be the one they WANT to pay attention to.