Buzz, Balls & Hype

THE DOCTOR IS IN

Dear Dr. Sue,

 

It's a tough world out there in publishing. I know, because my agent tells me every time we speak. We recently had a particularly sobering conversation about the market. He pointed out that my current editor, who had rejected a couple of recent proposals, mentioned that I was writing things that I wanted to write about, not that I thought my market would want to read about.

 

I've been moderately successful using that modus operandi over the last five years, with four published books under my belt. But fewer books will be published in this economic climate, and those that will have to be sure bets. I know what I have to do, the kinds of books I have to write--and will certainly enjoy writing on one level. But for me this begs a deeper question of why I am writing at all. I definitely want to keep being published and have no problem playing the game to a certain degree, but I am already grieving for the books that are in my soul and may never see the light of day. In different circumstances it might be more possible to continue to do both, but my writing time is limited by my full-time day job.

 

How can I find some balance, and feel good about myself? Am I selling out? Can I have a writing career and still write the things that got me going in the first place?

 

Bummed in Brooklyn

 

Dear Bummed,

 

A friend recently pointed out in another context that while compromise is necessary to get along in life, a point is reached at which one becomes a compromised person. That point is different for each of us. I don’t know what yours is, so I can’t give you practical advice. What I can offer, instead, are some thoughts that your letter sparked.

 

First, it might be helpful to remove the idea of “selling out” from the equation. Unless you are writing outright lies or propaganda for causes you disagree with, this does not seem to be a moral issue. You don’t owe anything to your agent, your editor, your reading public, or some hypothetical goddess of pure Art. Your only obligation is to yourself, to achieve clarity about why you want to write and what you hope to gain from continued publication.

 

Some writers are sheepish about the intensity of their desire to be published. They fear that this ambition disqualifies them from the classification of “artist” and plunks them down in the realm of “crass commercial hack.” But most of us turned to literature in the first place because of some element of dissatisfaction with our lives or our environments. We may have been lonely, “odd” children who had trouble relating to our families or peers, and who sought support and solace in books; or we may simply have felt hunger to learn about the wider world. In any case, we took the next step, and began writing, as a way to join this exciting conversation. We are not content to be spectators and consumers; we need to be participants and contributors.

 

For this reason, nearly everyone compromises in their work to one degree or another. Even when we write the books that our hearts dictate, we shape them so that potential readers will at least understand the superficial meaning of the sentences and the ways they connect. (Yes, I know, Finnegans Wake, but if you had Joyce’s ego you wouldn’t be writing to an advice columnist.) We know that we need to open with a “hook,” to lay out the conflict early on, and to maintain narrative tension to hold the reader’s interest. These techniques usually represent deviation from the original vision, or the book we would write if we were interested in pleasing only ourselves. And all of this takes place before even before agents, editors, and marketing people get involved and start changing things to make the book more commercially viable.

 

So, again, the question is not whether your efforts are worthy, but whether you are reaching the point at which they are no longer rewarding. Joining the conversation by forcing yourself to say things you don’t mean can be more demoralizing than sitting in silence. It may be that the experience of writing the four published books has broadened your scope and deepened your understanding in a way that makes it hard to keep squeezing your work into the same mold.

 

Remember that this does not have to be an either-or proposition. Even with the limited time at your disposal, you may be able to squeeze in a book—or even a short story—that you want to write between books others want to read. You may be able to find creative ways to present the ideas that inspire you in ways that are attractive to your market. Or, you may wish to seek out a new editor, perhaps at a smaller, less commercially oriented house, who is more sympathetic to your vision.

 

Your feelings about compromise may fluctuate with time, as well. Right now a book may be pushing itself into your consciousness that demands to be written whether or not anyone else wants to read it. At another time, you might have a great idea for a best-seller and the impulse to see it through. Don’t burn any bridges, and don’t foreclose on yourself. Remember, this is not your day job; you’re doing this for your own fulfillment, and only you can decide what that means.

Susan O'Doherty, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist with a New York City-based practice. A fiction writer herself, she specializes in issues affecting writers and other creative artists. She is the author of Getting Unstuck without Coming Unglued: A Woman's Guide to Unblocking Creativity (Seal, 2007). Her Career Coach column appears every Monday on Inside Higher Ed's Mama, Ph.D. blog. Send your questions to her at Dr.Sue at mindspring dot com.

The Ad Man Answers #66

Thursday + Gregory Huffstutter = The Ad Man Answers

Advertising can be particularly effective when it draws consumers into a narrative, instead of bashing sales messages into their noggins.

 

A perfect example of this technique is Sony Pictures’ viral campaign for their upcoming flick, “District 9.”  Instead of a typical movie poster, these outdoor ads bring us into an alternate reality, where Human Rights vs. Aliens Rights are an ongoing issue. 

 

Notice there are no actor names, no release date, not even the movie title.   Instead, the campaign directs people to a toll-free phone number (which logged 33,000 calls in 2 weeks) and a website (which helped drive over 20 million views to the movie trailer in 6 weeks).

 

Can similar methods be used for book launches?  Look no further than S.G. Browne, who recently published his debut, BREATHERS: A ZOMBIE’S LAMENT (Broadway/Random House).

 

BREATHERS’ viral advertising campaign was so clever that we’re breaking from our Ex-Ad Guy/Gal interview series to bring you a 2-part chat with the author.  The closest S.G. got to an advertising career was post-production work for Disney, but after these excellent YouTube ads, we’re going to make him an un-official member of the Advertising fraternity.

 

S.G., you not only have a dedicated author website & blog, but an excellent micro-site "Undead Anonymous" wrapped around your debut.  Were those websites in place before or after you signed with your agent and eventual publisher?  Who wound up funding them?

 

I didn’t have any web presence prior to signing with my publisher in February 2008 and the idea of creating a web site was completely foreign and overwhelming to me.  I didn’t even know what HTML code was.  Not long after I signed with Random House, a friend helped me to set up a basic author web site using a Wordpress template just to get something out there and then I worked with a designer on the Undead Anonymous site, which went live around the end of last October.  I’m finally getting around to upgrading my author web site, though if I had the time to learn more HTML I might be able to upgrade it myself.

 

The funding?  That would be me.  At least I get to write it off.

 

“Undead Anonymous” does a wonderful job of wrapping your book around compelling content -- zombie testimonials, undead commandments, original music ("Your Brains" mp3), iPhone app, and even mock commercials for "Necrobrufin," a zombie anti-depressant.  How have you used this website as a marketing tool?  What % of your sales and online traffic with Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Borders have come as a direct link from your micro-site?

 

The idea was for Undead Anonymous to allow visitors and readers to feel like they can connect with characters in the book and get some insight into what it’s like to be a zombie – their struggles, what they like to eat, their favorite zombie films.  I even have an Ask Andy section for those curious about decomposition, sloughage, and whether or not it’s necrophilia if you’re both dead.  I also blog about the process of writing BREATHERS and provide an event list of my Next Scheduled Resurrection.

 

Wait.  I’m supposed to know what percentage of my sales and traffic with on-line bookstores comes as a direct link from my web site?  Oops.

 

Who created the "Necrobrufin" spots?  Have they been tied to an advertising campaign, or just disseminated virally?

 

The Necrobufrin spots were created by Milk Products Media with actors from Second City, which was something my publisher helped to set up.  I really love the spots and the producers of the spots were kind enough to solicit input from me, though all of the kudos goes to them.

 

The videos were disseminated virally as well as part of my publisher’s outreach to the zombie and horror community when the book launched.  They also posted the videos on all of their video sharing channels, including YouTube, and on my book catalog pages on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, etc.

 

What other advertising -- consumer or trade -- have you or your publisher done around your book launch?

 

Prior to the book launch, my publisher did early galley and finished copy buzz mailings targeting zombie fans and just to get the word out, which included outreach to the zombie/horror community online.  They also ran Facebook ads at on sale targeting zombie fans and readers of related books and authors like Christopher Moore and Chuck Palahniuk.

 

My advertising has consisted of visiting as many bookstores as possible to introduce myself, sign stock copies, and let them know that in addition to zombie fans that I think readers of Moore and Palahniuk would enjoy BREATHERS.  I’ve also organized a zombie pub crawl and a zombie protest for equal rights prior to a couple of my local readings.  The protest was a lot of fun.  There’s even a video of it on YouTube. 

 And I’ve given away free, personalized signed copies of BREATHERS both on Twitter and on a couple of web sites where I’ve been interviewed.  I’ll probably do another giveaway on Twitter sometime in the fall.

 

For someone who doesn't have a formal advertising background, you seem to have an acute sense of how to market yourself.  Where did you learn these promotional skills?

 

To be honest, it’s something I’ve learned to do over the past six months or so.  Quitting my day job as a property manager helped to free up my time.  Maybe not the smartest thing to do in the current economy, but I guess when your first book gets published, you do what you can to help it succeed.

 

It’s likely that some of what I’m doing developed out of nearly two decades of writing query letters and trying to market myself to an agent or a publisher, but it’s definitely felt more like on-the-job training.  At first it seemed like so much shameless self-promotion, but apparently I’ve moved past that.  Still, I don’t want to become a promotion whore.

 

--------

 

Next column, we’ll bring you Part 2 of our chat with S.G. Browne.  He’ll talk about selling his theatrical rights to Diablo Cody (no joke), participating in the world’s largest Zombie Walk (no joke), and dating Megan Fox (joke).

 

Gregory Huffstutter has been punching Ad Agency timecards for the past dozen years, working on accounts like McDonald's, KIA Motors, Suzuki Automotive, and the San Diego Padres. His first mystery, KATZ CRADLE is on submission while he's working on the sequel. The first 100 pages of his novel are linked here. For general advertising questions, leave a comment or send e-mail to katz @ gregoryhuffstutter dot com with 'Ask The Ad Man' in the subject line.

I So Relate To This - Do You?

Time and how you use it and why you might like meetings or hate them. From the NYT.

Linktopia

Linktopia with the help of Judge Page and it's a week to look at research. 

The goal, quite simply, is to increase ad revenue by offering skittish clients serious research about what works and what does not in new media.

Disney is behind research on what your eyes are up to while online.  Continue reading here.

Over to USAToday to get the latest on back-to-school spending and why social is where the money is.

In just one year social media has become ubiquitous in every serious back-to-school marketing program, says digital marketing guru Chad Stoller.

The drivers: dollars, young eyeballs and the digital version of still the best advertising-word of mouth.

The rest of the story is here.

At adage.com the story is Spend and you will get buzz.

"For brands taking the initiative, it's paying off. We're seeing that in the buzz numbers...indicate that those people who are being risk takers have the potential for a big payoff."

See the companies that are winning and losing here.

And finally, will it be just in time for Christmas?

"It would be a colour, flat panel TV to the old fashioned, black and white TV of the Kindle," one publishing executive said.  See what Apple has in the works.  The story from Financial Times is here.

Brilliant Balls or Bad Hype?

No one walks into a bookstore and says to the sales clerk– I’d like to buy a book you never heard of and I never heard of. And yet people call advertising sickening, say that using blurbs is dishonest and some promotions are unethical.

 Like this one in England.

 W.H, Smiths is offering a special FREE copy of Simon Kerrik’s novel if you pre-ore Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol. I need to repeat that – you don’t buy Simon’s book thinking it’s Dan’s book. The promotion is pre-order Dan Browns book…. And then you’ll get Simon’s Free. You don’t have to pay a dime or a farthing for Simon’s book.

The cover of the special edition of Simon’s free book is also an ad for Dan’s book and the reason I’m repeating it is that on other blogs where this is being discussed some people are missing what exactly this is.

 Anyway this seems like a great idea to me - one I and other guest bloggers here have written about here at BB&H over the years. Pair lesser known authors with better known authors in more meaningful ways to give the lesser known authors a better chance at a bite of the market.

 But Marketing Week in the UK feels this promotion is lazy on the part of the publisher, and that by showing Dan’s name bigger than Kerricks’ the publisher is tricking the reader. The debate continues at some other blogs.

 In several places comments suggest there’s something wrong piggy backing on a bigger author’s name.

 In music it’s a time-honored tradition: Fleetwood Mac was the opening act for Jefferson Starship. Barry Manilow was the opening act for Bette Midler, Beyonce opened for Christina Aguilera  and on and on.

 The debate rages on and the outrage continues.  What do you think?

THE DOCTOR IS IN

FULL COMMITMENT

 

At the beginning of each semester, my voice teacher asks us to specify what we want to get out of the class. Last semester, as noted here, my objective was to survive the experience of singing in front of others. Since I am, miraculously, still here, I’ve had to revise my goals this semester.

Technically, I have been struggling with a not-uncommon issue. I am most comfortable singing in my “head voice,” the high end of my range, and I’m okay in my “chest voice,” the lower voice we can use for both speaking and singing. But there are two, sometimes three, transitional notes between the two voices that give me a lot of trouble. Generally, I just bury them—in most songs, it’s not hard to glide past them en route to more solid ground. I decided that this semester I would find out if there is a way to strengthen them.  And I would continue to work on that deer-in-the-headlights presentation style.

The songs I choose for myself, and those people recommend to me, tend to be quiet, introspective, emotionally complex and sometimes wryly funny. It doesn’t surprise me that this is how people see me; it’s how I see myself; it’s how my stories are described and, when I painted, my paintings were like that, too.  This style feels organic to me, like a fingerprint.

I decided I needed to shake that up.

An acting teacher used to tell us, “The best protection is stark naked,” meaning that if you commit yourself to a role and to your character’s objectives, and open yourself completely to the moment onstage, there is no room for self-consciousness or second-guessing. It’s when you indulge in half-measures that you screw up. With that in mind, I made the decision to go for broke.

I settled on Gershwin’s “They All Laughed” because the range is wide enough so that to hit both the high and low notes comfortably, I need to spend a lot of time in that middle range; because it contains no emotional subtlety whatever—it is straightforwardly brash, confident and joyous; and because the rhythm is complex enough so that I have to move my body in ways that would be considered dancing in a coordinated person just to keep track of the downbeat. In other words, although there were middle notes, there was no middle ground: I had to either throw myself into the song, put myself out there 100%, or mess it up completely.

On Monday evening, I put on a dress that I have never worn outside my apartment since Caroline Leavitt convinced me to take it home from a clothing swap. It’s just a little too short, a little too tight. I put on eye makeup, too. Why not go for broke? And I threw myself into the song.

When I was done, Martha, my teacher, asked me how it had felt. “Okay,” I said, truthfully, “except for those transitional notes. They’re wobbly and flat.”

“I’m not hearing wobbly and flat,” she said. “You’re on key, but your voice can’t decide whether it wants to be chest or head.”

The commitment thing again. “What do I do?”

“I’d suggest, because this is a conversational song, not a classical one, that you use chest.”

“But that’s the problem. My chest voice doesn’t go up that high.”

She laughed. “That’s why you’re in a class.” She explained that my chest voice needs more breath support in that range than I was giving it. She had me shout the song, in time, as loud as I could, pushing my speaking voice as high as it would go without switching into head. When she was satisfied with my high-pitched booming, she had me switch over to singing. “Louder,” she coached me. “Harder.” I realized that I was singing with the same force I had summoned to yell—and the notes were there.

When it ended, I realized other things. I had been concentrating so hard on resolving the transitional issue while keeping track of the syncopation that I’d forgotten to be nervous. And my quiet, introspective, restrained self had filled the room with sound.

“Wow,” one of my classmates said. “I had no idea you had such a big voice!”

“Neither did I,” I answered.

Martha nodded. “There’s a lot more in there than you think,” she said.

There’s a lot more in there than I think.

Wow.

Susan O'Doherty, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist with a New York City-based practice. A fiction writer herself, she specializes in issues affecting writers and other creative artists. She is the author of Getting Unstuck without Coming Unglued: A Woman's Guide to Unblocking Creativity (Seal, 2007). Her Career Coach column appears every Monday on Inside Higher Ed's Mama, Ph.D. blog. Send your questions to her at Dr.Sue at mindspring dot com.

Linktopia

Linktopia with the help of Judge Page and a stop at adweek.com to get the latest info on how teens are really consuming media. You might be surprised.  

“Teens watch less online video than most adults, but the ads are highly engaging to them,” the summary of the Nielsen report says. “Teens spend 35 percent less time watching online video than adults 25–34, but recall ads better when watching TV shows online than they do on television.”

Continue reading here.

Have you heard about Printcasting? The New York Times has the story.

A start-up in Colorado has a new twist on print publishing. It lets readers pick which articles they want in their magazine and then print it themselves.

Continue reading here.

At Fast Company they have six marketing tips from an unlikely campaign that won big awards and most importantly was wildly successful.

Contrary to what you might expect, the unanimous winner of this unprecedented victory was not a Fortune50 brand with an advertising budget of millions, but a small Tourism board promoting a little known island off the Great Barrier Reef.

The rest of the story is here.

THE DOCTOR IS IN

WHEN I GROW UP

Like many writers, I have a novel making the rounds. It has garnered its share of rave rejections from fine houses. My wonderful agent assures me that we are nowhere near the bottom of the barrel. At 6 months in, I am trying to believe her.

Writer friends frequently attempt to commiserate with or console me. “You must be on pins and needles,” they say, or “The only thing to do is to throw yourself into the next book.” I appreciate their concern (and am always happy for attention) but I’m really not frantic.

I’m not just saying this. Of course I’m invested in the book; I spent years writing and honing it. I think it is terrific, and I want it out there for others to read. But I go for weeks at a time without checking in with my agent. I don’t exactly forget that it’s out there, but I forget to obsess about it.

Maybe it’s because I’ve been through this before, more than once. My first novel was also greeted with enthusiasm by a fine agent who was confident that she could place it. I was too excited to eat and could hardly talk about anything else. I flew home from work on my lunch hour every day to check my email. This went on for nearly a year, and it wore me out before we finally admitted that the novel wasn’t going anywhere.

Then, a book contract fell into my lap—not for my novel, but for a book I had not even thought about writing, the book that became Getting Unstuck without Coming Unglued. My friend Andi Buchanan quoted this column on her blog; her editor clicked through and read some back columns, then asked Andi for my contact information.

After that, I had another idea for a nonfiction book. A publisher accepted my proposal. At least, I thought that was what happened, since I got an email saying, “We are committed to publishing this important book.” But then they stopped returning my calls. It turned out that the conglomerate which had swallowed them up was less enthusiastic about my book than the small publisher was, and since there was no formal contract, there was no deal.

So I know that this is a precarious and unpredictable business. I don’t put all my eggs in one basket anymore, or count my chickens before they’re hatched, or have anything much to do with poultry at all other than ruffling feathers.

That’s not all of it, though. Between the submission of my first novel and the present lie about five years of intense life experience.  I have survived a life-threatening illness which spurred a decision to make changes in my life, to take advantage of my second chance to live fully. As a result, I have flown in a helicopter (twice), held on for dear life while traveling 100+ MPH in a racecar, ridden the Coney Island Cyclone, and sung solo for an audience, among other adventures I would have avoided, from fear, in my earlier life. And each experience has changed me, and prepared me for the next challenge.

When I was young, people always asked me what I wanted to “be” when I grew up. And I always had an answer, complete with imagined costumes and props: first a fairy godmother, then a nurse, then a writer. Then an actress. Then a writer again. Then a psychologist. Then a writer. I assumed that any of these roles would define me; that I would grow into the sort of person the vocation demanded.

What I want to “be” now is a fully realized person. I want to live an engaged, productive, and loving life. Writing is part of that, but a bunch of people I don’t know making decisions based partly on personal taste, partly on business considerations, and partly on magical thinking is not. I will be thrilled if my novel is published, and I want to do everything I can to make that happen—but life now feels too short to spend a moment of it on unproductive worry. The stakes just aren't that high.

Writing has afforded me invaluable opportunities to meet fascinating people, visit interesting places, and engage with other thoughtful writers about the things that matter to us. Every week I communicate with you, and with the readers of Inside Higher Ed, and readers often respond in ways that surprise, inspire, and move me. I have read from my book and from stories and personal essays at bars and bookstores up and down the East Coast. Once a month I participate in a five-way, book-related conference call, broadcast from London, with writers who are so smart and funny I sometimes miss half of what is said because I’m laughing so hard.  And in between, I work with great clients, travel, sing, hang out with family and friends, and write my stories. Do I hope for more? You bet. If it doesn’t happen, will I be crushed? Sorry, I no longer have time for that.

Neither do you.

Susan O'Doherty, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist with a New York City-based practice. A fiction writer herself, she specializes in issues affecting writers and other creative artists. She is the author of Getting Unstuck without Coming Unglued: A Woman's Guide to Unblocking Creativity (Seal, 2007). Her Career Coach column appears every Monday on Inside Higher Ed's Mama, Ph.D. blog. Send your questions to her at Dr.Sue at mindspring dot com.

The Ad Man Answers #65

Thursday + Gregory Huffstutter = The Ad Man Answers

Today, we bring you Part 2 of our Q&A with Louise Ure, an ex-Ad Gal who worked at

Ogilvy & Mather and Foote Cone & Belding before penning the novels:  Forcing Amaryllis, The Fault Tree, and Liars Anonymous. 

 

If you missed Part 1 of our chat, you can find it here.

 

So, Louise, did you tap your old advertising contacts to design your excellent website?  Was that created before or after your book deal?  If after, who funded it, you or your publisher?

 

That gorgeous website is entirely the brainchild of the talented Madeira James at xuni.com.  Because I write standalones and don’t have an ongoing character to feature, she’s tweaked the design with each new book launch, to focus on the new release but still keep the look consistent for all my work.

 

I asked her to develop the site once I had sold my first book and we had a cover to play off. A nd yes, I funded it all myself.

 

Your cover art has strong, consistent design elements:  the face in the background, striking image on lower half, similar typefaces.  Was that something you had a hand in -- or did that come from St. Martin’s?

 

Sometimes serendipity just finds you, and this is one of those cases.  The first cover was done by Mysterious Press.  The next two –  The Fault Tree and Liars Anonymous – were done by David Rotstein at St. Martin’s Press.

 

You’d think, based on looking at them, that Rotstein had intended a family look all along, and that he’d built those last two covers based on my debut book.  Wrong.  His first efforts with both covers were hugely different, including one that I described as “a ransom note written by Helen Keller.”

 

When you don’t have a series character, I think it’s doubly important that your books have a certain “branding” that’s easily recognizable for readers.  I’m delighted with the “brand” these three covers have given me, but it was more a happy accident than purposeful planning.

 

By the way, that St. Martin’s designer, David Rotstein, is the creator of three of the five Anthony-nominees for Best Cover this year, including one for The Fault Tree.

 

On YouTube, you've posted book trailers for 'Fault Tree' and 'Liars Anonymous.'  Do you feel like those videos were worth the effort?  How were they commissioned, and how did you use them in your marketing push?

 

They’re cool, aren’t they? (Click here and here to see them if you haven’t already.)  My husband (a television commercial producer from way back) went to his old friends, those wizards at Mind Over Eye, to put them together.

 

I’ve made significant use of them at Amazon and Barnes & Noble, as well as a host of blogs and video collection sites.  But I think it’s had the biggest impact on the sales team at St. Martin’s as they can use them on their website or during sales calls to feature the book.  A short video can make a much more compelling case to a store’s book buyer than simply a dry listing in a catalogue.

 

Do they work as online advertising to encourage sales?  I’m not sure.  But if there wasn’t some power in using sight, sound and motion in making a sale, I wouldn’t have been recommending television to all my clients – for bleach, or cruises or long distance phone service – for thirty years.

 

What branding advice would you give both new and established novelists?  Do you see common mistakes in establishing one's 'brand position'?

 

This may sound like heresy, but I’m not sure that an author needs a brand.

 

Sure, you want those “instant identifiers” in cover design that help remind readers of your other books.  Continuity in color, graphic treatment and typeface can go a long way in creating a family look.

 

And if you’re writing a series (and especially if you’re writing more than one series), it’s a no-brainer to let the reader know that it’s “A Sookie Stackhouse mystery.”  But if you’re doing everything right, the author’s name should soon supplant the character’s name as the key brand.  (Lee Child, are you listening? I think you’re safe taking “A Reacher Novel” off your covers now. Honest.)

 

James Patterson is the ultimate example; his name alone is the brand.  He doesn’t even have to write the books anymore.

 

At the end, the author’s name is simply a promise of what the reader can expect to find in that book. And that works fine … until you want to give them something else.

 

Did you watch TNT's ''Trust Me'?  If so, did you think it accurately represented agency life?  Why do you think it never attracted enough audience to avoid the cancellation axe? 

 

Sorry, I never even tuned in once to watch it!  In my experience, shows that revolve around an ad agency are either stultifyingly boring or so over the top they become caricatures.  (I’d say McMann & Tate, Darren’s ad agency from Bewitched belongs in both categories.)

 

The exception to that rule, of course, is Mad Men. My New York advertising days were not so long after the 1960’s era Mad Men celebrates, and I can relate to many of the storylines.  They even got Nemo’s, the after-hours bar right across the street from Ogilvy & Mather, right.

 

------------------

 

Thanks again for the time, Louise… and congratulations about your latest, Liars Anonymous, being named one of the Ten Best Crime Novels of 2009 by Booklist!

 

Gregory Huffstutter has been punching Ad Agency timecards for the past dozen years, working on accounts like McDonald's, KIA Motors, Suzuki Automotive, and the San Diego Padres. His first mystery, KATZ CRADLE is on submission while he's working on the sequel. The first 100 pages of his novel are linked here. For general advertising questions, leave a comment or send e-mail to katz @ gregoryhuffstutter dot com with 'Ask The Ad Man' in the subject line.

Linktopia

Linktopia Monday with the help of Judge Page, and looks at book covers along with marketing stories from hotels, and theaters.  

...Guests get guaranteed half off or a free night...bring a letter stating that someone in the party has done eight hours of service for a registered non-profit...

Keep reading here to find out which hotel group is building business by working with those giving their time.

At Seth's blog he poses a question for us.

Is the purpose of the cover to sell books, to accurately describe what's in the book, or to tee up the reader so the book has maximum impact?

The answer and the reasoning can be found here.

Finally, over at moviemarketingmadness.com there's a topic that might have you thinking about your movie-going experience and your bookstore experience.

...studios to think of the movie-going experience as mini-trade shows that people go to every day. The fact that everyone sports a cell phone means studios have a contact point with the audience that those audience members carry around with them.

The rest of the piece is here.