I briefly worked as a publicity assistant at a major publisher right out of grad school and didn’t enjoy it. I was high on myself at the time, and couldn’t handle only saying positive things about books I was working on, so I eventually ended up working for the Greek Orthodox Church instead, which I figured would be a better source of interesting stories (this is true even though I haven’t gotten around to writing those stories yet).
But I realize now that part of my unease about PR at the time was because I’d been indoctrinated into the idea that not being critical all the time was a terrible thing, when what’s actually true is that there are times when it’s good to be critical when it comes to evaluating a book, and there are times when it’s good to emphasize the qualities of a book that would allow it to reach an audience who would appreciate it. Because the wonderful thing about books (compared to media that’s more expensive to produce like movies and TV) is that there are so many of them, and each one will appeal to certain people and not others.
That’s when PR comes in. Over the years, I’ve continued to battle with my Ivy League snobbiness over book promotion, but one thing that’s really helped is being able to separate my writing self from my critic self from my promotional self, because each of those roles are distinct. Boiling my work down to the elements I believe would immediately resonate with readers doesn’t compromise its nuance and subtlety; doing this just provides an entry point for potential readers who have a vast array of choices in terms of what to read.
What’s also helped a ton is becoming colleagues and often friends with some lovely and amazing PR brains, one of the best ones being Kima Jones, who has done so much in terms of promoting BIPOC books over the years, and has just signed on to be a literary agent for Triangle House. Her example has really underlined for me that if you’re working on a book you believe is important for the world to read, then it’s just as important to promote your book as it is to write it.
~M.
P.S. Speaking of promotion, the paperback edition of Fairest is coming out in two weeks and I’ll be doing my virtual launch reading with the wonderful folks at Loyalty Bookstores on May 10 at 8 ET. Hope to see you there! More info and registration here.