Inside Publishing: A Publicist's Guide to the Business

The following article is the second in our three-part series on publishing. The third installment, forthcoming in the next issue, will be about bookselling.

When I first began working in book publishing—an odd job somewhere between editorial and production at a big commercial house—I remember being intrigued by the department that sent e-mails, company-wide, in large font, announcing a particular author's appearance on a morning show or another's event at a bookstore. From the publicity department, I'd find an impressive array of reviews and features from every imaginable magazine and newspaper in my in-box. I remember wondering why it was that these colleagues of mine seemed to wield so much power.

Now that I'm the one sending around those e-mails, I've gained some perspective. While the job of a book publicist often appears to be an effortless ushering of new books into the marketplace, behind the scenes it's much more of a forceful push. Up until the point of publication, an editor, the publisher, and the head of marketing and sales, for example, will make nearly all of the decisions about a book. These decisions will be checked and balanced by the author and agent, yet the control remains within the house. And even though it may already be clear that a given book is not the work of the next Zadie Smith or Jonathan Franzen or David Sedaris—or some other literary-yet-semi-commercial-author-in-the-making—everyone is enthusiastic about the book. But after the dust jacket is changed three times, the introduction revamped in first pass, the acknowledgments corrected for a tenth time, an epigraph added in blues (this is something of an exaggeration because it would cost a small fortune—so it would have to be an awfully good epigraph), it's time for the book to be sent out to the media, which is not always as enthusiastic, or, sometimes, even remotely interested.

Yet, when it comes to publicity, everyone involved—author, agent, editor, publisher—has expectations, and they are usually fairly high. The list includes a slew of reviews, spots on a morning television show and nationally broadcasted radio, a front-page feature in the New York Times Arts and Entertainment section, an author profile in USA Today. 60 Minutes or 20/20. And yes, there's always Oprah. In a perfect world, every deserving author would get a breath of Fresh Air, but the number of books being published annually makes for some pretty tough competition.

To give an example, an editor (who wishes to remain nameless) at the New York Times Book Review, one of the most sought-after outlets for print review attention, says that on average they receive more than one hundred books for consideration daily. He estimates that the average number of books covered in each issue is approximately twenty-five to thirty (and "covered" can be just a mention, not a full review). This means that, each week, they are theoretically leaving four hundred and seventy-five books out in the cold.

Even though there is limited space in traditional review outlets, all of the major houses are publishing at an incredibly high volume. Depending on how a house or imprint (and their sales force) breaks up its seasons—some have two a year, some three—a publicist can work on as few as four and as many as twenty books on any given list. "I somehow thought everybody in the office would, for six months, drop everything but my book, and would spend eight hours a day, plus evenings, researching me and thinking about my book to the exclusion of all else," recalls George Saunders about the publication of his first short story collection, CivilWarLand in Bad Decline (Random House, 1996). His third, In Persuasion Nation, is due out from Riverhead Books next month. "Maybe that's a slight exaggeration—but I was surprised to find out how many other books were going out at the same time as mine, and how many my publicist was handling."

While the picture may seem bleak, the good news is that most publicists view this rigmarole as an often rewarding challenge. Not only that, but there's another thing to keep in mind: Book publicists are passionate about books. They have to be in order to do the job, as they're writing, reading, thinking, and talking about books all day long.

There are essentially two types of publicity. The first is proactive: a publicist has something and/or someone brand-new to tell (and sell) to the media and general public. Press materials are written, phone calls are made, e-mails are sent—all to alert as many relevant people in the media about this brand-new, relevant thing. Proactive publicity is about creating a buzz.

The second is reactive. Something happens in the news (an election, a war, a hurricane, a remarkably idiotic comment by a public figure), providing the perfect hook to make a particular product or person suddenly timely. Either the publicist sees this connection or the media does—and one (or both) of them responds. Phones start ringing, e-mails flood in, the fax machine goes berserk. Ideally, a publicist builds on the reactive buzz by doing more proactive publicity and approaching other outlets that have not yet been reached. Reactive publicity is essentially about striking when the iron is hot.

The first kind of publicity—proactive—is the vital building block of any book's campaign, especially for debuts, and therefore makes up the bulk of what a book publicist does. All authors hope for the day when their phone is ringing off the hook, but it is unrealistic to assume this will happen. Proactive book publicity is a methodic process, and it revolves around a strict timetable. It is the best way to ensure that a book has a fair shot at coverage.

Book publishers work on a monthly schedule with the publicity, marketing, and advertising departments implementing the bulk of their campaigns for the books they are issuing that month. "The first month is essential," says Erin Sinesky, publicity manager at W.W. Norton, "because the media and readers have a rather short attention span." But publicists begin their work well before a book's publication date because they must align with the lead time of print as well as broadcast media and venues (both traditional bookstores and "off-sites," events that happen outside of a bookstore). Therefore, depending on whether an author will tour (which is something usually determined by the heads of marketing, sales, and publicity, and by the editor and the publisher), a publicist will be in touch with an author somewhere between four and six months before her book is slated for publication.

The first time a book is seen by the media is usually as bound proofs, often called a galley or ARC (Advance Reader's Copy or jacketed galley, which is essentially the bound proofs with an image of the dust jacket on the cover). Galleys are generally sent out to the media accompanied by a letter from the publicist who is handling the book.

The main purpose for sending out an advanced (and, yes, uncorrected) version of a book is to pursue coverage in the long-lead publications. It is rule of thumb that all monthly magazines (such as Vogue, GQ, Vanity Fair, Men's Journal, the Atlantic Monthly, and so on) have a lead time of three to four months, and magazines that publish bimonthly or quarterly sometimes have longer. Many of the top metro daily and weekly newspapers with book review sections (such as USA Today, the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and Village Voice), weekly magazines (such as Entertainment Weekly, People, and the New Yorker), and national broadcast media (NPR shows such as Morning Edition, All Things Considered, and Talk of the Nation, as well as television programs on networks such as CNN, ABC, and NBC) also like to look at a book well before it's published.

Additionally, galleys are sent to the trade (or pre-pub) publications—Publishers Weekly, Kirkus Reviews, Library Journal, and Booklist—which ideally provide early accolades in the form of a 250- to-300-word review (and can be quoted on press materials for the finished-book mailing). "Pre-pub reviews are important because booksellers and reviewers look [to them] to find books to buy or cover," explains Louisa Ermelino, reviews director at Publishers Weekly and a novelist herself. "A good review, a starred review, any extra attention early on is great, but also, if you don't get any of these, it's not the end of life as you know it, although it feels like it because it's the very first step your book takes into the world."

“The New York Times Book Review, one of the most sought-after outlets for print review attention, says that on average they receive more than one hundred books for consideration daily.”