Book publicists work with publishers, authors and the media. Most of the jobs are centered around publishing hubs like New York City and London, though there are freelance book publicists.
Heather Drucker is an Associate Director of Publicity for HarperCollins based in New York City, and she took some time to talk about the business of publishing and publicity during the BoucherCon 2010 writing conference in San Francisco.
How did you get into this line of work?
When I graduated from college, with an English and Psychology degree, I didn’t know what I wanted to do next. I couldn't decide between law school or grad school in English or psychology.
Nobody told me, "Publishing might be a good job for you." I hadn't done any publishing internships.
I thought, "Why don’t I get a job in a bookstore for 6 months to a year and then go to graduate school.” I moved to Atlanta and got a job at the Borders in Buckhead. At the bookstore, the boss told us all we had to read The New York Times Book Review and other book reviews. We got an education.
Seven years later I was still there, still loving it, and had pretty much handled every job in the store besides General Manager, from sideline magazine buyer to art book expert to café manager.
The light bulb went off in my head: I need to go to New York and go into publishing. So I moved to New York.
I worked at the new Borders at the World Trade Center in their events department. My first publishing job was as a sales rep for City and Co., a small house that specialized in gift and guidebooks to New York.
Then I worked as a publicist for Tor/Forge and focused on genre fiction: science fiction and fantasy, mysteries and thrillers. After that, I took a position with Japanese publisher Kodansha International, and did a stint at Bookspan doing PR for the book clubs like the Book of the Month Club and the Literary Guild.
Finally, I moved to HarperCollins where I’ve been for four years.
What’s a typical day like for a book publicist?
I get to work almost every day at about 9:30 a.m. and stay until 7 p.m. (I’m not a morning person) -- unless I have authors on the morning shows and then I’m up at 5 a.m.!
So, in that sense every day can be different.
I work on a great deal of fiction: mysteries, thrillers, debut novels, literary, commercial works, but I also work on business books, science, social sciences, art books, history, celebrity biographies.
You name it, I’ve worked on it.
I go to a lot of planning and marketing meetings to discuss the books I work on, but also for upcoming seasons.
We do media plans for each author and execute those plans. National radio campaigns, national TV campaigns, national online campaigns and book tours.
Every author wants to get on NPR, CNN , the Today Show, Oprah and every thing in between, but it's not possible for everybody. It's hard. Especially for fiction author -- it's hard to get them on TV.
The things you see on the book -- copy, author photo, bio, marketing plans bullets -- it's a team effort. There are designers who do the front covers. The author's bio is from material the author gives us. We tailor it down to a few sentences. The back cover copy is drafted by the editor with a copywriter.
What's your usual workload of authors, and what are the types of things you do for them?
I usually have about five to six new books that go on sale per season.
Harper is on a three season program each year. Fall is from September to December, then winter is from January to April and Spring/Summer is from May to August.
I am immersed in the current season of Fall, but also working hard on the next season, Winter 2011. We are putting together the plans for Summer and Fall 2011, especially for mystery/thriller authors who are on a book a year schedule, like Alafair Burke's summer book LONG GONE and Kate White's fall novel THE SIXES.
It’s a juggling act --you are constantly pitching the books that come out in a month, but writing press materials and sending galleys out for books that come out six months from now.
For my authors, I read the books, usually in manuscript form. I write press materials, send out galleys to media contacts, I set up events, and interviews on TV, radio, print and the web.
I work closely with our marketing and sales teams on plans and progress, for these books. And, then I have to move onto the next book, and the next.
How is publicizing books and authors different than public relations for a corporation or non-profit?
The closest I’ve come to corporate PR was when I worked at Bookspan. My job was to promote the various book clubs to the media, but to also promote a new publishing imprint they had started. It was a broader kind of publicity than the in house, book/author publicity that I had done before.
I was promoting the company, not the specific books, and I decided that I really missed getting into that nitty gritty.
How do you publicize a debut author compared to a bestselling author?
It might seem common sense that a big advance means a big first printing and budget for promotion, marketing and publicity, which naturally means big sales. But it's not always like that. You can't always predict what books will take off.
We've seen books from famous authors or celebrities who got large advances and got on national TV, all sorts of exposure and promotion, and for some reason the book just didn't sell.
And you'll see the reverse, with a book like Stieg Larsen's GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO, or THE STORY OF EDGAR SAWTELLE by David Wroblewski -- something that starts small and comes out of nowhere to become a bestseller.
Now, if you could predict which books catch fire, you'd be rich.