Well I'll go to the bottom of our stairs! Notes from a bookseller. Yesterday I got an email for Jonathan at Bookseller Crow on the hill in London. They are participating in the Exclusively Independent promotion, and as you know, The art of being dead is one of the titles being showcased. Yann Martel(Life of Pi), his partner bought a copy of Steve's book, and by the 6 degrees of seperation law, Steve is a Booker winner. So the Moose got to work. I got in contact with the biggest and most high profile PR company in the land. Freud Communications. They are steller. Have a filofax of names that's bigger than God's. Mrs Freud is Elisabeth Murdoch, daughter of you know who. Ssh, he may be listening. Anyway, I contacted them and asked them to do some Pro Bono work for Bluemoose. Well, they're massive and now that we've won a prize, we needed someone to sort out all the glitzy networking. Get The art of being dead reviewed in all the Big Papers. They haven't returned my emails. Stewards of Bah. I will have to call in a few favours from my favourite Astral tar and featherer. Holistic knee capping isn't out of the question either. Mr. Freud, I wouldn't worry about your dreams, mate, I'd worry about the
be-antlered publisher charging at you from all points north.
If you happen to be travelling to Hebden Bridge, you will see in the wonderful Station Cafe on Platform One, The Bluemoose Library. Free books to read and share. It's the way forward because you never know who'll pick one up and then make a film. Tarantino often pops over to Hebden to refuel his creative thermos flask. On the Hollywood front, no word from Johnny Depp. Mind you it is Easter time, I bet that Vanessa woman has got him up the ladders doing a bit of a spring cleaning. These pirates, what can you do?
I found your blog through Jane Smith's Pitch Party, but I'm going to comment on this, earlier post, because here I can actually suggest something:
ReplyDeleteDon't wait for the conventional PR folks to help you! First, they generally don't do pro bono, and second, you don't need to!
There are some really good books on book publicity techniques that authors can use. Try Steve Weber's Plug Your Book!l and Jacqueline Deval's Publicize your Book! (NB: if you're doing one of these books, an exclamation point in the title is apparently required.)
They're both from the States, but I suspect that they're available in the UK. If they're not, there will undoubtedly be others on your side of the pond.
I wish you all good luck.