For you professional writers, a warning that maybe you need to lower your expectations. Not everybody gets to be a star, so you need to cut your publicist some slack.
“Most authors don't have a realistic basis of just how serious the competition for publicity is,” remarked the publicity director of a major literary imprint, who asked to remain anonymous. “Most reviewers at major media get, on average, 300 books a week. The amount of books produced has increased while the amount of book coverage (not to mention sales) has decreased. Most authors desperately want their books to sell and would like to make livings by writing and publishing, but the sad reality is that probably 5% of authors in print are able to do that. Who do they blame? The publicists. We're the caboose on the train and as a result become the scapegoat for just about everything.”
(via Bookslut)
Posted by Bobby Farouk at June 16, 2005 07:10 AMOy.
Why people write books I have no idea. Why I try to write books I have no idea.
It's a vale of tears, we can agree on that. Disappointing mainly- your friends and family think you a pretentious fool.
On fame: take Nick Laird's pretentious lad novel utterly Monkey- 100 grand up front for no earthly reason I can think of other than the small matter of his being the long time girlfriend of Zadie White Teeth Smith. He gets interviews ALL OVER- why? Because of his connection to her. There'll be a phrase for it; some ghastly American economic jargon cooked up by a coke-sweating moron like Residual Public Interest Factoring.
That's perfectly normal, unfortunately.
Posted by: Alan Hogue at June 20, 2005 01:45 PM