Author offers perspective to the PR process

We've decided to invite authors to blog on our site as we move ahead into a new decade.

We didn't have to look far for our first contributor as Dennis Welch here on our staff wrote his first book late last year. A candid memoir of his mother Patsy's life, it is a book about tragedy and triumph, friendship and faith. I am a big fan.

Here's one of his first missives from the "life as an author" file.


So, let me just begin by saying that there are all kinds of PR. I’ll explain later.

It all began with a breakfast meeting a month or so ago with my pastor, Will Davis Jr. He’s a great guy and I’m delighted that he’s my pastor and my friend. I met him at Waterloo here in Austin one morning at around 7:30. We had a delightful visit, I signed a copy of my new book Rich People Shop Here to he and his sweet wife Susie, and all was well.

Then, a couple of weeks ago I found out that someone was selling a copy of Rich People on Amazon for a premium because it was a “collector’s item, signed by the author”. I went right over to the item to see who in the world would be selling their copy of the book already, especially ONE I HAD SIGNED SPECIFICALLY TO THEM…

And there, plain as day was the inscription: “To Will and Susie.”.

What!!!! I jumped to EVERY conclusion and I have to say my first reaction did not give him the benefit of the doubt. SELL MY BOOK THAT I SIGNED TO YOU???? HOW DARE YOU???? It’s a work of art, for God’s sake!!!!

I waited a couple of days and sent Will a note to let him know that I had found it on line and I was very clinical in what I sent. Unemotional, even.

His reply was priceless: “Thank God you found it! We’ve been looking all over for it! We thought we’d lost it!” It turns out that Will and Susie had recently moved his parents out of their house and his house was FILLED with STUFF. Susie suggested that he take some of their stuff to Goodwill, so Will just started taking things down there to clear some space.

Unfortunately, my book was in the Goodwill stuff. When he found out it was for sale as a collector’s item he was appalled and embarrassed.

So, what did he do? He logged on to Amazon and bought his OWN BOOK back at a premium, a book that was signed to him!

This past Saturday and Sunday he preached about having too much stuff. That enough is what we need and that most of us have more than enough. We have so much that we lose our friend’s book and have to buy it back. He held the book up in every service and….

Well, I’ve already said it. There are all kinds of PR.

My lesson? Give people the benefit of the doubt. Don’t jump to conclusions.

All the things I write about in my book….

Going Viral

Like everyone in the publishing business, we're working hard to figure out the new landscape and find the opportunities that we know will come with the massive shift in the way we consume information. So, I was delighted to be invited to blog about our industry changes from the real pros in social media, Ben McConnell and Jackie Huba, who write the popular Church of the Customer Blog.

Here's a link to my post: http://www.churchofthecustomer.com/

Within an hour of this posting, emails started dropping into my box from authors interested in our services.

Seems the mantra of social media can easily be summed up in a single word -- participate.

The Full Plate Diet becomes a bestseller

Our hats off to THE FULL PLATE DIET, publisher Ray Bard and authors, Dr. Stuart Seale, Dr. Teresa Sherard and Dr. Diana Fleming, who just made the New York Times bestseller list. http://tinyurl.com/y96wsvbHardcover



BookPeople in Austin hosted the authors this week for an event where everyone learned how to drop pounds and get healthy without gimmicks, packaged foods, or strange supplements. Dr. Sherard, Ray, Amy Hanus (who is busy creating recipes for the full plate dieters) and Dr. Fleming were all on hand. Everyone who showed up to hear the authors talk were shocked to learn they could eat MORE and weigh LESS.

Giving Credit where it is Due

I learned much at the hands of my former boss, Lynn Goldberg, a legendary woman in publishing who was far more than a boss to me – she was part mother/part mentor/part friend. A key lesson she imparted during the decade I spent working for her was the gracious way to give credit where it was due. She was unparalleled at this – with personal notes, public recognition, and lots of other clever ways.

So, as I sit here on the eve of the holidays receiving emails about our holiday gift – a card featuring us all playing scrabble with a portable scrabble game – I feel compelled to give the credit for this clever idea where it is due. To be honest, trying to come up with a holiday card or gift that somehow relates to the publishing industry gets tough. Once you have exhausted the obvious bookmarks, book bags, or even bookends, the idea well gets a little dry.

So this year, when the holiday card time rolled around I was a little stumped. Then, someone on staff reminded me of some shots we had from a standard company shoot. We had never used them as most featured us standing around trying to look like we’re not being photographed. Then, Dennis’s wife, Susie, reached over at the end of the photo session which we were more than ready to end, dumped a scrabble game on the floor and urged us all to sit down and put the company’s name on the board. These candid shots were the only good ones taken that day. And playing with words did seem a good idea for a company that promotes book.

Then, as I sat mulling one night what we could send to accompany the card, my middle child, 14 year old Corey, look a glance and said, “Oh, you should put in those scrabble games that you can take in the car.” Of course, this was FAR better than anything at all I could think of. A scrabble dictionary I had wondered? Corey mulled. “Well, that’s okay, I guess, but what good is the dictionary for Scrabble if you don’t have the game?”

There you have it – anyone who got the game from us and loved it, we’re thrilled. But the clever idea was alas, not really ours. Kudos to Susie Welch and Corey Henricks. We’re mulling whether they would consider sharing the title of Chief Creative Officers of the company.

800-CEO-READ 2009 Business Book Awards

Today 800-CEO-READ announced the winners of their 2009 Business Book Awards, which highlights its top business book of the year along with winners and nominees in a number of categories including Leadership, Current Interest and Finance & Economics. TOO BIG TO FAIL by Andrew Ross Sorkin (Viking) won Business Book of the Year and we're thrilled that six of our clients are also on the list!

Personal Development WINNER! – Power of 2 by Rodd Wagner & Gale Muller (Gallup Press)

Leadership nominee – Strengths Based Leadership by Barrie Conchie & Tom Rath (Gallup Press)

Marketing & Advertising nominee – "I Love You More Than My Dog" by Jeanne Bliss (Portfolio)

Entrepreneurship & Small Business nominee - Duck and (Re)Cover by Steven S. Little (Wiley)

Biographies & Narratives nominee - How to Castrate a Bull by Dave Hitz with Pat Walsh (Jossey-Bass)

Innovation & Creativity nominee - In Pursuit of Elegance by Matthew B. May (Broadway Business)

Congratulations to all of the winners and nominees!

Book success even sweeter in tough times

The publishing and media worlds have had a tough year. With magazines folding, newspapers dying or going digital and staff cuts plaguing nearly every industry, it feels there has been little to celebrate.

But while we watch our industry undergoing what is clearly a game-changing shift pushed by technological and digital innovation, watching an old fashioned book, the kind that lives between two covers, remains a big thrill.

This week, Jeanne Bliss has enjoyed a double victory with her book "I Love You More Than My Dog" Five Decisions that Drive Extreme Customer Loyalty in Good Times and bad. (Portfolio, hardcover, October, 2009)

It has become a BusinessWeek bestseller http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/09_49/b4158068815587.htm?campaign_id=rss_null

And Inc magazine has named it a notable book of 2009. http://www.inc.com/ss/best-books-business-owners-2009#14

Our hats off to Jeanne!

And for the record, the seismic shift and the rise of the digital book are both trends that I feel bring with them tremendous opportunity. More on that here later. After we've popped the champagne corks to celebrate with Jeanne.

The Reshaped Face of Publishing

A "Shouts & Murmurs" piece in The New Yorker this week has me torn about an appropriate response to the recent upheavals in the publishing world.

Have you read it? Does it make you want to laugh or cry?

It's hard not to laugh at Ellis Weiner's tongue-in-cheek portrayal of some poor "intern to replace the promotion department" trying to make hay for a book by unleashing a pile of jargon on some unsuspecting soul - blasting him with a wacky pre-packaged social media plan to end all social media plans. Facebook? Don't worry - he was signed up for Facebook by his editor when his book contract was signed last year. "You currently have 421 Friends, 17 Pending Requests, 8 Pokes, 5 Winks, and 3 Proposals of 'Marriage.'" Funnier still is the idea that a publisher will network together its authors and have them read one another's work in their respective hometowns, saving their publisher the time and expense of flying them around on a book tour. I literally howled at the suggestion that a cookbook author, a mystery writer and an expert in Moorish architecture would make an appropriate network to "cross promote" their works. Surely when in the kitchen cooking couscous one would be hit with a sudden desire to sink into the couch with a thriller – or perhaps that are supposed to read the thriller while en route to the site with Moorish architecture?

The pragmatists will argue that the answer is in front of us – we move to where the coverage is. But before you get too quick and fast with your email pitch, consider this little diatribe from someone on the receiving end.

Ouch. Some poor blogger publicly unleashed his frustration when a publicist did not respond politely or quietly when the blogger tried to pull himself off the mass email list. I feel bad for both of them.

My solution? I think we all need to pull together a bit – I think we need to start talking to one another again. As in really talking, not online and not via email and not in voice mail messages. Would it really be unreasonable for bloggers, journalists and publicists to devote, say, one hour a month, or a week, on the phone to talk with each other about what’s working, and just as important, what’s not?

I am going to join the half that laugh at The New Yorker column, but I’d like to use the laughter to keep the lines of communication open. As the ultimate optimist, I feel really certain that the media world is still interested in cutting-edge work and opinion in their particular area of expertise. And that books and authors can still serve as excellent sources.

I’ll go you one further, I’m going to say that our job in public relations is to ignore the template approach that might have worked on previous book campaigns and to concentrate much more closely on what the author we are working with brings to the mix. The world of the template campaign is over. The era of a ultra-customized approach for each author and each book has barely begun. Honestly, I can hardly wait.

Do What You Love

Gallup has long espoused the value of doing what you do best, every day, penning a sequence of bestsellers to help all of us identify our strengths and figure out whether we’re putting them to good use. Hand in hand with this school of thought is the idea that we should spend our precious time – perhaps the biggest scarcity in our ever wired world – doing what we truly love.

Given the tough state of the publishing world, it's a great time to be in the game for love of the written word.

Last week, we lost four Conde Nast magazines to the difficult economy and falling ad dollars. This week, our friends at 800 CEO READ passed on the last column written by their local book review editor, Geeta Sharma Jensen of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. She was among those taking an early buy out in early August. We think it's a poignant tribute to the passion that books can inspire.

Celebrating Our Own

A couple of years ago, my friend and my colleague Dennis Welch began sending me email missives, chapters of a book he was writing based on a weekly conversation he had with his mother. Funny, heartbreaking, and impossible to put down, I found myself searching my inbox for the latest installment. When one was late, I picked up the phone and insisted that he find time to write the next piece so that I would know how it all came out in the end.

I am happy to report that those chapters will be available to readers everywhere this fall. RICH PEOPLE SHOP HERE: A Tale of Love, Redemption, and Bargain Hunting is the story of Patsy Welch, whose first 80 years have been filled with sadness, struggle, alcohol, death, and divorce. But that’s not the way Patsy sees it. In the face of obstacles that would make others crumble, Patsy met adversity with a faith so strong and friendships so resilient it will forever change the way you see the world.

Oh, it's also hilariously funny, with Patsy a perfect mix of Southern Belle and Lucille Ball. Forever short on maps and directions, she could turn a car ride to church into a rolling adventure for her three sons or a trip to the grocery store a near tragedy when she picked up the necessities, went to retrieve her car and proceeded to drive home leaving the food and one of her young boys behind. As I said to Dennis, "you couldn't possibly make up this stuff."

George Gallup Jr., co-founder of the Gallup Organization where Dennis worked for over a decade, calls it "the ultimate tale of triumph." Carolyn Castleberry, a reporter for the Christian Broadcasting Network, says it reminds us that "no challenge can extinguish hope."

You can pre-order a copy now. Stay tuned, I'll keep you posted on critic and reader response.

CHC authors on the morning shows

Two of our authors were on network morning TV in the past week, both talking about different aspects of our work and business lives.

Greg Cootsona, former pastor of the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church in New York, penned his book, Say Yes to No, after a personal wake up call that managing his ministry and growing family was taxing his health. He talked with The Today Show's Kathie Lee and Hoda on Tuesday about ways to thoughtfully say "no" - to your children, your friends, your boss.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Last Friday, executive coach and strategist Erika Andersen talked with Maggie Rodriguez of CBS's The Early Show about her book, Being Strategic, a primer on truly being effective in creating the career, the business or the life you envision for yourself.


Watch CBS Videos Online

We find it interesting that both subjects dovetail together – because the truth is, you must slow down and choose wisely as Cootsona advises before you can apply the strategic thinking that is the basis of Andersen’s book. We’d love to have you read them both!