(probably not what our panel will look like)
If you’re going to be at BookExpo America for the educational programs on Thursday, May 29, or if you just want to take a break from setting up your booth, I’ll be participating in a panel on “Strategies for New Publicity Opportunities in an Expanding Media Universe” at 2:30 p.m. According to the official description, we’ll be asking—or you’ll be asking and we’ll be answering:
“How do publicists and marketers balance traditional campaign efforts, budget resources and time, and find and validate smaller web communities? In an environment where everyone is—quite literally—a critic, are trusted review publications more or less influential?”
Or, as I’ve been joking to people over the last week, “book trailers and blog tours: do they do any good?” Fortunately, moderator Jerome Kramer of Rosetta Solutions will come up with smarter things to talk about, and John Pitts and Matt Baldacci, the directors of marketing at Doubleday and St. Martin’s, respectively, will have substantial insights into how publishers are tackling a media landscape where facing five minutes of mock hostility on Comedy Central can do more good for a nonfiction writer than an ideologically sympathetic magazine review.
For more information on the full range of panel discussions taking place that day, check the BookExpo calendar.