Today’s guest on the Morning Media Menu was James P. Othmer, advertising expert and author of the upcoming book, “Adland: Searching for the Meaning of Life on a Branded Planet.” Before working in advertising, Othmer served as publicist to novelists Richard Yates and Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
Around the 11-minute mark, Othmer recalled the difference between his two amazing literary clients: “[Yates] was a wonderful writer. He was amazing and had written ‘Revolutionary Road,’ yet never received the numbers that Vonnegut or a lot of his contemporaries had received. He was living in semi-squalor on top of a bar in Boston and would call up and bemoan the fact that he had no readers.”
Click here to listen to the whole show. In addition the show focused on free versus paid models of content, debating the thoughts of the IAC/InterActiveCorp CEO, a New Yorker writer, and a Wired editor–another crucial issue for writers of all stripes.