This morning’s update from The Book Publicity Blog pointed me to a series of advice for authors on how to get along with their publicists at the Phenix Literary Blog.
The author/publicist dynamic is something I’ve always tried to wrap my brain around. In one sense, the author is a client who (ideally) makes money for the publishing house through sales of their books. The publicist offers a form of customer service to the author by promoting them and their book, and in this scenario the author can tell the publicist what they want. However, the publisher has paid the author for their work which makes the author a pseudo employee of the company so the publicist has the power to tell the author what to do.
Well, with all this going on it’s good to see there’s lots of advice on the web for authors and publicists alike.
The Midwest Review of Books tips for working with publicists.
Slunch has a list of the nine authors publicists will ever work with.
Reading Under the Covers has a top ten list of signs that an author’s relationship with their publicist might be over and what you can do about it.
And who can forget a day in a life of a book publicist which gives authors a good idea of what their publicist is really up to.
So, what’s your advice? Leave a comment.