Mark Sarvas laid down some common sense about a recent wave of publicist-bashing that swept through the literary blogosphere after a few people got sick of receiving queries about books that were clearly outside their editorial purview. Of course, I get hit with these all the time, too, and there are publicists out there who will just send stuff willy-nilly without taking a moment to see if it really fits your site—hell, some authors who can’t afford publicists will do it themselves. (My “favorite” in this category is the guy who every six months or so tells me about his guide to picking up women and asks if I’ll “publish this press release in your newspaper.”)
I’ve always felt that blogging needs to lose some of its “punk rock” attitude of “us vs. the conglomerates” and recognize that we’re all part of a complex and evolving media ecology—the metaphor I tend to use, because it’s so visually striking, is that we’re like those little birds that pick nits off rhinoceroses. Sarvas comes at the same broad principle from a different angle, reminding bloggers that publicists are not corporate zombies. “My experience has been that these are people who care deeply about the books they handle,” he writes. “They’re not terribly unlike bloggers in many ways—they work out of passion, they certainly aren’t paid well (starting salaries in the low 20s) and it’s not as though they get a cut when a book does succeed.” There seemed to be some opportunities for the two camps to come closer together last weekend, from Sarah’s panel on blog reviews to the Litblog Co-op cocktail party; with luck, we’ll be able to work together even more effectively in the future because of steps like these. Remember: it’s all about the books, people!