| How does a publicist’s role fit with an agent’s or editor’s? |
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Q: How does a publicist fit in with an agent and an editor? Aren’t theretimes when everybody is stepping on everyone else’s toes? The work of a publicist is different than that of a literary agent oreditor. The three can coordinate, but each is handling a differentaspect of a book’s life. A literary agent’s role is to sell amanuscript, or concept, to a publisher. An editor, usually in-house,will work with the author (and illustrator, if there is one) to bring abook from concept to a finished book. A publicist, whether in-house, orfree-lance, gets involved shortly before a book is due to be published(ideally 3-4 months in advance of the publication date). The publicist’sjob is to generate excitement about a book in the marketplace. This canbe done in a variety of ways, but a lot of publicity efforts are focusedon media placement (placing reviews in magazines, newspapers, wireservices, on-line; and arranging interviews on radio and TV, and in thepress). A children’s book publicist may also handle author tours,special events, school and library appearances, newsletters andconvention appearances. It’s best when the literary agent, editor andpublicist work cooperatively, though the publicist’s job doesn’t need tohave a lot of overlap with the others. When we handle a campaign for a publisher, or directly for an author, wetalk with the staff at the publishing house (and with the literaryagent, if appropriate) to make sure we know what publicity areas we canpursue. We also check when it is appropriate to turn over a contactwe’ve made to the publishing house, or the literary agent. An example iswhen we contact sports associations for children’s sports books. If theassociation wants to list the book in a newsletter or bibliography,that’s publicity. If they want to purchase a quantity of books for useat a special event, that’s a special sale, and we direct the person toan in-house contact to pursue the lead. If the organization wantspermission to print an excerpt from the book, we forward the lead eitherto the publisher, or to the author’s literary agent, depending on whoholds therights. 3:4/99 |