More Helpful Marketing Advice For Marrieds

May 10th, 2005 · No Comments
by Booksquare

Here is the thing: when you have two unavoidable topics, it is better not to avoid them. Avoidance leads to more questions. If you come up with a highly probable but incredibly dull response to the questions, more power to you. Nothing kills reader interest in a topic faster than dull responses.

And why do we have to explain this to Nicole Krauss and Jonathan Safran Foer? Because clearly they cannot be bothered to hire media consultants to do this helpful work for them. Refusing to discuss your spouse and feigning wide-eyed innocence when confronted with the similarity of topics in your new books is not the way to go. Let us help:

Interviewer: There’s a lot of thematic overlap in your new books.

Interviewee: Yes, well that’s because we both have a lifelong passion for the history of bobka [begin long-winded, sometimes pedantic discourse on bobka and its history, citing obscure scholarly works when possible; tie the discussion to your mutual fascination; move on]

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This is an especially useful technique if your media blitz overlaps your spouse’s. Once interviewers grow bored with your responses to a topic that’s really none of their business, you’re less likely to endure inappropriate questions.

Your other option, of course, is to avoid the media entirely, but we are not certain that will achieve various goals. For example, answering the questions on everybody’s minds.

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