Comments on: Prediction: Next Year, Your Mother Will Have a Podcast

By: Booksquare

Booksquare — Thu, 06 Oct 2005 17:29:06 +0000

My guess is that USA Today isn’t even aware of the independents. And if they were, they wouldn’t know how to handle the concept (even Bookworm is relatively outside the NPR demographic mainstream…not to mention the fact that, at least around here, it’s aired at a low-listener time.

And yeah, I get a lot of interesting, uh, offers to shill. Love those. Especially the ones with curious spelling and unusual relationships with commas.

I’m liking the Segundo interviews — so at least your approach is reaching one person…

By: ed

ed — Wed, 05 Oct 2005 20:45:34 +0000

Also, I find it interesting that the USA Today article only mentions publishers who podcast and not those scintillating independents like Pinky and Bookworm (the latter predominantly a radioshow) who interview.

By: ed

ed — Wed, 05 Oct 2005 20:44:15 +0000

Heh…I won’t name names. But one publicist told me that s/he would not produce his/her author (interesting, that whole proprietary thing, eh?) because “I know who you are and what you do.” Yeah, I’m pretty proud of that. At the same time, my questions, while challenging, are never outright belligerent. They are intended to galvanize an author’s mind — the way interviews USED to be done back in the Dick Cavett/John Leonard days and would be done today, if the current media outlets weren’t fixated on gossip, keeping up cordial relationships with advertisers, and devoting pages upon pages to dull figureheads.

I would never, for example, transform the Bat Segundo Show into partisan publicity. That’s not journalism; that’s capitulation. On the blog side of things, I’m still amazed that I receive emails from publicists who still seem to expect me to shill for their books for free, without reading them, much less offering a constructive opinion. (I’m sure you get these too.)

In principle, working directly with an author generally works. Unfortunately, even authors, as agreeable as they often are to talk with me, need to coordinate with their publicists. The higher up the food chain you go, the less real control an author has. Some publicists are fantastic and understand this whole blog things. I can say nothing but positive words for the various Penguin imprints and the Random House folks. At least, you’re going to get a straight answer from them and they will bend over backwards to accommodate.

By: Booksquare

Booksquare — Wed, 05 Oct 2005 02:16:52 +0000

Ed, putting the fear of Segundo into publishers should be a point of pride. You have achieved what few of us ever will. That being said, I find it’s easier to work directly with authors on this sort of thing. Of course, I’m lazy and slightly terrified of the telephone.

By: ed

ed — Tue, 04 Oct 2005 20:53:47 +0000

This is quite interesting, because Simon & Schuster has been among the worst about returning my emails and phone calls for Segundo offerings. Probably because they’re terrified of anyone asking even a remotely interesting (read: critical) question.