Enter the Book Flack

I am, in fact, a book flack at large. I'm not at large by choice, though, and if I weren't at large I probably wouldn't be blogging.

I spent a lot of years publicizing books and authors. If I were to name some of them--and I may--you would almost certainly recognize a few. Most recently I was a senior director of publicity at a large publishing company, the name of which you would also know (OK, it was HarperCollins). After working there for more than five years, I was laid off in February when they folded Collins, the division that employed me.

I thought hard about how to respond to this layoff. I came up with the notion that I could apply my publicity skills to my situation, and essentially publicize myself into my next position. Instead of telling people what I've done, I'd just show them what I can do, and see if perhaps some opportunities might find me instead of the other way around.

This approach has yielded some interesting results, which I'll describe in future posts. I'll probably also digress into commentary, random musings, and occasional name dropping, much of it book-related. So be warned.