What Every Writer Needs to Know
Hello Guys and Gals!
Behind every successful book lies not only a great story but a great PR team. Never a month goes by that I'm not asked by a writer with a story to tell if they need to hire a publicist. My answer is always the same: Absolutely! Invariably the next question is: What did your PR agency do for you? Most people, myself included, have no idea what happens in the complex world of public relations, which is why I was delighted early on to have crossed paths with JKS Communications. What fellows is a brief and instructive overview that, by chance, I recently found on the their website. Read on to find out how they made Veronica's Grave a standout. Enjoy!
A Mother’s Day winner – this unusual memoir grabbed the national media’s imagination and jumped to first-page news
The book market is crowded with memoirs every year, but when we first encountered Barbara Donsky’s incredible true story of her mother’s disappearance, Veronica’s Grave, we knew we were onto something special–and the media agreed!
Barbara’s unusual memoir, detailing how she dealt with her mother’s mysterious disappearance when she was a young child, and the startling truth that her mother had died in childbirth and her family had kept it a secret, caused something of a media frenzy. Because Barbara was a native New Yorker, JKS pitched Barbara’s personal story to a targeted number of quality Bronx and Manhattan news outlets for a Mother’s Day story around the book’s pub date, and were thrilled when The New York Post, New York Magazine, and NY1 News ran features on her.
After the story started trending on The New York Post, becoming their most viewed story of the day and landing on their front page, the story was picked up by Bravo TV Online, Yahoo News, Garnet News, and the Independent Journal Review.
With a national radio tour and features on Women’s Writers, Women’s Books, Shelf Pleasure, Book Pleasures, this combination of an unusual, gripping story, great timing, and targeted outreach helped garner Veronica’s Grave the recognition it deserved!
Paris in New York...
In keeping with this blog, Desperately Seeking Paris, I'd have to say that the above post is not all that French–other than the part of my memoir where I fall half-in love with a debonair Frenchman and completely in love with Paris. Ah, yes, it was the "golden age of aviation.' To this day, I have never met a single person, male or female, who flew then with Trans World Airways or Pan American Airways who doesn't fondly remember their years of flying on high.
That was a time when employers could dictate the length of your hair or the shade of your lipstick. For those of us who were TWA hostesses, it was Revlon's 'Fire and Ice,' while over at Pan Am, 'Persian Melon' ruled the skies. But that was also a time when TWA bedded their crews in first-class hotels in Europe and paid all the bills, meals included. Too tired to go out on the town? Stay in and order room service and charge it to TWA. It was all about 'the brand,' and we were thrilled to be part of it.
The closest I got to Paris this month was a return visit to Majorelle on Valentine's Day. You can read all about the restaurant in the delectable post I wrote last October: Bienvenue a New York! (Click the link, be transported.) Our visit this month, under the watchful eye of the legendary restaurateur Charles Masson, widely known for his years at La Grenouille, was every bit as spectacular as the first. By the way, the restaurant is in the handsome Lowell Hotel on East 63rd Street. But for today, I will let the pictures do the talking.
Hope to see you back next week, when I'll have the coffee brewing. Jusque-là mes amis... may life treat you kindly. And remember, s'il vous plaît, sharing is caring... Merci beaucoup!
