24 Oct Spooky Stories to Tell in Your Pub Week
As we get to the final weeks of spooky season, I tasked the team with reminiscing about their own “scary stories” from the world of book publicity. All stories are anonymous.
So, cozy up with your mug by the campfire and get ready to feel the fear. Or, as is more likely, settle in at your laptop and know that all of the stories get resolved.
But first, an intro to set the mood…
(Materia Primoris, Mark Snow, 1993)
Now, let’s get into the stories..
The Advertising Apparition
Once upon a time, we had a book campaign (not here at P1M) that had a very large advertising budget allotted to it by the author through a grant the author had received. Let’s say that budget was $250,000. The book was already having a really stellar publicity campaign with features in A+ legacy media, NPR interviews, and much, much more. So, we thought for sure, having an ad budget like this would really help push sales over the top. The scary thing was, we put both digital and print ads in dozens of places—in addition to the traditional smaller ad buys publishers did at the time like in the New York Review of Books, Google AdWords and Amazon merchandizing ads—this was all on top of that usual stuff and you know what happened? Nothing. Nothing happened. We really didn’t sell any more books than we had expected to in the first place.
Advertising in the book industry is really hard because we can’t direct consumers to one retailer to purchase. We usually direct them back to our own website which then has links to half a dozen potential retailers and that’s where we lose book buyers. That extra click, or extra few clicks depending on your publisher’s website, is too much and the buyer drifts off into terrifying internet obscurity…
Terrified on Tour
It was the third day in a seven-day book tour. I was traveling with a celebrity author I was representing, visiting a different city every night to promote his new memoir. I was having a blast meeting his fans and seeing new parts of the country…but disaster struck when our flights to Nashville were abruptly cancelled! We had to get to Nashville first thing in the morning for a big TV interview, and no plane or train would get us there in time. Just as I thought we’d have to order the world’s most expensive Uber ride, the celebrity author’s tour manager saved the day by calling in a tour bus. We drove from Texas to Tennessee overnight, swapping stories and favorite moments from the tour. Book tours can be wildly unpredictable, even with the best laid plans. Thankfully, this “scary story” turned into a treasured memory.
The Cases of the Missing Books
Los Strandedless
One year, I worked with a celebrity author who had arranged a book launch event in Los Angeles exclusively for the likes of her A-list friends. However, a miscommunication with her local bookstore meant that, on the day of the event, no books had arrived! That day, I met a poor assistant frantically driving all over LA, scrambling to gather as many copies as possible (which was difficult as the book had not been published, yet!). Luckily, I had extra to spare, and the assistant managed to cobble together a decent amount before the event!
Major City Mishap
I have a scary story that I think all publicists fear and can relate to – not having books for an author event! I once worked with a high-profile author who was touring the country, and we discovered a few days beforehand that stock had never been ordered for an event in a major city. We immediately began troubleshooting and, fortunately, were able to secure stock from a local distributor who got books to the bookstore the next day. A close call, but all went well in the end!
Out of the Down Pour and Into the Uber
It was a rainy day in New York City when it happened. 5:50 p.m. We were watching the rain hit the window in the lobby of a Financial District hotel where our author was staying when we received the call.
“Hi, um, yes, this is the event organizer. It appears there was a miscommunication. The bookseller for tonight’s event showed up without any copies of your author’s book.”
A chill ran down my spine. “There are no copies of the book? This event starts at 7:00 and is set to be attended by over 80 people.”
“Right, I know, I’m sorry,” the organizer said on the other end of the line, “Is there any way we can get even a few?”
My brain was racing. This was a book from a tiny indie publisher, it wasn’t like I could just go to the nearest bookstore, buy up their stock, and call it good. The likelihood of them having it in stock was relatively low.
“We’ll handle it,” we said before we hung up the phone.
I immediately opened my Uber app, knowing that I had ten copies sitting in my apartment. My colleague said “I’ll have my partner bring in the five books I have at my house in Brooklyn. What do you think about getting an Uber to Queens to get your books?”
I turned my screen toward them and said, “Way ahead of you.”
The trip was set to be over $150 round trip and an hour and a half ride, from the Financial District to Queens then back to midtown Manhattan. It was 6:00 p.m. on a rainy Tuesday and rush hour traffic was in full swing. I left the hotel at 6:06 and made it into my apartment at 7:06, grabbed the books, let my dog outside, grabbed a protein shake, and jumped back in the Uber. I made it to the event venue in Manhattan just after 7:40 p.m. where the five books that made their way from Brooklyn also sat now with the bookseller.
After the hand-off, I made it into the event just before our author went on. He was a hit. The audience roared with laughter at the stories he told, many coming up to him after and inquiring if he was a comedian on the side.
While the prospect of not having any books to sell had scared me to my very core, the mad dash across three of the five boroughs of New York City was worth it in the end.
In Conclusion…
What can you learn from this? First of all, always order books (this goes for your personal life too!). Second, there are moments in book publicity that feel like everything is out of control, but your publicist has your back. They will take tour buses and long uber rides to get to interviews! They will call in media favors and send out thousands of pitches. Think of Page One as your Ghostbusters or Knights of the Trade Reviews.
Margot Flanders (they/them) is the publicity and marketing assistant at Page One Media. You can follow the work of Page One Media on LinkedIn, @pageonem.bsky.social on BlueSky and @pageonem on Instagram.