Sometimes, for whatever reason, an interview doesn't go perfectly well during a book promotion campaign. The interviewer might be having a bad day or might become confrontational or ditzy; the author might be nervous, over-confident, or distracted. In any event, wouldn't it be great if book promotion interviews could be done a second time if they went south initially? Well, of course, if it's a taped radio or TV interview -- and if it really went south -- there's a chance (however slim) that the interview could be taped a second time (or, at least, that the most embarrassing part(s) could be edited out. And, if newspaper and magazine reporters have a heart, they simply won't use the portion(s) of the interview that were awful or would show the author in a bad light.
But, typically, book promotion interviews happen, and you do your best, and then you're done...and you move onto the next opportunity. Hopefully, you learn from the experience and you improve your performance each time. And, hopefully, your book promotion campaign gets stronger, and more effective, over time as you become better and better.
Wouldn't it be wonderful to be the President of the United States or the Chief Justice, though, and have an opportunity to take a wrecked TV opportunity and do it all over again the next day? It happened. The botched Oath of Office was able to proceed without a hitch the second time around. Here's the story.
There weren't many media people around when President Obama and Chief Justice Roberts went through the whole Oath again, "very slowly" this time. But it must have been a source of satisfaction to both the President and the Chief Justice that, when the pressure was off, both could perform at the top of their game...and that they weren't doomed to remember the silly mix-ups (because it sounds to me as though there were a couple of problems with the Oath of Office the first time around) that occurred on Inauguration Day.
Would that all authors had an opportunity to redo their less-than-perfect media moments!
