As I read between the lines of a March 8, 2010 New York Times article, "Pondering Good Faith in Publishing," something occurred to me: nonfiction authors who haven't been 100% concerned about the veracity of their words should fear book promotion opportunities. An appearance on Oprah's show isn't the Holy Grail if your work would not hold up under careful scrutiny.
Yes, most authors I run into as a book publicist dream of scoring national book promotion opportunities, and many of them do. I haven't run into a situation where that's been a problem for my authors or for me. Then again, the authors I've represented have all written with honesty and integrity.
So I issue this warning not to my book promotion clients, past, present, or future, but rather, to nonfiction authors whose research has been sloppy or who have embellished their stories: steer clear of book promotion for your sake, for the media's sake, for the public's sake ... and for book publicists' sake.
In other words: be honest. Or be invisible.
