When publishers won't blog

Here's an odd story, and it comes from the Huffington Post. In an article called "Bound and Gagged: Publishers Remain Silent," the Huffington Post reveals that it asked publishing professionals to contribute to a new Books section, and most turned down the opportunity.

As a book publicist who'd probably give up several of her favorite limbs (or, at least, we could negotiate) for the opportunity to contribute to the Huffington Post's new Books section, let me just say this: any publisher who turns away the opportunity to become a Huffington Post blogger is snubbing a chance to reside in book promotion nirvana. I don't get it.

Can it be that there are still book publishers out there who don't see the relationship between blogging and book promotion? If that's the case, I can't imagine what it will take to make book publishers see the light. To say they're behind the curve is an understatement. I think it's far more accurate to just use the adjective "clueless."

Oh, well. Huffington Post editors, if you ever need another blogger, here I am. I understand and appreciate the value of your venue. And I'd be the last book publicist in the world to turn away the world's most perfect opportunity for promotion.

This book publicist wants her newspapers!

Rumors of newspapers' death have been greatly exaggerated. Daniel Lyons penned a Newsweek column, "Techtonic Shifts," in which he gloats about the demise of newspapers. Lyons would like to see newspapers die quickly so that we can all get our information online, and he boasts that he's already cancelled two of his newspaper subscriptions.

Well, Lyons may be right about one thing. Newspapers do appear to be on a downward spiral. More of us seem to be catching breaking news through the broadcast or online media, and an increasing number of people are using handheld devices to carry around with them all the information they'll need throughout the day. The role of newspapers is changing, and it would be impossible to deny that.

But a changing role doesn't necessarily mean death. The emergence of television didn't mean the death of radio. The coming of television didn't mean the death of film. Media find different niches as new media emerge, but that doesn't mean they become irrelevant or inconsequential. It just means their roles change, and we rely on them for different reasons.

I'm a huge fan of slowly reading the Sunday newspapers over a cup of coffee and breakfast. And, when I say "Sunday newspapers," I do mean the paper goods. I want to turn the physical pages, and I want to pull out the actual sections, and I want to clip actual articles. I've incorporated Sunday newspaper-reading into my Sunday ritual, and I would be bereft without that ritual. Sorry, but hauling my breakfast in front of a computer monitor, or laying my food out beside a hand-held gadget, just won't fill that void. This book publicist wants her newspapers!

I'll get some type of e-reader, eventually, and I do look forward to reading certain types of information on this gadget. But I don't think my e-reader, whatever type it turns out to be, will threaten my newspaper subscriptions. The price of my newspaper subscriptions might threaten my newspaper subscriptions -- that's a whole separate issue -- but, as long as newspaper subscriptions are affordable, I can justify them. And want them. And expect to continue them...and, certainly, do not expect to see the opportunity to enjoy them die just because pundits such as Lyons say they must.

Sometimes, any book publicity can be too much book publicity.

They say that all book promotion is good book promotion, and I used to believe that, but here's a story that's changed my mind. Raise your hand if you wanted to know that John Phillips (founder of the Mamas and the Papas, who sang so lightheartedly and harmoniously about how "California dreamin' was becoming a reality" back in the sixties) raped his drug-addled daughter, Mackenzie Phillips, and that rape eventually devolved into a "consensual relationship."

Mackenzie is all over the media -- Oprah, People, CNN, and much more -- airing unspeakably horrible stories about her father, her own arrest for possession of heroin at an airport, and the like. All of those media appearances are the Holy Grail for authors, publishers, and book publicists. I mean, who doesn't see an appearance on "Oprah" as the greatest book promotion opportunity of all time?

But my original question was: do you really want to know that John Phillips daughter, who played the elder fictional daughter on a Norman Lear sit-com called "One Day at a Time," has lived a nightmarish life? Do you honestly want to see the details of that nightmare?

I suspect that, for many of us, some nightmares are best left unexamined, and Mackenzie's media blitz may be an example of wasted book promotion opportunities. I'm a huge fan of the Mamas and the Papas, and I don't think I missed an episode of any series Norman Lear ever produced, but Mackenzie's story (true or not) is not on the list of those I'd want to read. I have to believe I'm not alone.

No one's denying a former child star the right to catharsis, and I hope Mackenzie is on the road to recovery and health. But buy her book? I don't think that's going to happen for me. I don't even feel moved to mention the title of it here.

Amazon

Amazon has recently implemented a policy change that may or may not affect all of us in the publishing industry. I can't quite figure out what policy Amazon is changing, however, and I've been scratching my head over this for two days. I've now read three articles on the subject (here's one article from LibraryThing itself), and I'm no wiser than I was before.

Here's the part that I think I understand. LibraryThing is moving book-buying links to all booksellers besides Amazon from its main pages to subsidiary pages. It's doing that, if I understand correctly, because Amazon will no longer share information with any subsidiaries that have links to booksellers other than Amazon on their home pages.

Here's the part that puzzles me, as a book publicist. All of my clients, it would be fair to say, have web sites (authors and publishers should know, at this point, that book web sites are an integral part of any book promotion campaign). And most of them -- not all of them, but most of them -- work with multiple booksellers and link to them on their web sites. What does Amazon want from these authors? Does Amazon want these authors to only provide book-buying links to Amazon on their sites? Well, yes, I'm sure they want that. But does Amazon's policy change mean that authors will be penalized if they include book-buying links to, say, Borders and BN.com on their sites?

At first blush, I'd say that authors' web sites will not be affected by Amazon's policy change. I say that because an author doesn't have to be an Amazon affiliate in order to have a book-buying link to Amazon on his or her web site. Authors can put generic links to Amazon on the home pages of their web sites (or, for that matter, on subsidiary pages), and then they'll be flying under Amazon's radar -- I think. However, I don't know for sure. I don't know for sure that authors would be penalized by Amazon for having book-buying links to booksellers other than Amazon on their home pages if they catch Amazon's attention -- say, by having a bestselling book.

I can't make sense of Amazon's policy change, and I'm wondering whether anyone can. Is Amazon acting like a toddler who needs to test his/her limits, or is it actually setting sensible policy rules? That probably remains to be seen.

Scary stuff.

When the Wall Street Journal publishes an article called "Booksellers See Savior in 'Symbol,'" that's scary stuff. Why do booksellers need a savior, wonders this book publicist? Have booksellers so hurt by the recession and the evolution to ebooks that they'll only survive if one book sells phenomenally well?

Typically, I'd say that the article's headline is hyperbolic, but typically, the Wall Street Journal is one of the publications that's not guilty of exaggeration.

The WSJ is arguing that, because of all the book publicity that Dan Brown's latest work has already received, and will continue to receive, that it's poised to sell well enough through the holiday season to keep booksellers on track. Really? Dan Brown is that important to the survival of the bookselling industry?

Hmm...that is scary stuff, indeed. No single book (or publisher, by the way) should have life-and-death power over booksellers. Also, it goes without saying that no single book, publisher, or author should have that might control over the future of the publishing industry. The publishing industry is made up of too many authors, publishers, books, book publicists, editors, designers, marketers, distributors, wholesalers, and booksellers -- and readers -- to let one particular project determine the future of the whole world of books. At least, that's what I've always believed and experienced. Perhaps the Wall Street Journal is onto something...but -- with all due respect -- I hope that, just this once, it's wrong.

Love book promotion, but hate to stuff envelopes?

Do you love the results of your book promotion campaigns, but hate stuffing envelopes and working out the logistics of mass mailings to the media to promote your book? Then you'll be delighted to read yet another article that says ebooks are making steady inroads in the industry and predicts that, by the year 2014, 20% of all books will be ebooks.

Book publicists, and those who conduct book publicity campaigns, will be delighted about that evolution to digital books if it actually comes to pass. How cool and easy will it be for book publicists to beam an ebook at a producer, editor, producer, or hosts who requests a copy of the book? How great will be when, instead of spending hours stuffing envelopes and lugging them to the post office, book publicists can send out emails to the media saying "click here to download the book?" Count this book publicist in! If it's quicker and less expensive, and gets great results, every book publicist should be excited about the opportunity to upgrade to ebooks -- at least, for promotional copies.

Sounds to me as though the only losers are postal service employees and those who work for those companies that specialize in overnight delivery of packages. It would be unspeakable to see jobs lost and an industry that's already hurting lose yet another source of revenue.

So I'm sending my good wishes out to workers at the U.S. Postal Service, UPS, and Fedex...while sincerely hoping that, somehow, ebooks can do good without doing harm. If that's possible...then this book publicist is on the side of progress.

David Letterman Show may be a liability for Seinfeld

Jessica Seinfeld has been cleared of plagiarism charges leveled against her by Missy Chase Lapine, a cookbook author. Turns out, Seinfeld didn't need anyone's help to figure out how to sneak carrots into spaghetti sauce, or whatever it is that she endorses in her cookbook, Deceptively Delicious: Simple Secrets to Get Your Kids Eating Good Food.

So Jessica Seinfeld has been vindicated, but her husband, the inimitable Jerry ("Master of the Domain") Seinfeld, sort of wrecked everything by making a comment about Lapine (he figured out how to compare her to Lee Harvey Oswald, apparently) on the Letterman show. Now the family Seinfeld could be in for another lawsuit -- this one, because Jerry turned what could have been a book promotion (for his wife's book, but still) on David Letterman's show into an opportunity to further ruffle the feathers of Ms. Lapine.

Those of us who followed Jerry's sitcom knows how this story is likely to end: four old friends, sitting in a jail cell, bickering with one another while simultaneously figuring out how to sneak some veggies into the prison food.

Ah, Jerry. Jerry, Jerry, Jerry. Leave it to you to turn a book promotion opportunity into a potential fiasco. What are we going to do with you, my friend?

Blogs are alive and well as part of book promotion campaigns.

You want people to know about your book Web site, so you need to drive traffic to your book Web site. It's part of your book promotion strategy.

That's why blogging has been part of your book promotion strategy for so long. You blog, and -- assuming your blog lives on the Web site for your book -- visitors (and potential book buyers) come to your site.

But with the rise of social networking venues such as Twitter and Facebook, has blogging become irrelevant to a publicity campaign? No, according to the pundits at Webpronews. In fact, the writer Chris Crum cited the case of Alice.com which sells household goods directly to consumers and bypasses retailers as an example of a site whose traffic comes primarily through the word-of-mouth created by bloggers.

Granted, Alice.com isn't a book Web site, and household goods don't include books. However, the principle still applies: blogging creates buzz, and creating buzz is the goal of every book publicity campaign.

So if you're tempted to switch from blogging to micro-blogging, wait awhile. The time may come when distilling your messages to 140 characters is the only way to go ... but that time isn't here yet.

Death by brain tumor is a lousy way to get book publicity opportunities.

Death by brain tumor is a lousy way to get book publicity opportunities. But it is one way to do it.

You may have heard by now that the first print run for Senator Ted Kennedy's posthumous memoir is -- are you sitting down? -- 1.5 million copies. That's not a typo. Hachette Book Group actually is printing 1.5 million copies of a memoir.

I found that memoir in the news three times this morning without even trying -- once in the newspaper I was reading with my coffee (the Boston Herald), once in the online version of the Washington Post, and once on MediaBistro. If I'd spent 3 minutes proactively looking for mentions of True Compass, I would probably have found 20 of them.

And do you want to hear the strangest prediction? I'll bet those 1.5 million copies of Ted's memoir will sell. They'll sell not only because of all the book promotion the memoir will receive, but they will sell because of the respect we have for the senator. They will sell because of the grief we feel because of his passing. Finally, they will sell because who in the world doesn't want to know what Ted Kennedy has to say about JFK's assassination, and how it really felt to lose two brothers to those maniacs?

Dying for book promotion opportunities can backfire.

Dying for book promotion opportunities can backfire. Of course, the authors of Brave New World and The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe had plenty of book publicity opportunities before they went to meet that fabled Great Publisher in the Sky. However, the demises of Aldous Huxley and C.S. Lewis faded into the background because of their lousy timing. According to an eerie Newsweek article (that notes the irony of Dominick Dunne's passing occurring at about the same time as the world went into mourning about Senator Edward Kennedy (you remember how hard Dunne lobbied to get justice for the extended Kennedy family member he presumed responsible for the death of young Martha Moxley), Huxley and Lewis plummeted from the earthly bestseller lists (so to speak) by dying on the same day as President Kennedy was assassinated. Plain and simply, that was rotten luck for them if they'd hoped to someday see their obituaries on the front page of the New York Times.

Self promotional opportunities are great. But, as most celebrities have learned, they're not worth dying for. Poor Groucho. Who even remembered that he started entertaining Heavenly audiences at the same time as Elvis made the leap to that performance venue?

I've touted Wikipedia as a book promotion tool.

After reading a PC World article called "The 15 Biggest Wikipedia Blunders," I'm not so sure that I want to recommend Wikipedia for book promotion any longer.

Can a book promotion campaign thrive without the inclusion of a Wikipedia entry? Well, it's beginning to seem as though it could -- especially in light of the fact that Wikipedia (according to the PC World article) reported that Ted Kennedy had passed away in January. We know, from this week's wall-to-wall Ted Kennedy coverage, that the awful event didn't take place until the wee hours of Tuesday morning -- that's Tuesday morning of August, not January. (You can see the updated Wikipedia entry for Ted Kennedy, which now appears to be correct, here.

Wikipedia is making changes about how, and under what circumstances, edits can be made on its entries. That may help the veracity of its information, in the long run.

But for the short term, I'm not sure that I'd count on Wikipedia's entries to be a focal point of a book promotion campaign. Perhaps I'd still recommend that it be a part of a book promotion campaign, but two bits of advice about using Wikipedia as part of your author promotion strategies. First, don't write your own entry or Wikipedia will cite it as "suspect" and possibly delete it (unfortunately, a Wikipedia entry that I created for myself was flagged as suspicious and biased, and I wish someone had told me that might happen ahead of time). And, two, ask whomever posts your Wikipedia entry to save your original copy in case someone edits it and you must revert back to the original.

Follow those steps, and then move beyond Wikipedia to promote your book online. There's a whole world of online book promotion opportunities out there!

Ted.

There's really only one topic in the media this morning -- in Massachusetts, anyway, and probably in all of the United States.

Ted has found peace.

The world (and, naturally, the media) has stopped to mourn and pay its respects to the man and the senator (and, of course, the Kennedy family member).

There's no good news here. There's no good news for Ted, Ted's family, Ted's friends, and Ted's constituents. There's not even any good news for Ted's political opponents. There's no good news for President Obama and his family (who were supposed to be on vacation this week -- oh, well).

And there's certainly no good news for book publicists, or for authors or publishers who are orchestrating book promotion campaigns right now.

When time freezes, the media revolves around one thing and one thing only. Today, and for the rest of this week (at the very minimum), it will be our loss of Senator Edward Kennedy.

Nakedly seeking book promotion opportunities.

Are you nakedly seeking book promotion opportunities -- literally? Here's a tale, in MediaBistro, about one author who was.

The author was David Seaman, and his book was called Dirty Little Secrets of Buzz. Seaman's idea of a brilliant book promotion campaign was to vow to run naked through Times Square if he failed to sell a certain number of books.

Since MediaBistro references an interview that Seaman did with CNBC's program, "Funny Business," we know that Seaman's book promotion campaign consisted of outreach to the traditional media (even if it revolved around a promise, or threat, to streak through Times Square). So Seaman's book promotion strategies weren't solely about finding a gimmick and pursuing it until the joke had lost its punch.

Well, this book publicist is pleased to see that some authors are trying some creative book promotion strategies...and, frankly, is even more pleased to see that the success of book publicity gimmicks usually will be eclipsed by the efforts of audacious book promoters who get in front of the media (or work their social networks) to disseminate their messages and share their viewpoints and expertise.

Change is good, says the book publicist.

Change is good, says this book publicist and self-admitted kids' book fanatic.

I love kids' books and young adult novels. I really, really love them. You know the old question about which three books you'd bring with you to a deserted island? That's a no-brainer for me. I'd choose Little Women by Louisa May Alcott, Author's Day by Daniel Pinkwater, and A Mango-Shaped Space by Wendy Mass. And, if I had any leftover room in my luggage, I'd grab copies of anything by Judy Blume and stuff more Pinkwater inside, too -- as much as I could fit. Then I'd round out the suitcase with E.B. White, Margaret Wise Brown, Beverly Cleary, Dr. Seuss, and all the Curious George books.

And then I'd be depressed that I'd left behind so many of my favorite books, but what can you do? A deserted island is only big enough to hold so many books. An ebook reader, on the other hand, can hold gazillions of books, and that's why I was so tickled to read this Publishers Weekly item about ScrollMotion, a new children's ebook reader application for the iPhone.

Granted, there's nothing like holding a hard copy of The Runaway Bunny or The Cat in the Hat in your hands as you're drifting off to sleep (or trying to put your felines to bed for the night so they won't tear up the place trying to catch Martians, or whatever it is they do). But, as a book promotion specialist and publishing industry professional, I'm eager to see what the next wave of kids' books will be like. Will you be able to play games related to an adventurous monkey when you're finished reading Curious George? Will you be able to help Charlotte the spider decide which words might best be incorporated into her web to help Wilbur the pig? I hope so (it sure beats counting on Templeton the Rat to figure it out).

Anyway, book publicists, authors, editors, and even fortune tellers can't know what the publishing industry will look like in five years. Perhaps we'll all be reading books on Kindles; maybe we'll all be getting our kids' book fix on iPhones; or maybe all the ebook commotion will go away and we'll be back to focusing on plain old, if-it-ain't-broke-don't-fix-it books.

Who knows? But, while the future of book publishing is figuring itself out, I think that all book lovers -- and, yes, that includes book publicists like me -- should feel excited about the potential of doing more with books than simply reading them.

And, of course, doing far more with books than just stuffing as many of them as possible into a suitcase and bringing them to a deserted island.

Although I maintain that a deserted island that's populated with my favorite kids' book authors and YA authors isn't deserted at all.

Can't ebook publishers and ebook readers just get along?

Can't ebook publishers and manufacturers (and resellers) of ebook readers just get along? As a reader (and not only as a book publicist), I want the dust to hurry up and settle so that we can all read (and, yes, promote) ebooks if we'd like. Until we figure out which ebook format will take hold, and which ebook reader or device will "win" the book wars, the ebook publishing revolution will move in slow motion. And I'm too excited about the opportunities for book promotion that revolve around ebooks to wait. So, for now, I'm using workarounds (such as ebook publishers who output content to various ebook formats) to create book promotion opportunities. But that's just a placeholder. Soon, I hope, we'll figure out the best format for ebooks and the best way to deliver them and the best way to read them -- and then this book publicity specialist is going to delight in the biggest development in the book publishing industry since the printing press. Great article about the ebook format wars on BNET.

Look who's tweeting and blogging.

So you think you don't have time for online book promotion? According to Quill & Quire, Margaret Atwood does. In fact, Atwood may be one of the few novelists in North America who doesn't have to worry about book promotion opportunities -- and here she is, taking the time and making the effort to engage her readers online, anyway. Good for her.

If Margaret Atwood is tweeting and blogging, and you haven't yet begun, then what are you waiting for? You need benefits of online book promotion more than she does!

Yet another reason why, so often, self-publishing is the way to go.

Every author wants to work with a major New York publishing house, and no author I've met would turn down a publishing contract from, say, a Random House or a Penguin. That said, there are so many circumstances under which authors should, and do, self publish their books. The news from Bookseller.com about the fact that John Wiley is laying off 45 employees in the United Kingdom just drives the point home.

According to the article, Wiley hasn't yet disclosed (or perhaps even decided) which of its 45 employees will be out of work. But let's say that you're a Wiley author. One of those 45 employees could be your editor. Another might be your in-house book publicist. You could be editorially "orphaned" and left without a book promotion campaign all in one click of an accountant's mouse (provided the accountant in question isn't the one who would have been signing your royalty checks).

It's discouraging for authors to rely on publishers. When an author/publisher relationship goes swimmingly well, life can be fantastic. But when a publisher is facing economic hardship and making changes that can affect their authors, perhaps it's time for those authors to think about self publishing their next books. And perhaps, whether or not their publishers are downsizing, it's time for many authors to consider hiring their own outside book promotion firm. Publishers all seem to be putting less money into book promotion these days...which is not something that authors want to hear, but unfortunately, it's the truth. For now. Better times are coming, I have to believe.

How to use Twitter for book promotion.

Just came across an excellent article in Publishing Trends that talks about how publishers are using Twitter for book promotion -- and to win friends, allies, fans, and potential readers down the road. Although the article doesn't extend the advice to authors, it's clear that authors should follow the same Twitter techniques that are working for publishers.

The article boils down to this: Twitter doesn't do a whole lot for a book promotion campaign if publishers and authors keep offering up 120-word sales-oriented tweets to their followers. Instead, Twitter works as a networking and community-building tool if publishers and authors reveal something about who they are through their tweets, and offer comments to other Tweeters so they can develop online alliances. Twitter users who enjoy the personalities behind the tweets are likely to tune into whatever twitter users are doing, whether it's book promotion, conceptualizing new books, or revising books that haven't yet found a publisher.

So if you want to tweet to make friends, and you trust that some of your friends will want to buy your book someday, great. But if you want to use Twitter to command strangers to click on a link to buy your book on Amazon, forget it. There are too many tweets competing for Twitter users' attention to focus on tweets that are all about demanding rather than gentle persuasion.

Follow me, where I go....

Didn't a famous singer once ask us to follow him all around, to the Rocky Mountains and back, and so forth? Well, yes...but would we have followed John Denver on more than one social network? I'm not sure about that.

Scribd.com is putting us in the position of having to choose how much we admire authors and publishers, and other publishing professionals. According to a Wall Street Journal blog, Sribd.com has created a Twitter-like social network with tweeters (or whatever Scribd is calling them) and followers. Presumably, Scribd.com is enabling the sharing of digital books with a community of people who are interested in the same digital books.

And, as a book publicist, I'd have to say that Scribd.com is offering a must-look-into-this book promotion opportunity, but as a social networker -- and as a professional who understands that there are only so many hours in a day -- I want to cry foul.

How many social networks will be required to join before we all want to leave on a jet plane? And why do I have John Denver songs stuck in my head now, anyway? I'm supposed to be blogging, not singing!

Small newspapers find their place in the book promotion universe,

Some books will always make it into the New York Times or whatever turns out to be the most important U.S. newspaper in the event that anything happens to the New York Times. The point is that some books will always find book promotion opportunities in the largest and most impressive print publications. And the authors and publishers of those books aren't worried about the future of the top daily U.S. newspapers because, whatever the future is, the name brand authors and the renowned New York publishers have earned their right the be featured in the biggest and the best of them.

So where does that leave the other 99.9% of authors and publishers in the publishing world who seek print book promotion opportunities and who won't be featured in the New York Times unless they do something outrageous (and probably immoral, illegal, or both) or fall victim to something or someone so heinous that it makes the New York Times' radar screen (and who'd wish that on anybody?). It leaves them seeking out book promotion opportunities with smaller newspapers.

According to a recent Associated Press story, smaller newspapers may be in better financial shape than their larger-circulation competitors. Community newspapers apparently aren't facing a bleak future because of media consumers' shift toward the Internet, because smaller newspapers will always (or, at least, for the foreseeable future) fill a need.

Some communities aren't "lucky" enough to be bombarded with media options that the rest of us take for granted. And even those of us who live in (or just outside of) major metropolitan areas have only one reliable way to find out that, for example, yard waste collection has been delayed by one week, the local high school's drama club is selling tickets for their latest performance, or what's open and what's closed on a given holiday the local newspaper.

So if the Boston Globe really does fold (and, as a subscriber, I'm wishing the Boston Globe all the best for years and years to come), that will still leave all of the local weekly newspapers for those of us who want some old-fashioned print coverage for books we're promoting.

Those of us who seek book promotion opportunities will have to learn to add small newspapers to our punch list, if we haven't already. Book publicists who have always included small-circulation newspapers as part of book promotion campaigns can tell you, from experience, that dealing with small newspapers means that you're dealing with small staffs. Therefore, the dynamic of seeking book publicity opportunities changes.

It's hard to sell a small newspaper on the idea of assigning one member of its small editorial team to a story because, frankly, each staff members' time is precious. You have to help by pitching a local news hook and crafting your pitch so that it's enticing -- and then persistently offering other story angles until you've made the editorial staff member an offer that he or she can't refuse.

Plan B is to offer up your own article (again, with a local slant, if possible). That article can't be an ad for your book. It must be informational or entertaining, and ideally, it would fit the newspaper's style and format so the editor can just slip the story right in. You rely on your byline (the article's attribution) to mention that you're the author of your book and to provide the URL for your book's web site. You can also write a letter to the editor in response to a story the newspaper has already published -- again, using your byline to sell your expertise and, ultimately, your book.

If you can score an ongoing column with your local community newspaper, even better. You can also try your luck with small-circulation newspapers beyond your community -- and you can compensate for the lack of a local news hook by having an angle or article so compelling that the editor just can't resist.

So it's good to hear that small newspapers are doing well and can continue to be a part of book promotion campaign for a long, long while. And, as a newspaper reader, it's good to hear that any newspapers are holding their own. If I have my way, that will always be the case.