“The boundaries between disciplines had begun to blur,” [Bob] McEwen said in a written statement to the Kansas City Business Journal. “In at least three instances, senior PR people were asked to step up and assume account service responsibilities in addition to their own jobs. So our PR numbers didn’t represent a true reflection of the capability or performance of our PR team. We were just spread too thinly.”
Welcome to the new world of Public Relations. We “little guys” have been living in this “blurry” world for years. Best of luck to Bob–a stand-up guy if there ever was one.
Excerpted gems about publishing and marketing your book from the one and only Dick Cavett:
A favorite publishing technique for ruining years of hard work is to fumble getting the book into stores until after its limited “shelf life” has expired and it’s all too late — and the maddened author wishes to assemble a Molotov cocktail and . . .
(Should the idea of a major publishing house seemingly forgetting to put a book in bookstores until too late seem farfetched, there’s a way you can verify this: ask anybody. And for a firsthand account by poor me, read this previous column.)
Way back I learned that some enterprising entrepreneurs were offering a service teaching how to plug your book on TV. I had on my show one of their graduates, apparently, who had gone a little overboard on one piece of advice. See if you can guess what it was:
Mr. Cavett, when I conceived of my book “Misadventure” [let’s call it] I thought, I want “Misadventure” to be different. I want people to say, I bought “Misadventure” because “Misadventure” sounds like the kind of book . . . etc.
Have you guessed? Somewhere near the dozenth chiming of the title the audience began to make a sort of audible wince. I let it go, moved on to one more guest, and in thanking the guests and bringing the show to a close, I allowed myself a minor pleasure. I thanked the author and added, “Did I give you a chance to mention the title of your book?”
The burst of laughter seasoned with scattered applause caused me momentary guilt. It soon passed.
“They gave us our money back. They gave us free beer. The crew was in good spirits and helped us with whatever we needed,” he said. “They’re giving us a free cruise at a later date. I’m grateful for that. I’m not the kind of person who’s going to go sue, sue, sue. Not me or my wife.”
By now if you watch TV or read online or the newspaper, you know that the Carnival Cruise Ship Splendor’s latest voyage was anything but splendid.
Everyone got back alive, and reasonably well. Carnival’s President issued an apology along with a full refund, and a free next cruise. More than they legally had to:
In almost all cruise line brochures, including Carnival’s, there is a disclaimer that also informs customers that “itinerary changes sometimes become necessary for safety, weather or other reasons.”
Yet Carnival President and CEO Gerry Cahill offered an unvarnished apology along with the reparations:
If a public relations firm promises to get you media coverage, they’re probably doing one of two things:
1. Lying (to you and/or themselves).
2. Actually selling you an ad.
Look for another firm that tells you the truth: they will put their skills, contacts and creativity to work to give you a great shot at publicity–but they cannot guarantee anything.
Stephen King on creative writing classes….I have to agree. Some of the most tedious hours of my life have been in creative writing classes.
Not every writer is good and not everything written by good writers is great.
That’s true, and the idea that someone can tell you how to create is ridiculous. Certainly you can learn structure, format, discipline and tricks of the trade, but even my grandfather–who had more than 30 of his books published–could never give me the secret of how to make a good, solid story.
The idea of teaching a fledgling writer how to be the next Hemingway–or Stephen King– is like teaching a tone-deaf person to sing. You can’t do it.
Either they can create or they can’t.
To keep this from being a complete downer, I will say this: you can write if you work your butt off. You may be like me, terribly average with an occasional “good one” that comes from that hard work (and reading this helps). And if that “good one” is satisfying, then keep writing. But if it’s all frustration and “where’s my book deal?” then you might want to try singing.
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The folks at PRWatch.org are concerned about the attempts to change the image of the cheap, subsidy-sweet high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) by changing its name; even comparing the HFCS lobby to the evildoers at Philip Morris and worse, Blackwater:
Philip Morris tried to escape its tarnished reputation by re-branding itself “Altria” and the private military contractor Blackwater tried to ditch its bad image by re-naming itself “Xe.” Now the Corn Refiners Association is taking a tip from these companies and trying to re-brand its much-maligned product, high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS), as “corn sugar.” Consumption of HFCS is at a 20-year low. This might make doctors and nutritionists happy, but it’s bad news for manufacturers of HFCS, who hope to turn the trend around. No longer should we refer to chemical-sounding “high fructose corn syrup,” but instead we should use the fresher, gentler and more natural-sounding term “corn sugar.” HFCS has gotten a reputation as obesity’s public enemy number one, and over-consumption of HFCS and other sweeteners has been linked to a list of chronic health problems. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has not yet approved the name change for food labels, but the corn producers are already working to change public perception of their product. They are running TV ads featuring a down-home family farmer and sweeping shots of nature, and their Web site extolls the virtues of HFCS.
The re-naming could work. In the 1980s, there was an ingredient called “low erucic acid rapeseed oil” which was re-named “canola oil,” and more recently, the FDA permitted prunes to be marketed under the name “dried plums.” In both cases, after the name change, sales of the products increased.
As they say, you can put lipstick on a pig, but it’s still unhealthy, delicious bacon. Dr. Andrew Weil has weighed in:
Instead, in the web age, the name-change petition quickly became an appropriately sticky public relations mess. After just nine days, a Google search for the twin terms “high-fructose corn syrup” and “corn sugar” garnered 143,000 results, and asking social media posters for their own alternate names became a raging meme. I happily joined in, posing the challenge on my Facebook page and Digg profile. Hundreds volunteered tags including “liquid suffering,” “cellulite syrup,” and several that can’t be published in a family website, despite my instruction to avoid profanity.
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If a public relations firm promises to get you media coverage, they’re probably doing one of two things:
The folks at PRWatch.org are concerned about the attempts to change the image of the cheap, subsidy-sweet high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) by changing its name; even comparing the HFCS lobby to the evildoers at Philip Morris and worse, Blackwater:
