A blog's no one home

As authors are increasingly encouraged to use blogs for book reviews, interviews and other coverage on their book tours, there is the question of what to do when no one is home on the blog.

The more popular the blog, the less likely there is an e-mail address for an author to send a pitch. Even more challenging are the blogs that only allow episodic, if at all, comments (i.e., www.dooce.com).

There are ways to send a message. First, for the blogs with no e-mail address, send comments. Get known by the community of this blog. Often, the comments can have the same resonance and readership as an essay or review, so make your comment well done.

But for the blog with closed comments, google the name of the blog and author for other places where his or her address can be discerned.

Like gold paper

There are many tools of necessity for book publicists as they begin to publicize a book and author. Some are essential: a willing author, cash for the tour; an angle for media pitches, press kits, among others.

Mr. Obie Joe is also of the opinion that books, yeah, the actual BOOK, would be of help to a book publicist. If we have a book, we can send it to a bookstore on the fence about a booking, or send it to a media source we're cultivating, and so on.

Yet given the trouble many publishers give book publicists on securing adequate numbers of either the ARC or the finished book makes Mr. Obie Joe wonder if these books are made of gold. Granted, publishers are leery of feeding Amazon's used book sales, but caution has overridden reason. Recently we had to make our own Xerox version of an ARC because the ARCs had been used by "senior management."

Give your book publicist the ARCs they need, or you can bet that book's worth will soon be worth just pulp.

Eleanor Roosevelt's calling cards

Before he became president, Franklin Roosevelt moved to DC to begin his political career. As expected of an ambitious man's wife, Eleanor Roosevelt began to establish the social network to bolster his career. She visited the homes of the wives of other important men, and if they were not home, would leave a calling card. The process was torturous for her. Yet, years later, she was grateful for the experience, as it developed a second persona able to glide through these interactions to her advantage.

Have you developed your calling card to create your online social network?

Some basics: create a profile on a social networking site -- myspace, livejournal, facebook. Just a profile, with minimal updating and interaction, will significantly increase your placement in the search engines. Why should amazon.com be the top search result for your book, or your name?

Plus, it will tamp down any negative reviews of your book (in the top 20 of Google results)...something else the newbie Mrs. Roosevelt must have figured out as well.