Read-aloud words assault?

An earnest suitor, riding on the crosstown bus in New York City, reads aloud to his beloved. While she is besotted with the caress of his words, many on the bus register outright hostility. Why is reading aloud akin to hoisting a blaring boombox on that same bus?

Robert Gray was on that bus, and he shares our curiosity. While the bus situation was a bit extreme -- reading aloud like that is more of a performance than a shared pleasure -- there does seem to be divides in the literary community on standards of reading aloud. In poetry, there is a segregation between what Mr. Obie Joe calls the "slow" or formal poetry readers versus the spoken word poets whose words reflect both the paper and the poet.

Then there the readers, often nonfiction, who depend on a colloquial, barstool approach. Each anecdote they tell seem like a great story. Rick Bragg is like that, though he is also an unusually good reader of his own books, too.

The worst? Those who read with an affected or theatrical voice. Look, unless you have the silky smooth of Chip Kidd, just read in your regular voice. Like the suitor on the bus, leave it at home.

Listen when you work

Writing is a solitary business. Rare is the verse composed without other sounds in the room. Ms. Obie Joe is convinced the writing community invented iTunes, Pandora, or any of the other music quilts.

Add this one: the podcasts from the Author Talks at the Free Library of Philadelphia (by the incomparable Andy Kahan).

277 podcasts of authors, sometimes alone, other times in packs. Always interesting.

And, no, smarty-pants, Chip Kidd is not the only one Ms. Obie Joe hits on replay.

TIP: Make sure your press release has a home

What's an arrow without a target?

Earlier this week Ms. Obie Joe viewed a new company promising all of the tools needed for a successful book promotion campaign. $100 for a press release (spell-checked and all!). $50 for bookmarks (also known as placecards). $200 for a web site. $125 for a book trailer.

All very well and nice, but without a strategy for these tools, what's the use? Meaning, you have a press release, but where is it going to land:
• Wide broadcast online via PRWeb, CSWire, etc.
• Mailing list to trade magazines, major media, TV/Print/Radio
• Online and mailing list to optimal vendors.

It's interesting to note that it's cheap to have a press release written, but twice the price for a customized list of targets for that press release. You could hire a firm to customize, but even after that, you should take your own chop at the list and customize it as you go along on your book campaign.

This is one of the reasons Ms. Obie Joe has lukewarm feelings for the enthusiasm for book trailers. (With the marked exception of any book trailer by Chip Kidd, of course). Book trailers just seem to flail at any old target, and unless your trailer features a sharp-shooter hamster, dressed like a Disney Princess, good luck on having your trailer seen on YouTube.

Hate/Love Book Trailers

Mr. Obie Joe collectively, for he/she is more than one, have a hate/love relationship with book trailers. Most of them -- as in the majority -- are forgettable because:
• The production values are hideous. If it's not bad lighting or jittery editing, the music is muzak and the featured author uncoached.
• The story being told -- usually of why this author wrote the book -- lacks drama.
• There's no real point to it; the trailer introduces the author, talks about the book, and that's it.

Plus, if we see one more book trailer with shots of the author writing and thinking, well...

Then we saw this new trailer: www.chipkidd.com Chip, wonder man, we want you. We want you to design, write, promote a book for us anytime.

Now, note his book trailer says nothing really of relevance to the book or the man, but damn, if it doesn't make you want to buy the man. Uh, the book. Totally, the book.