Beware the Saffron Threads of Fame

Years ago, I took a job as the marketing manager for a midsized book publisher in Woodstock, Vermont called The Countryman Press. I had never marketed a book in my life when I was hired but I had all the skills they needed—the ability to write, a knowledge of what publicity worked and what didn't from stints as a newspaper reporter, a feature writer, and a reviewer as well as time as a magazine editor. I also had a background in graphic design, and a gift for for targeted blabbing.

What I lacked—and there was no other way to learn this—was experience with book authors.

Now I write books. I also publish books for myself and others. And I've marketed more books than I can remember. So what's special about this cookbook, The Best from Libby Hillman's Kitchen? It was the first book I ever marketed, and the author inadvertently taught me lessons about writers that I use to this day.

Libby's a nice woman. She taught cooking classes on Long Island for many years before moving to southern Vermont. And the cookbook is good though not really of the type I would buy for myself. (It's in the subgenre of what I call saffron-thread cookbooks—tons of ingredients that are expensive, fancy, and not likely to be used more than once.)

The owners/publishers at Countryman had taken the book on before I was hired, and one them was especially vulnerable to name dropping, as I later realized. And Libby could drop names with the best of them. According to her, she knew every important cookbook author and reviewer in New York, and all I had to do was send out multitudes of her books, the reviews would flow in, she'd revel in the glory, and oh-by-the-way, sell a ton of books.

Just before the book was sent to the printer, its editor and I traveled to visit with a renowned cookbook publicist who lived in the Berkshires. She (Lisa) and her then-husband (Lou) partnered in their efforts to garner the attention of foodies. While she sat and talked with the editor and I, he took the set of draft pages we'd brought and leafed through them. During a pause, he leaned forward and said "You have one big problem with this book."

Uh oh, what?

"You have exactly seven seconds (the average amount of time a prospective buyer spends perusing a book cover) to explain who Libby Hillman is and why someone should care enough to spend $25 on a book by her."

Double uh oh.

I'd already seen the correspondence between Libby and Countryman over the book's title and knew how strongly she'd insisted on having her name at the top of the book's front cover. So I could only hope she was right about all the reviewers she knew.

For weeks, she called me nearly every day with the name of yet another person who was dying to get a copy of her book. I sent them all out, each with a personal letter reminding the recipient of her/his relationship with Libby Hillman.

Nothing. Nada.

Libby became more and more frustrated by the lack of reviews, certain that I wasn't sending out copies. Countryman's chief bean counter was having fits over the number of copies I was sending out. I sent reminders about the review copies, made phone calls (most of which were never returned) and realized, over and over again, that Lou had been absolutely right.

As I get older, I find myself becoming more pragmatic by the day. And more skeptical of promises as well as leery of ego. Libby, as it turned out, was a legend in her own mind, completely uninterested in doing any of her own marketing (as are most writers), and ready to complain (as are most writers) about the lack of marketing efforts by her publisher.

That's why I decided, long ago, not to get too involved in marketing books or anything, for that matter, that doesn't come into being through my own efforts. So here's a tip for you: my latest work, Book Publishing for Everyone, will be out in January.

You are now part of my legend.