Anyway. A writer who self-published the first in a series of fantasy books invented a publicist and sent out releases about himself. The ruse worked to attract the attention of a major publisher, which signed him to a six-figure contract.
There is an interesting distinction there between the practice of sock puppeting, or whatever you'd call it -- that is, writing glowing reviews about yourself on websites and writing comments to your own blog postings, using alter egos -- and pretending to be a publicist for yourself. A publicist is paid, while a sock puppet, or the persons purporting to write those glowing reviews and appreciative comments, are not. For some reason it is regarded as an embarrassing act of vanity to write a glowing review of your own book on Amazon, but not to act as your own publicist under a pseudonym.
The way around this problem, of course, is to make an arrangement with another writer to act as each other's publicist. Pay each other one dollar per year, and then flog the other person's book with such enthusiasm that he'd look like an asshole if he didn't pump yours with equal fervor.
Or you could, you know, just spend money and hire a publicist. I did this for my very first book with free money I'd gotten off stock options, thus keeping the strange little book from disappearing without a trace. The publicist's efforts even garnered a few reviews.
technorati: publishing, publicity, book publicity
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