We gotta say, this episode is really useful for anyone who wants to learn about publicity and marketing outside the Big Five (or even inside the Big Five, for that matter). We talk to Jeremy Wang-Iverson of Vesto PR and Samara Rafert of the Ohio State University Press, who shed light on both the grunt work and the big uplifting moments of book publicity and marketing. We go pretty hard on metadata and keywords and we honor the extraordinary patience that publicity work demands. So much effort goes into any book ever getting “discovered,” and in this ep we’re glimpsing behind that curtain. Learn about “earned media,” blurbs, comps, the shrinking of book review venues that has changed everything, emailing (as always), the long burn of good writing, and how to publicize aesthetically, politically, formally, intellectually challenging work. This conversation includes lots of technical and industry insight, which means it’s also super relevant to the political work of publishing and how it makes culture and slips urgent ideas and art into big media settings.

Some things that get mentioned: Deesha Philyaw’s The Secret Lives of Church Ladies, Jerald Walker’s How to Make a Slave, Hilary’s and Lucy Biederman’s thoughts on Elizabeth Koch (in Fence here and here), and articles on some problems with blurb culture in Esquire and The Atlantic.