Planting the Seeds
Dateline Washington DC, 26 March, the last of three days on the Premeditated Media Tour with Steve Oppenheim, director of PR for Putnam. Today is all about planting seeds and making good initial impressions with print media.
We start off with major West coast paper and its correspondent who’s focused on terrorism. He’s familiar with the original Esquire article and hopes to find time to read the book. So we sit outside a coffee shop and chat about 15 minutes before Steve pulls me off for Round Two. Worthy additional contacts obtained and a good impression left behind, but no big expectations unless he actually reads the book and comes up with an angle he can pursue. More likely is that he calls me up for some background in coming weeks and perhaps I give him a killer quote that leads him to identify me in a story as the author of the forthcoming book . . ..
Next up is defense correspondent of national news weekly magazine. I run the guy through some of the book’s main arguments. He’s familiar with my work, having written some of the biggest articles on the Bush Administration’s shifting of strategic focus from what I call the Core (like China) to the Gap (especially the greater Middle East and Africa). I am really pleased to hear this correspondent has actually started reading the book because I know they receive a ton of them in the mail. So we cross our fingers and move on to the next publication.
The last stop was a major news wire service and a veteran war correspondent who’s already spent significant time in Iraq. He’s halfway through the book and said he really enjoyed the text’s accessibility and the conversational tone. We conversed at high speed about a wide variety of topics, but mostly focused on the Pentagon’s strategic planning process. With that seed planted, we likewise broke with promises of future interactions.
At that point the morning was gone, and the task complete. Back to the hotel for final packing and a quick change for my Southwest flight outta BWI and back to the island of Rhode.
Steve seems very happy with how the three days have gone. He says this sort of effort is unprecedented for Putnam—taking an author out on the road to meet the press prior to the actual media tour timed to the release. Other media handlers we interact with over the past three days basically buttress Steve’s point: Putnam is taking this book very seriously and nothing feels more thrilling to an unknown author like myself.
As we chat one last time before I depart for the airport, Steve emphasizes that the whole point here was to plant seeds, to generate buzz and to get players familiar with my ability to provide soundbites and perform on camera. He said all the call-backs that Putnam was receiving in NYC following these drop-bys were very positive, which pleased him and his boss, Marilyn Ducksworth (Executive Director of PR for Putnam) to no end.
After talking with Marilyn herself by phone, I finally started to relax. Putnam is clearly happy with my performance on this trip. They like the article I’ve drafted for the June issue of Esquire, and they’re very happy about the offer to put an article into the Washington Post’s Outlook section (I keep my fingers crossed this will work out). In short, mission accomplished all around.
I try not to get too excited about the possibilities ahead, because I already have a life and a host of potential future pathways that I am quite comfortable with. But I feel very good nonetheless about the past three days. I made a deal with Putnam and I wanted this trip to prove to all involved that I keep my agreements. They want big things from this book and I want to do everything within my power to deliver that outcome.
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