Continue to push debuts despite autumn 'jam', journalists advise PRs

A panel of journalists have advised book publicists to continue to push debut writers, despite the "jammed" autumn brought on by lockdown delays.

Speaking at The Bookseller's Marketing & Publicity Conference on Monday (6th July), Charlie Brinkhurst-Cuff, head of editorial at gal-dem magazine, said she was "never going to dismiss a debut writer in any way", with other journalists suggesting first-time writers had an advantage over an established writer's second or third novel.

Alison Finch, assistant producer at BBC Radio 4, said she will "pretty much always look at a debut novel because I don't know anything about it. One of the things I do take note of is who has written the blurb, because there are some established novelists who blurb lots and lots of books, but if you see one by somebody you respect as a writer but doesn't regularly blurb, that's good."

The panel agreed that publicists pitching "timely" novels by debut authors were very likely to be successful with coverage, particularly if the author was prepared to be interviewed and "share a strong personal story".

Francesca Brown, freelance books editor at the Stylist Group, said: "We would actually prioritise debut writers over more established ones. We're looking for break out names, because they're the ones who are doing the most interesting things for our readership. There's an explosion of feminist writing that is coming from younger, unknown writers."

Georgina Moore, director of books and publishing at Midas and the panel's host, said the pandemic had brought "unprecedented times" and book publicists "had really struggled" to gauge what journalists want.

All the panellists said the pandemic had provided its own set of challenges. "The goalposts are moving all the time," said Celia Duncan, women's editor at the Daily Mail. "Certain titles became lockdown-centric," she said, but going forward she anticipated pitches that would be successful included books that help readers "navigate the new normal", in addition to materials about coping with the economic fall-out, self-help guides as well as "glamorous, lighthearted" reads.

Finch said: "At the beginning, we were just desperate for someone who had a book out. There was one canny publisher who published all the way through. A lot of others pushed their books into August and September. August is really jammed with amazing literary goodies, but we're not going to be able to cover all the things we want to."

Brinkhurst-Cuff advised publicists that pitching books for editorial consideration was "about being respectful", adding that "not taking smaller publications seriously" would not work in a PRs' favour in the long term. Brown said it was important, particularly in light of the pandemic, to give journalists as much notice as possible to plan for featuring excerpts and building momentum around a book. She suggested publicists should "think very carefully about the book suitability to the platform" adding that "mass pitches don't work".

Finch said that pitching for radio was a different story. "Programmes like 'Women's Hour', particularly if they're thinking about a feature, won't make a decision until about three weeks before publication because they don't know what else is in the mix for the programmes," she said.

She added: "If you are pitching to Radio 4, you need to listen to Radio 4. It's very obvious if someone doesn't. What makes a pitch stand out for me is someone who knows what they're pitching, why they're pitching now, and why they're pitching it to me. Someone who's done their homework."

Brinkhurst-Cuff said gal-dem was seeing a lot of pitches from book publicists in lockdown. "Most of the time they do get it right", she said, "but when they get it wrong they get it really wrong. Gal-dem specifically platforms the voices of women and non-binary people of colour, so therefore when it comes to authors that we would like to interview, or have an extract on the site, ideally they would fit the demographic. A lot of the stories we publish are about race and gender issues, so when that is highlighted in a pitch that is a good thing."

All the journalists agreed they were keen to receive proofs, but most preferred physical copies to emailed PDFs, clearly printed and without a lot of typos. "I'm on a screen all day, I don't want to be reading on screen too," said Finch, with Brinkhurst-Cuff agreeing she "can't read long-form on screen". She added that she was much more likely to "pick up something that is beautifully bound", with Brown adding "anything that glitter falls out of—I'm not a fan."