When Doing PR, Never Do this One Thing
Me giving director Kevin Smith copies of my books
In 2014, I took everything I had, went to NYC and decided to try and get my written work out there. I have three books written, Naked As The Day, Sex Drugs & Jerk Chicken and Kingston Nights. I had about one month to hit the city, network like mad, and see what I could make happen. I honestly had no specific plan. Usually after hitting the city I scan websites like TheSkint.com or look through postings in Time Out New York, or fiddle with apps on my phone to see what’s happening in the city. To give you an idea of how awesome New York is, in this very short period of time I was able to meet an Oscar winner, give my books to a A list Hollywood Director and meet not one, but TWO of America’s biggest authors. I know, you must be saying right now “Hey that’s good for him, he knows these people, obviously.”
The answer is no.
I’d never given books to strangers before, much less uber celebrities or random folk. This is an article about perception and how what we do no know can hold us back. It is a form of “unconscious incompetence” where you cannot know what you do not know. Extrapolating from this we can make the statement: You cannot know what do to if you have never done it and don’t know the best way to do it.
Remember, that initial statement was a summary of an entire month. In fact most of my days were like this, taking from this article I wrote about one of those days in New York when I was bustling around.
I’m sitting in a theater in pin drop silence. In front of me, images of Simon Pegg’s soon to be released film Hector and The Search For Happiness, play on screen to the rapt attention of the audience. Somewhere in the building, Simon Pegg himself, star of such films as Hot Fuzz and Shaun Of The Dead will make an appearance, but i’m lost. I’m lost in emotions because the film speaks about a man so bored with his day to day routine he takes a sojourn around the world, inevitably facing situations that bring out his deepest, darkest fears. In a scene where he is literally bawling his eyes out, I feel my chest tighten and my heart fill with emotion. I was reminded of a time in Tokyo, when walking through Shibuya, despite being surrounded by literally thousands of people, I felt completely and utterly alone. That was a strange night; walking around with a drink in my hand, drifting in no real direction, crunched by a frantic, frightening loneliness. This sensation hit me while I was watching the movie, and I really connected with the film for that reason. But my emotional state simply reflected that it was just one of those days.
So let’s talk about perspective. You see, I wasn’t hitting the pavement and making all these connections because my fantastic publisher gave me a $10,000USD promotional budget and pre-planned meetings with swanky hotel accommodations. I was sleeping on a couch at my Aunt’s place, living on Gyros (a 4 dollar fast food chicken wrap) and mostly bottled water. I was one hundred percent alone in this quest and regardless of hitting the highs and lows of feeling depressed or just not that motivated, I had a made a plan and I decided to stick to it. Through some networking magic, an author I met who was doing a reading at a place called Bryant Park, happened to be reading on the same day that Piper Kerman, author of the hit book and eventually TV series Orange Is The New Black would also be reading. There was no charge.
So I thought to myself “Why not go and give her one of my books?” I mean, it was a pretty scary proposition. But she’d be there, i’d be there. So I went to a nearby Barnes & Noble bookstore, bought a little gift bag and put my book, Naked As The Day in there. Everything was fine until I got to Bryant park and realized there were at least three hundred people there to see her. I quickly took a seat and started worrying. About security, my hubris and how stupid my plan was. My mind started to rage.
Idiot! my mind said.
This is a U.S and worldwide best selling author with a heavily syndicated TV show under her belt! You think she’d even laugh at your silly novel that you published yourself? Huh? HUH?
As I sat there, heart pounding and occasionally snapping photos of her conversation with TV critic Emily Nussbaum, I decided to go for it anyways. My logic was this:
Most people go to readings with celebrities to get something from them. A book, an autograph or a photo. People rarely, if ever, give them anything, which is what I was doing. I was giving a gift. Telling her thanks for what she gave to so many people.
After realizing this is what my true purpose was, I chilled out more. As I waited in line, heart still racing, In fact i’ll just post what I wrote from the original article so you can get the feel of what happened:
My hands were trembling so much when I handed her a copy of my novel, that I was barely able to sign my name.
“It’s too forward,” my anxious mind said.
“I don’t want to hold up the line,” it repeated.
Ignoring the impulse of flight, I did it anyway, and asked someone in line to take a few pictures of us with my camera. After shaking her hand and saying hello, I said the following:
“Hello misses Kerman. I believe in gift giving, and you’ve given us so much with your book and TV show, I wanted to give you a copy of my book.”
Her eyes lit up and she said “wow!” as I handed her the copy. “You have to sign it for me!” she said. Again, I caught the eyes of a Bryant employee watching me, and I swore a legion of cops would pounce on me and pull me out of line. But this didn’t happen, I signed Piper’s copy (albeit with a shaky hand) and she signed my copy of her book.I thanked her and walked away, my heart still thundering in my chest.
So not only did I get photos of us signing our respective books, I think I was the only person to give her anything of this nature in a group of hundreds of people. Now, this didn’t mean i’d immediately get an e-mail from her saying how she loved my book and how I should talk to X number of agents. In terms of a PR move, I didn’t even realize how ballsy this was until later one. People thought for some reason that I FLEW TO NEW YORK TO MEET PIPER KERMAN! They didn’t understand any of the back story (which is the point of PR I guess).
SO WHAT WAS MY MISTAKE?
To explain this properly i’ll have to tell you about the NEXT big PR move. You see, after going to this reading at Bryant Park, I saw that the following week, Kevin Smith, director of such films as Clerks, Dogma, Chasing Amy and Red State just to name a few, would be speaking along with his co-host, Jason Mewes for a live podcast. Emboldened by my success with Piper, I said “Hey, why not give him a copy of my book as well?”
So the next week, the dynamics were different. Kevin Smith came alone (Jason was sick apparently), so he decided to just speak to the audience and answer random questions for the hour he was slated to be there. Note: I came there under the assumption that this, like Piper’s reading and subsequent book signing, was also a book signing. But something began nagging me. I didn’t see many books for sale, and the free flowing form of Kevin’s Q&A session lead me to think he might just leave right after wrapping up. He also answered questions with a response that range from five to nine minutes of bullet, profanity laced speech which meant that I needed to get a question in, and quick. Also, in addition to this I needed to create a context for who I was and present him my books in front of everyone. If Piper had three hundred people at her reading, there were at least double that for Kevin’s presentation. So… I sat through one of his diatribes about one of his movies and came up with a plan. As a Jamaican nerd, I could sort of frame this quick story about how I lived in “nerd purgatory” and how I didn’t have cool things like comic book conventions and dungeons and dragons league’s to join. I segued from this into an account of how learning he had written for Daredevil lead me to checking out his films, which subsequently (and literally) inspired me at the time to keep doing my own writing. Right at this point I would say “ before I ask my question, I’d like to give you a gift for that early support” and BAM! then i’d give him the books.
Not only did he read the names of my books aloud (which I caught on camera), my question (will there ever be a Jamaican character in Clerks) seemed to turn on a lightbulb in his mind regarding possible additions to Clerks 3, which he was in the process of writing. So he got my books, said the names out loud and had a great frame of reference to possibly remember me. So then, what did I do wrong?
Here’s what it is.
A year or so later, I was in NYC again, this time doing ANOTHER round of networking. This time I was in NYC for 3 1/2 weeks and I was telling everyone this story : “I’ve written three novels, and there is no publishing industry where I come from, so my goal is to try and find an agent for one or all of my books.” On some night when I was walking back to whichever couch I was crashing on at the time I stopped dead in my tracks.
I WAS TELLING EVERYONE EXACTLY WHAT I WANTED.
When I gave Piper Kerman and Kevin Smith copies of my book, I didn’t include a note saying I was trying to find an agent. I didn’t tell anything about myself as a writer, my journeys or my struggles, or even why I think they’d like my work. In fact, I put NOTHING (other than my books) in the bags I gave them. Meaning, beyond seeing a cool book cover and maybe vaguely remembering me, why would they have any incentive to either promote or help with my book? This is the mistake you should NEVER make when giving away a product. Always tell whomever you are giving it to what you are trying to achieve.
If I give away a free t-shirt to someone, it is with the understanding that I do so expecting PR from it. A picture in the newspaper, or them in my shirt beside a celeb, a Facebook shout out, tweet or Instagram post etc. I let them know what I want.
People cannot help someone if they do not understand what they want or the importance of it. In fact, both Piper Kerman and Kevin Smith probably thought I was a published author just like them with an agent, a swanky Upper East Side apartment and some moola in the bank. The revelation did not fill me with regret because like I said, I did this on my own without guidance. In fact, doing what I did the way I did it was actually pretty cool, but I might have gotten more mileage if I had said to both persons that I was looking for representation.
No one knows your story, so you have to let them know. Tell them your purpose why you are giving them a gift and also where you are trying to go. Once they know this, they can either choose to, or not to help you. But if there is no story, no goal to reach, your product like many others, may just end up on a shelf somewhere, forgotten and dusty.
Don’t make this mistake!
cheers
