Beth and Miriam Parker might just be publishing’s most powerful sisters. Each has worked in the industry for more than two decades: today, Beth runs her own literary publicity firm, Beth Parker PR, and Miriam is associate publisher at Ecco.
This summer, the Parkers are officially teaming up on Miriam’s latest novel, Room and Board, for which Beth is heading up publicity. “We have been friends—and colleagues—in addition to being sisters for our entire professional careers,” Beth said. “We love to talk about books anyway, so it’s great that we can do it in a professional manner, and really understand the ins and outs of the joys and struggles of our jobs.”
Miriam’s Room and Board, out in August from Dutton, is about Gillian, a celebrity publicist who, after her career implodes, is invited back to the boarding school she attended to be a “dorm mom.” In this new role, she rediscovers an old high school crush, mentors some wayward teens, and gets embroiled in a minor school scandal. The novel is Miriam’s second, following her 2018 debut, The Shortest Way Home, also published by Dutton. (“I’m actually more nervous this time!” she admitted.)
“Not to give anything away, but Gillian’s publicity skills come in handy in her new life, as well,” Miriam said. “I’ve always loved and respected publicists, and I wanted to make one the center of my book because I am related to one and because I’ve worked with so many talented publicists throughout my career.” In the novel’s early stages, Miriam even asked Beth to read through the manuscript to make sure the descriptions of her protagonist’s job were accurate.
Beth started her career in publishing in 1999 at Houghton Mifflin, where she worked as a summer intern while in college—a position that Miriam helped her get. In 2003, she became an assistant at Random House and joined the Penguin Group two years later. Over the years, she worked in publicity at Dutton, Gotham, and Avery, eventually becoming associate director of publicity at Gotham and Avery, where she was on staff until she went solo in 2014.
The idea for her own firm had been percolating for a while by the time Beth set out on her own. “I loved the idea of working on titles that I was truly passionate about,” she said, “and not being limited by one imprint or publishing house.” She described the firm as a “one-woman operation” and finds that its small size enables her to “only take on books and clients I know I will love.”
Beth enjoys working across genres and feels all books face similar challenges due to “the changing nature of review coverage.” With “so little space allotted to reviews these days,” she said, “it’s hard to carve out space for emerging authors.”
Beth had informally worked on the publicity team for The Shortest Way Home in 2018, “just helping out where I could,” she said. She and Miriam had also briefly worked together the few times she was hired as a freelancer to work on Ecco titles. She signed on to be the official publicist for Room and Board when Miriam’s in-house publicist at Dutton went back to school.
“It was a perfect fit because Beth already knew everything about the project and could step right in,” Miriam said. Also it created “another reason for us to be in touch. We always talk about books and publishing anyway, so it feels natural.”
Many authors whose publishers do in-house publicity wonder whether it’s worth it to add independent publicists to their teams. “It doesn’t always make sense for an author to spend their own money hiring a publicist, but each campaign is unique,” Miriam noted. “That said, hiring a publicist makes it so that you have a financial investment in the success of your book. If that makes you feel good, then go for it.”
Beth added that the role of an independent publicist can vary from project to project. “Independent publicists can take on a supplementary role to the in-house team, or take on the entire project,” she said. “It depends on the book and the author, as well as the bandwidth that publisher has.”
Miriam’s final recommendation: “Get to know your in-house publicity team and talk to them before you make a decision either way.”
Miriam began working in publishing in 2000 at what was then Time Warner Trade Publishing (and is now Hachette Book Group). She was a web producer, wrote newsletters, managed author websites, and, eventually, ran corporate social media accounts. In 2010, she joined Little, Brown as marketing director of Mulholland Books, and in 2015 she became marketing director for Little, Brown. She was then named associate publisher at Ecco, where she oversees marketing and publicity.
Negotiating her dual roles of associate publisher and author can sometimes be difficult, but it has also given Miriam valuable insight into the behind-the-scenes considerations of producing and promoting books. “I’m involved in every process of how books are published at Ecco, so I’m very aware of what they are doing at Dutton in support of my book and how hard everyone works,” she said. “I also know what it’s like to be on the publisher side of an author-publisher relationship very distinctly. I try to be the author I would want to have working with me.”
Miriam lamented that while all her book publishing knowledge hasn’t necessarily made her a better writer, it has shaped her perspective as an author. “I’ve found that I can only write the books that I write, and there’s honestly only so much control an author has over how your book enters the world,” she said. “All you can do is write the best book you can, do what your publisher and publicist tell you to do, get your friends and family to buy the book, and hope that people who’ve never met you buy it too.”
For her part, Beth is excited to help Room and Board enter the world to as much fanfare as possible: “I very much enjoy seeing my loved ones succeed and being able to help raise them up.”
