If I had to send out smoke signals to promote my book, I would," said Andy Behrman, and despite the capricious notion, he is persuasive. A conversation with the author of Electroboy: A Memoir of Mania (Random House, Feb. 19) is convincing evidence that anything and everything goes in the marketing--exceptionally effective, judging from the following account--of this particular title. Berhman's clearly one author who leaves no stone unturned along the publicity and promotion trail.

"I have the reputation of being one of the more self-promoting authors online," Behrman remarked candidly of the marketing arena where his presence is now on a number of sites. "I knew from the beginning who the book would appeal to. There's a built-in audience of manic-depressives and people with other psychological problems. There are roughly 100,000—150,000 people who receive electroshock treatments in this country every year, and the best way to find the entire community is on the Internet. I also designed my own Web site [www.electroboy.com], which went up last September." There's potentially an even larger audience for Electroboy as well, including readers who want to share vicariously what it's like to live an existence ruled by the exhilarating and dreadful demands of manic depression.

Behrman's site, he claims, attracts more than 300,000 visitors a month, most of whom are seeking information on mental illness and its treatment. From this platform, which conveniently links to Amazon.com , Behrman is not just an advice-monger with little experience. In fact, he's not an advice-monger at all, he said, because he's not a doctor. He can, however, provide knowledge about the disease and he can direct those in search of assistance to appropriate venues.

Electroboy is itself a kind of atlas to this world. A harrowing, at-times breathless account of Behrman's own life, it details the many years in which he was subject to the dizzying highs and lows of manic depression. Along the way, Behrman flew off to foreign shores on whims, indulged in budget-busting spending sprees, stripped and played sex games for cash, binged on alcohol and drugs, made movies and became an art forger who got caught and went to jail. After being misdiagnosed for most of his life, electroshock treatments brought Behrman back to earth, where he had the good fortune to find continued family support and doctor-prescribed meds that introduced him to the realm of normalcy. He reported that he's been "even-keeled" for three years.

"I was in public relations from 22 until I was about 30," said the 40-year-old Behrman, explaining his affinity for media exploitation. "My sister Nancy has a company, Behrman Communications, where I primarily promoted books and authors--Dr. Stuart Berger, whose Immune Power Diet was a bestseller, and Dr. Robert Giller, whose bestseller was Medical Makeover. I also promoted exercise gurus, celebrity diet doctors and quasi-celebrities. When I started promoting my own book last year, I built up pretty big mailing lists. I spent six weeks linking with other Web sites. I wrote freelance pieces for places like about.com, a-silver-lining.org and bipolaraware [bipolaraware.co.uk ]. I placed small items about selling my book in columns like New York Magazine's 'Intelligencer.' I was fortunate enough to get an excerpt of the book in the last issue of Talk magazine. I went back to all my old contacts and said, 'Here I am again, and this time I'm the story.' "

Electroboy grew out of a January 1999 "Lives" piece that Behrman wrote for the New York Times Magazine about undergoing shock treatment. "Then I was approached by my agent, Suzanne Gluck of William Morris, who said, 'Can you knock out an outline in three days?' I said, 'Okay.' She shopped it around and sold it after five days to Courtney Hodell at Random House. Ten days after that, Suzanne's associate Alicia Gordon optioned it to HBO."

Ever since, Andy Behrman has been either writing the book or working to accelerate its sales momentum. "Random House had plans for a city-by-city tour," he said. "Their focus was on national publicity, which was right. My approach was, the more cities I visited, the better. So I included Seattle, L.A., San Francisco, Chicago, Denver, Austin, Dallas--a total of about 16 cities, I guess. On the ground in many of them, I had people putting up Electroboy posters. Some were friends, some were people I hired. They also handed out bookmarks at Barnes & Noble and Borders. We've got stickers and buttons and T-shirts. In New York, which we did at 2 a.m., there were even two or three homeless people who came along with us putting up posters. They worked four hours and made $40--not bad for them. We covered New York in posters. Our initial run was 1,000. We have 1,500 more all over the country and ordered another 3,500. Now everybody knows the book cover's bright yellow and black."

Random House also went back to press prior to Electroboy's pub date. Associate publicity director Sally Marvin reported that the current in-print total, 26,000, follows a second printing ordered after a spot for Behrman was confirmed on CBS's 48 Hours (set for sometime during the spring) and after Borders picked the book for its New Voices program and Barnes & Noble chose it for Discover 2002. "We're happy that Andy's been doing all this publicity," said Marvin. "Months and months ago we sat down together to work out the plans, and he's been able to add to our efforts."

"I did a story with the 'Style' section of the Times," Behrman continued. (The February 3 feature by Ruth LaFerla began: "Andy Behrman, a former publicist, is still the consummate pitchman, a hard-driving perfectionist who leaves no stone unturned, no detail overlooked if it will yield a little buzz.")

"I'm involved in this on a daily basis," Behrman told PW, speaking from his New York City apartment. "There's no reason for me to spend a day sitting here and not talking about the book. I'm involved with a couple of chat groups across the country, and as soon as my Web site went up, not only did people interested in the book write to me, but media people came to me, too."

Of course the dedicated promoter spoke to Random House reps about his book. "I went in and told them about my publicity contacts and how we could all work together," he said. "I go into stores and talk to booksellers, too, who tell me that authors don't come in much to say hello. They all ask me to do book signings."

"There's also a documentary being made about my promotions for the book," he said. "I've been followed around for a feature from Rexfilms by director Brian Cresto. The film obviously won't come out for the hardcover, but it will be wonderful if it can be timed for the paperback."

Behrman's hoping to keep the Electroboy hardcover well forward in the public's consciousness until the blossoming of summer, when he anticipates that it could become a popular beach read. In addition, his promotional plans and efforts seem to stretch many weeks and months ahead. "It's not costing me much money," he said, not specifying the amount of his out-of-pocket coin. "I'm not a shy guy, and I don't accept no for an answer very well," he concluded. "I feel that this is a story that's important to tell. There is still a tremendous stigma to being manic-depressive, and it's one that I would like to erase."