I think we can all agree that most anything that helps writers, publishers and booksellers to get the public to pay attention to them is a very good idea. Publishing, after all, is "to make generally known." But in today's information-saturated culture, it's no easy task to get this book/this writer/this message out there, unless you have an Ann Coulter, say, or even Al Gore to work with.
So the recent announcement of the formations or beefing up of "speakers bureaus" within publishing houses seems a boon for business. The newly formed Penguin Speakers Bureau "is the perfect complement to both our publicity and marketing departments," said Penguin Group President Susan Petersen Kennedy. Harper recently hired the experienced publicist Jamie Brickhouse to head its souped up speakers division, and Little Random has formed an alliance to do the same. On our Web site, the response to these developments from PW readers was mostly positive: "this looks like a winner for writer, clubs, stores and publisher," one author wrote. A bookseller, similarly: "A speaker's bureau that works with bookstores could be a big help in letting small community groups, business and professional groups, public issue groups and others see an author Up Close and Personal."
Not surprisingly, none of the publishers' announcements includes specifics about finances—how will salaries be budgeted and what (if any) cut will the house take from booking paid tours? And there are other unanswered questions, too. Like, for example, how many (already overstressed) publicists will be deployed to these departments, and how will the hand-in-glove theory of publicity/speaking work? Further, I can't help thinking that if you're say, Mary Pipher, the Penguin Group author of the huge bestselling nonfiction title, Reviving Ophelia, you're probably going to be in greater demand—and thus take more of the energy of the bureau—than, say, the kind of novelist formerly known as "mid-list." But then, most of the authors listed in the Penguin release (e.g., Eric Jerome Dickey, Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind and Elizabeth Gilbert) are, not surprisingly, primarily nonfiction writers; Harlan Coben is the only truly big name on the fiction side, and my guess is he needs about as much help finding interested audiences as does Bill Clinton.
Still, this is mostly to the good, for writers and publishers, especially if the bureau people are creative enough to let suitors know that, well, no, Big Deal Author #1 isn't available to speak to your group on that particular day, but we can substitute Up-and-Comer #2, who's really just as great on the topic, if not better. Why shouldn't in-house speakers bureaus function like bookish studio systems and make understudies into stars?
The only drawback may be—here we go again—for the beleaguered independent bookseller, who is already competing with bigger stores for authors on tour. If a house now in the speaking business makes money, say, from Newbery Medal—winner Richard Peck speaking at Town Hall, what 's the motivation to book him into the Mom-and-Pop shop for free? Only the goodwill and loyalty of a publicist and/or author, I bet.
So let's hope there's still enough of that to go around.
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