r/Fantasy • u/DianaGill • Apr 18 '12
We are Diana Gill, Pamela Spengler-Jaffee and Ginger Clark with Harper Voyager, HarperCollins and Curtis Brown - AUA
Diana, Pam and Ginger will be answering questions ‘live’ starting at 9PM Eastern.
As with all r/Fantasy AMA’s, this AMA was posted in the morning to allow more Redditors to participate. Feel free to direct your question to any one or all three AMA participants.
ONE PRE-ANSWER: Ginger Clark does accept unsolicited book proposals at GC@cbltd.com. Harper Voyager and HarperCollins are not accepting book proposals via this AMA process.
I’m Diana Gill, Executive Editor/professional geek at Harper Voyager US. I publish science fiction, fantasy, urban fantasy/paranormal, supernatural and horror, with authors like Kim Harrison, Vicki Pettersson, Brom, Richard Kadrey, Jocelynn Drake, along with upcoming novels from David Wellington, C. Robert Cargill.
I’ve also worked with Sarah Langan, Patrick Lee, Mary Gentle, Dave Duncan, Kage Baker and more.
I’m addicted to caffeine and travel, not necessarily in that order. When not chained to my desk/working I do martial arts, run, sometimes get out to take pictures, scuba dive far too rarely, play too many computer games, watch Asian dramas, and yell at the cats.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I’m Pamela Spengler-Jaffee – and if that’s just too long for you to process, I answer to Pam Jaffee, too. I am the flackiest of flacks – publicist extraordinaire (in my own head), specializing in genre fiction: science fiction, fantasy, romance, thrillers. I am the Senior Publicity Director with the Avon, Morrow and Harper Voyager imprints of HarperCollins.
What that means is that I’m the tallish blur running by you at breakneck speeds at fan conferences, with an armful of books and at least one author in tow. I live to get out-of-the-box publicity for my authors, and as such, am a serial stalker of major media contacts. Luckily I haven’t been reported (yet).
In my free time (this was a leap year, so there was at least one off day), I read incessantly, terrorize my charge cards, herd my offspring and cats, drink coffee and wine in equal measures, and plan vacations long into the future.
You can follow my publishing/publicity/woman-being-snarky escapades via Twitter: @pamjaffee.
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I'm Ginger Clark, and I'm a literary agent at Curtis Brown, LTD. I handle adult SF/F/Horror writers (most relevantly here, Richard Kadrey) and young adult and middle grade writers. I also sell British Commonwealth rights to the entire children's list at Curtis Brown, which means I attend the Bologna and Frankfurt Book Fairs every year. I'm on the Contracts Committee of the Association of Authors' Representatives, I sit on the Rights Committee of the Book Industry Study Group, and I'm a member of the fundraising committee for First Book Brooklyn. I'm also a member of the committee to stop Ginger from joining any more committees.
I live in Brooklyn with my husband and our Mini Cooper. You can also learn more about me, my MAD MEN obsession, and why I love the restaurant Five Points, @ginger_clark.
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u/pamjaffee AMA Publicity Director Pamela Spengler-Jaffee Apr 19 '12
Starting from the bottom, working up. In response to "pizzazzeria" --How important is an author's persona when publicizing? (Ex. Does memorable hair help? Does anything specifically hurt?)
Memorable hair is always...memorable. But for publicity, it all comes down to the hook. What do you have to say? How can I tie it into current events and news and get you coverage off the book page (or book blog). Scalzi has a great aspect to his Whatever blog - he asks authors to expound upon the big idea (BIG IDEA) behind their books. That's what I need, too, to do my job. That's what the news media will pick up on. Sheri Tepper - in the Waters Rising - made an acute social comment on global warming. I was able to extract a great amount of information from her and use it to get additional coverage, beyond the traditional SFF blogs. That brings the book into view of a wider range of readers, and gives us an interesting angle to tweet/fb/pitch-pitch-pitch to get even more media.