Writers' Strike Hurting Book Publicity Plans

Posted on November 9, 2007

Now that the late night talk shows are in reruns, book marketing plans are being adversely impacted.

This week Comedy Central's The Daily Show with Jon Stewart had interviews scheduled with Karen Greenberg, author of The Torture Debate in America (Cambridge Univ. Press), Robert Reich, author of Supercapitalism (Knopf), CNN talking head Lou Dobbs, author of Independents Day (Viking), and former UN Ambassador John Bolton, author of Surrender Is Not an Option (Threshold). No interviews have made it on air. And The Colbert Report planned to interview David Levy, author of Love And Sex With Robots, AJ Jacobs author of The Year Of Living Biblically, and radio producer David Isay, author Listening Is An Act Of Love.

"For the right author, they are the gold standard," said Lisa Johnson, v-p executive director of publicity and marketing for Dutton and Gotham. Gotham author Jared Cohen was scheduled to appear next Monday on The Colbert Report to talk about his book Children of Jihad. "It is his first book and getting him booked on Colbert was a coup."

Johnson pointed out that Stewart and Colbert's shows are not the only late night gab fests that hosted authors: The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson is also known for promoting books. Johnson's author Jenny McCarthy, whose latest book is Louder than Words, had an appearance cancelled this week due to the strike.

"It's not as if our business is going to collapse," said Paul Bogaards, executive director of publicity at Knopf. "But we publicists are desperate to get our authors in front of readers and these are lost opportunities, especially as we enter the holiday shopping season."

The publicists say that they will weather the storm: that they'll just have to put more effort into other marketing efforts. One talk show may be back on the air sooner than was thought. Jay Leno has refused to cross picket lines (kudos to him, by the way), so NBC may continue the show using guest hosts, which is just obnoxious. No word on who'll be writing the guest hosts' monologues and intros. Oh, and they've fired all the staff.

And Leno's chief writer doesn't expect Leno back anytime soon. "I talk to Jay every day, and he will not be the first [late-night host] to cross the picket line," said Tonight Show head writer Joe Medeiros, also a strike captain for the Writers Guild of America. "So they are looking at guest hosts as one possibility so all those people don't have to lose their jobs."

Medeiros on Friday expressed anger at NBC for pulling the plug on the staff so quickly. "This is the way that NBC treats the No. 1 late-night talk show that makes them $50 million a year and has been No. 1 for 12 years?" he said, noting that NBC even turned off his NBC e-mail account.

Even prior to the strike taking effect, many knew that the nonwriting late-night show staff members from all networks would probably begin to see layoffs within two to three weeks if their hosts did not resume their on-air duties.

The way things look today, this strike isn't going to end anytime soon.

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