Hi -

While it's been almost four full weeks since we've been in isolation there have been two brief crossovers with my parents, the last of which was now two weeks ago. We'll see them again this Saturday, thankfully, as everyone could use something new to engage with around here.

(hiking locally earlier this week, can't wait for spring leaves!)

I sometimes believe my 7th month old son doesn't really care who is holding him, but my 3.5 year old daughter likes watching the same shows (although I've been introducing her to new Disney movies, although it's hard to call the 1950 Cinderella exactly 'new'), eating the same things, and interacting with just us. It's even hard to switch up what books I'm reading to her each night.

We've found a routine that works and even managed to fit in work! It involves meal planning, switching back and forth on childcare around our daily call schedule, and getting back in front of the computers again at night, like this. Speaking about work, I actually ended up updating my Work Field on my Social Media Accounts recently:

So, let's get into that!

act one

Heigh Ho, Heigh Ho

It's off to work, we go.

The Seven Dwarfs, Disney, “Heigh Ho” (1937)

In my many years at Wiley, I got to wear many hats and it served as an amazing opportunity to see firsthand how the publishing machine worked across so many levels: acquisitions, production, manufacturing, sales, subsidiary rights, publicity, and much more.

But the part of the job I enjoyed the most was the 'marketing' part, naturally - it just made sense to me that it didn't matter how good a book was if no one knew about it. Connecting consumers to the content literally made for them is a dream job.

Obviously there are countless examples of underrated and under-appreciated works of art. What's your go-to? My favorite reference is Stoner by John Williams. Published in 1965 (with a positive review in The New Yorker no less!), sold fewer than 2000 copies, and out of print the next year. NYRB reissued it in 2006, it caught on in 2012 and has now sold hundreds of thousands of copies. Here's The New Yorker writing again about it in 2012, but it was this 2009 Steve Almond post in The Rumpus that eventually got me to read it for the first time in 2011.

Anyway... a book only has an impact if it's being read. And it doesn't help the author's career at all if that doesn't happen until after they die (sadly, Williams died in 1994).

So that drove me to apply for a marketing job at Wiley back in 2006 (well that and that every single person in my Columbia Course was chasing editorial jobs), because it made sense. I'd have so many books to work on that it would suit my attention span and I'd actually get to create things, in the marketing-material sense.

It didn't matter that I had only taken one marketing course in undergraduate (alas, learning "the four Ps" thanks to Phillip Kotler - years later, I'd be marketing one of HIS books that Wiley published - a very 'full circle' feeling), because I started off as marketing assistant to the director of marketing at Wiley and his half dozen marketing managers. But as much as I'd learn directly from all of them, I learned even more just by watching what the authors who wrote marketing books were doing.

And that's what I love about marketing and book marketing in general - it's all happening out in the open. You can watch any author, especially in this transparent age of social media marketing, build websites and sales funnels and send emails and create content and post calls to action. It's all public! And you can literally see what's working (and what's falling on deaf digital ears).

Fourteen years later and my wish would come more than true. Like all of our attention, mine got fragmented and spliced into so many standing meetings, regular calls, and non-marketing work. There were 150 books crossing my desk each year... how much time and budget can any publisher fairly dedicate to each? We wouldn't be publishing the book if we didn't believe in it and know there was an audience for it, but attention can't scale as easily as increasing a print run.

Then Mat Miller came calling... this month I'm working on ONE book. And I want to tell you about it.

act two

Alex Carter wrote a book called Ask For More: 10 Questions to Negotiate Anything. I'm lucky because I already read it and can honestly tell you that it's frankly incredible.

She's a law professor at Columbia University and has many years of experience in mediation, especially. She changed how I previously thought about negotiation (a battle to win or lose) by showing how it's actually about navigating any relationship - personal or professional.

You can find more information about her book here and preorder there.

She's been putting on a lot of webinars recently, all replays and slides are free, on Negotiating Work/Life Balance at Home; Negotiating Through Uncertainty; and Running Successful Virtual Meetings.

Basically Alex is killing it, because her book works and she's living proof. Now I'll tell you what I've been adding from where I sit at Book Highlight...

act three

So this author is going all out for her book launch, but she wants to go even bigger. She talks to Mat Miller, who is behind Book Highlight (I'm not linking to our website because it's going to change and I'm excited to be a part of driving that change, so trust me when I say it's worth waiting for), signs on even before he brings me on. He takes me to meet her when he's briefly in town end of February.

What I love most about New York City is the density and proximity to creators. That I could happen to walk past someone who made something that changed my life at any moment, even just running to drinks. But that you can read a book and meet the author, or see a film and hear from the cast, or catch almost any band live passing through town - is the magic in NYC that won me over from the start.

Now I can read a book, meet its author, and help her launch her book. That I can just email or call her when I have an idea is incredible. Of course I did that at Wiley, but suddenly this is my only author this month. And after I read the book, talk it over with her, I can then spend hours crafting a companion framework workbook that she's excited to use with the launch team that I've helped her build is really fun.

That's where we are now. She's getting people to join her launch team, she's hosting Zoom calls with them to prepare everyone for reading an advance copy of the book and getting my framework, and she's empowering them to help in her mission to spread the word (kind of like I'm doing right here right now). So if you want to join us, here's the link.

And because you know me and I'm proud of the companion framework PDF I made, I'll send it to you right away if you email me back here and ask for it. It's ten open questions that you ask yourself and your negotiation partner to help reach a mutually beneficial resolution - and who doesn't need that in their life? I'm confident it will inspire you to get the book (here's a Bookshop.org link!) and join the launch team.

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So far only one person that has signed up for this weekly personal newsletter has actually unsubscribed! I find that encouraging. My previous three emails have been incredibly personal - I mean literally my last email had almost 7 full minutes of video of me waking up and going to work and coming home.

So this week's missive swings to the other extreme, almost entirely professionally based around my new job and what I'm doing for it. Of course this isn't something I'll be sending each week like this - I hope I strike a balance of more self than self promotional, but it's because I'm excited about what I'm working on right now and actually believe it might help people I know.

Let me know, now a month's worth of four emails, how you're enjoying (or not!) these and what you'd want me to talk about in future emails. It's wide open! I didn't have a plan today when I remembered it was Thursday and I send out emails on Thursdays, so yeah, I can use the feedback.

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Since my email this week is full of author love, I want to call out a newsletter I've been subscribed to forever and a writer I've been reading for much longer: Will Leitch. I started reading Deadspin back in college and went back into his Black Table archives when I found them later on, then followed him over to NY Mag, and beyond. When he'd publish a new book, I'd be there at BN for his reading and to get it signed. And then I'd see him out jogging along the Brooklyn waterfront with his wife on the weekend!

He does his own interview show, podcasts, movie reviews, books, and regular feature and blog writing, but he still puts out a personal (and often lengthy, like this one) email each Saturday that I always read. These days he's also sending out Tues/Thurs emails with reader-submitted stories that capture life in the time of corona. It's a nice reminder and way to connect with people, not pundits, outside of my own experience. HIGHLY recommended.

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Last week I told you I was working on finishing my first book since the start of isolation and I finally did! Now I'm already halfway through my next one. What are you reading before bed? (I have to put down Twitter or it's just doomscrolling and nightmares for me).

Anyway hat's it! It's late, but it's still Thursday. Thanks for reading this week's email. Trying to stick with it.

Staying Socially Distant - Peter

*If someone forwarded this email to you and you want to subscribe yourself, do so here.

**If you missed my first three emails, you can find my archive here.

***If you need MORE family photos, peep my instagram feed - it's all I have to offer these days.

PLEASE have a wonderful weekend, for the bunny's sake.