Wednesday, July 13, 2005
Terrorist novel
~ publishers pull adverts ~
Let no one accuse the publishers of Chris Cleave's topical and amazingly timed Incendiary of insensitivity: in response to last week's bombings, dear old Chatto & Windus are actually going thru the motions of pulling its advert campaign from London's Underground. Gad I bet the publicity manager's furious. In fact, the PR is working rather well so let me not feel *too* sorry for them: it's sort of the way *I* would have run things had I been in the PR hotseat: I doubt anyone would have heard of this first novel had they not trumpeted their good intentions to haul the adverts down. Plus, they're eating their cake and having it since, to quote the publishers, actually pulling the ads "is hard because of demands on the subway system's staff ... Frankly, the London Underground have other more pressing priorities so they will come down as soon as they can get them down." Brilliant: clear your name of vulgar cashing in *and* get yer ££'s worth from the billboards. Good use of author Cleave, too, what with his humble query on his web site about whether he should actively promote his book at all now: I suspect the hardy English public can handle coincidental publicity that would have been set up months ago and is, anyway, for a piece of fiction .... It sounds rather a good story, too ... What? Terrorist attack on new Arsenal stadium ... woman grieving for husband and son ... open letter to Osama BL? That's a formula that'd get me handing over a quid or three. "Is it on the whole a helpful book, or not? Is it disrespectful to the families of the victims for me to keep endorsing it? Or would it be a greater disrespect if I didn't? Please let me know what you think."
Ooh, the cheesy scribe - I bet he's been inundated with requests for interviews from all over the country.
