Book Promotion

 Advertising and Books

   Promoting a book is harder than publishing, or even writing one. According to Publishers Weekly, about four million of them were produced in 2025, which means that being an author is somewhat easier than becoming an astronaut. The hard part is getting a reader to choose your book from a pile of 4,000,000 of them.

   I thought of this while reading the March 2026 issue of The Atlantic, which I am pleased to promote. The articles in this issue are first-rate. Even the advertisements are good and are our subject for today. Some of them were full page promotions for books. 

One of These Ads Is Not Like the Others

   You may have been watching Sesame Street, rather than reading a book, and remember the song containing the words above. Your task is to look at the four book ads below and identify which one is different.

1.

2.

3.   

4. 

And The Answer Is?
   The most obvious answer is #3 since the ad is for six books rather than just one. The less obvious answer and the one I prefer is #4. 

   The book about Lincoln is published by W.W. Norton & Company. The Deserving is published by Bloomsbury. The six books in #3 are published by Princeton University Press.  It is usually the case that full page advertisements for books are paid for by publishing companies or university presses.

   The ad for Isabel, Anacaona & Columbus’s Demise: 1498–1502 Retold, by Andrew Rowen was likely paid for by Andrew Rowen. All Persons Press appears to be a publisher solely for Andrew Rowen publications. There is nothing wrong with this at all and I am glad to assist author Rowen by promoting the prequels to the work above: Encounters Unforeseen:1492 Retold and Columbus and Caonabó: 1493–1498 Retold.
   One of the reasons self-promotion is resorted to is, as I mentioned when I wrote about the Washington Post, that there are now few book reviewers around to go through the four million produced. I found very few reviews for the books of Mr. Rowen and know about them only because I read the full page advertisement in The Atlantic. 
   You now may be curious about the cost of a full page ad in a national magazine. That is difficult to determine and the rate provided for a person is likely less than the one quoted for a publisher. I will say, however, that the number is a big one.
   Mr. Rowen is apparently a Harvard Law graduate and a retiree from a New York city law firm. He seems to have had the means to spend a lot of time in the Caribbean doing research for his books and enough left over to promote them. He should not be blamed for that and I do hope he recovers his costs and carries on. 

First They Came For The Names

   My stance on the subject of name changing has been made clear - I am against it and have posted about it. The only reason I am bringing it up again is because the situation is about to get worse. The reasons why are provided at the bottom, as are links to my related remarks on this subject - if you wish to see how wrong-headed one can be. I turn now, however, to the subject of the next purge - OFFENSIVE ADVERTISEMENTS.

Next It Will Be The Advertisements

  I am not a fan of advertisements and 'tape' just about every TV program to avoid them. I stopped watching the U.S. evening news, mostly because of them. We also don't need to be encouraged to buy more things and I would be pleased if the one pictured above was never to be seen again. These are current ads, however, and about purging them I am ambivalent.  The ones I am concerned about, are the older ones, particularly those in print, which some fragile person might stumble upon, in what used to be the safe spaces provided by libraries. 

   It did not take me long to find ones that are no longer appropriate and it will not take long for the posses of the politically correct to ask that they be removed, or that huge WARNING signs be placed in periodical rooms. Here are a few and they don't even include the really offensive ones that do not have the right mixture of races, genders, etc. You read it here first and in a few months my minuscule audience will be praising me for my prescience in predicting the next purge. 

   That should be enough. It is perhaps a good thing that General Motors stopped making the Pontiac, because they would have had to change the name in any case.

Sources: 

  The reason I am focusing on this again is because the U.S. Department of the Interior, just issued this press release: Secretary Haaland Takes Action to Remove Derogatory Names From Federal Lands. Surely a giant eraser soon will be rubbing across the more northerly part of the continent. 

   For earlier pronouncements: Names on the Land. And, No More Name Changing. 

The Bonus:

  If you haven't done your Christmas shopping, you can buy this book AND it will convince you that toponymy should not be tampered with: Names on the Land: A Historical Account of Place-Naming in the United States, George R. Stewart.

  Those of you who are familiar with FIRST THEY CAME FOR.... will be aware of the totalitarian trends from earlier times. If you are not see here.