Book PR in Action: Summer 2025
Everything we teach at Book Publicity School stems directly from our decades of publicity experience at Press Shop PR, where we develop and execute over 30 book launch campaigns each year. Some recent highlights:
Summer flew by! The Press Shop PR and Book Publicity School teams managed to get some restorative R&R — without missing a beat on book promo! Some highlights from a few summertime Press Shop PR campaigns:
We worked with the Henry Holt team on New Yorker writer Alexis Okeowo’s BLESSINGS AND DISASTERS: A Story of Alabama (August 2025). Okeowo’s book explores the complicated history of Alabama, one deeply marked—but not defined by—pain, from the expulsion of the Creek Indians that made the way for enslaved Africans, to present-day legislative battles for “evolution disclaimers” in biology textbooks. With interviews on NPR’s All Things Considered and WBUR’s On Point! The New York Times, Washington Post, Vulture, and others have all named BLESSINGS AND DISASTERS as one of this summer’s most recommended reads.
Working with the creative team at Legion M, a fan-owned entertainment company, we led the publicity campaign for graphic novel DEFIANT (Stranger Comics; June 2025). The book traces the incredible true story of Captain Robert Smalls, an enslaved man who commandeered a Confederate ship and sailed it to freedom. It received coverage on CNN, South Carolina Public Radio, Publisher’s Weekly, and in the comic book media space.
Haley Cohen Gilliland—another wonderful client—is the author of the stand-out history A FLOWER TRAVELED IN MY BLOOD (Simon & Schuster; July 15, 2025), which traces the Argentine women who fought back against the junta after their children were kidnapped. She had excellent interviews on NPR’s All Things Considered and Morning Joe! Plus we should also mention the cover piece in the New York Times Book review, a NYT op-ed, starred reviews in all four trade publications, and tons more.
And finally, the urgent new work BREAKNECK: China’s Quest to Engineer the Future (W.W. Norton; August 26, 2025) from Dan Wang, a research fellow at the Hoover History Lab at Stanford University. Wang, an expert on China and its evolving technology landscape, has been a huge success: BREAKNECK landed a Morning Joe spot, an excerpt in The Atlantic, and much more.
Stay tuned for what falls into place for these next couple months! :) (see what we did there? 🍁🍂🍁🍂)