All In A Good Cause

Getting national publicity for authors and their books is nigh on impossible unless the author happens to be a celebrity, married or having an affair with someone famous, has good connections in the media or someone with an amazingly tortured background. I am none of these (though I do have some good connections with my local and regional media) and so the lovely features writer from the Southampton Daily Echo came to interview me today for a feature in their Saturday magazine, which will appear in about three weeks time. A photographer couldn't make it today because they're all a little busy with Children in Need, photographing people in baths of baked beans, all for a good cause, of course.

And talking of good causes I've just read in Publishing News that in a Virgin Radio auction to raise money for the families of the Warwick Fire Brigade, who lost fire-fighters in a warehouse blaze, HarperCollins has successfully bid £22,000 to host the station's Breakfast Show, which they say will feature their authors including Lewis Hamilton, Gordon Ramsay and Slash from Guns n' Roses. I'd be happy to participate even though I'm not a HarperCollins author and talk about In Cold Daylight and my life as a fire-fighter's wife, but I doubt they'd want me.


So in my own little way I try to do my bit for fire-fighters. I donated a signed copy of In Cold Daylight and In For The Kill to the UK Fire Service Web Site for them to auction for the Fire Service Benevolent Fund to raise money for this very worthy charity which helps injured and sick fire-fighters and their families. OK, so this is buying publicity both on the part of HarperCollins, and on mine. HarperCollins get increased publicity for their authors and I get increased name awareness for my novel and hopefully new readers, but at least in both instances, from the large to the small, the money will go to a worthy cause and I'm all for that.