These case studies aren't necessarily about our biggest, most recent, or best-selling books, but we’re spotlighting them because they illustrate the way we strategize and implement our media campaigns.
FOREIGN AGENTS by Casey Michel (St. Martin’s Press)
We worked with Casey Michel, director of the Combating Kleptocracy Program at the Human Rights Foundation, on his book FOREIGN AGENTS: How American Lobbyists and Lawmakers Threaten Democracy Around the World (St. Martin’s Press). The book weaves together an absolutely jaw-dropping and infuriating story about past and current foreign lobbying in the US and the complicity of white-collar professionals at public relations firms, think tanks, and top law firms.
Bella DePaulo's SINGLE AT HEART: The Power, Freedom, and Heart-Filling Joy of Single Life shows the benefits and beauty in single life and pushes back against the societal notion that being uncoupled is synonymous with unhappiness. More so than many books we work on, this one had a specific, clearly defined target reader: single people who are doing just fine being unpartnered. While we often try to expand a book’s potential audience, this campaign was all about relentlessly targeting the people we knew would be responsive to the message.
We worked with author David B. Auerbach to publicize MEGANETS: How Digital Forces Beyond Our Control Commandeer Our Daily Lives and Inner Realities in the spring of 2023. The book analyzed and named the hyper-connected and unfathomably large digital networks that now operate beyond the control of the engineers, companies, and governments that created them. These “meganets” have been integrated into all our lives, and they’re causing instability in our political and social structures.
GIDEON'S PROMISE by Jonathan Rapping (Beacon Press)
Jonathan Rapping's GIDEON’S PROMISE: A Public Defender Movement to Transform Criminal Justice was published in September 2020, just in time for the barrage of news about the Presidential election and a fall surge in COVID-19 cases. The book didn’t get much press at launch, but Rapping and his team at his non-profit (also called Gideon’s Promise) wanted to give it another shot. They hired us eight months after publication to line up media attention for the book and to spread the word about the rampant injustices stemming from the broken public defender system.
THE FIRE IS UPON US: JAMES BALDWIN, WILLIAM F. BUCKLEY JR., AND THE DEBATE OVER RACE IN AMERICA by Nicholas Buccola (Princeton University Press)
We worked with Linfield College professor Nicholas Buccola and Princeton University Press to publicize THE FIRE IS UPON US. It tells the story of the historic 1965 debate at Cambridge University between James Baldwin and William F. Buckley, one of the most intellectually explosive moments of the Civil Rights Era.
Press Shop collaborated with MIT Press on the publicity campaign for THE ALCHEMY OF US: How Humans and Matter Transformed One Another by Ainissa Ramirez, a noted materials scientist and self-described science evangelist. The book examines eight world-changing inventions, revealing how they shaped culture and human experience. Filling in gaps left by other books about technology, Ramirez showcases little-known inventors—particularly people of color and women—whose significant accomplishments have gone largely untold. Our job was to focus primarily radio and podcast coverage for the campaign. Unfortunately, THE ALCHEMY OF US was scheduled to publish in early April 2020, just as America was first walloped by COVID-19.
100 TIMES: A MEMOIR OF SEXISM by Chavisa Woods (Seven Stories Press)
We worked with Chavisa Woods in 2016 on her fabulous collection of short stories THINGS TO DO WHEN YOU’RE GOTH IN THE COUNTRY published by Seven Stories Press (If you haven’t read it, you’re missing out. Pick up a copy here!) We collaborated with Woods and Seven Stories again in 2019 to work on a very different book: 100 TIMES, a collection of one hundred personal vignettes of the sexism, harassment, discrimination, and sexual assault Woods has experienced in her life, from her childhood in rural Southern Illinois to her current life as an award-winning author in Brooklyn.
LIFELINES by Melissa Bernstein, co-founder of Melissa & Doug toys
We worked with Melissa and Doug Bernstein of the beloved toy company Melissa & Doug to help launch Melissa’s book LIFELINES. Melissa & Doug toys are a ubiquitous presence in kids’ rooms everywhere, but not many people knew about the people behind the entrepreneurial success story. In 2021, Melissa was ready to share her life story and the fact that, even as she was building a half-billion-dollar company from scratch with her husband for the past 30 years, she was suffering from severe depression and anxiety. She hoped that opening up about her pain would help others with similar mental health struggles.
THE DEATH OF EXPERTISE by Tom Nichols (Oxford University Press)
US Naval War College Professor Tom Nichols hired Press Shop to help his publisher’s in-house team line up media attention for THE DEATH OF EXPERTISE: The Campaign Against Established Knowledge and Why it Matters. It was clear this book, which is about the degradation of learning, knowledge, and experience and how it threatens our democracy, had a lot of potential in the wake of the 2016 election. Nichols, a Never-Trump conservative, wanted to make sure he could spread the book’s message as widely as possible.
EVERYONE ON THE MOON IS ESSENTIAL PERSONNEL by Julian K. Jarboe (Lethe Press)
We worked with Julian K. Jarboe on their debut short story collection, EVERYONE ON THE MOON IS ESSENTIAL PERSONNEL. The collection is comprised of 16 stories of literary speculative fiction, featuring themes of body dysmorphia, environmental calamity, and blue-collar disaffection, told in a unique, funny, and deeply human voice. We fell in love with the book after just a few pages.
MARCH by Congressman John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell (Top Shelf)
Press Shop worked with Top Shelf Comix to line up publicity for the third installment of MARCH, Congressman John Lewis's bestselling trilogy of graphic memoirs about the Civil Rights movement. Our job was to help coordinate the launch week publicity for MARCH: Book 3 for Rep. Lewis and his two co-creators Andrew Aydin and artist Nate Powell, to handle national book review coverage, and to place longer thought pieces on the series as a whole.
I HATE THE INTERNET by Jarett Kobek (We Heard You Like Books)
LA-based indie publisher We Heard You Like Books hired Press Shop to do publicity for the release of its first book: IHATE THE INTERNET: A Useful Novel Against Men, Money, and the Filth of Instagram by Jarett Kobek. It's a brilliant, laugh-out-loud screed of a novel, but we faced some major challenges in promoting it: little distribution, no sales or marketing team, and the author is the founding–and only–editor at the publishing house, making it pretty much a self-published book. But we didn't let it stop us! Read on to hear how we landed a rave review in The New York Times.
ALL WHO GO DO NOT RETURN by Shulem Deen (Graywolf Press)
We worked with author Shulem Deen to spread the word about ALL WHO GO DO NOT RETURN, Deen's National Jewish Book Award-winning memoir about losing his faith and being kicked out of his ultra-orthodox Hasidic community. They hired us to focus on Jewish media, radio, and New York-focused outlets.
