Publicist. Publicist?!

I had a phone appointment with my publicity team.

Let’s just take a moment to smile over that sentence.  Or jump and squeal and clap your hands, if that’s what you do.  At the very least, read it again.

Publicity team.  People who are paid fulltime to market me, to sell the product that is mine.

(Now that’s just crazy talk.)

They are two brilliant women, and they came prepared with a list of plans they have to launch this book in the next year.

They mentioned the Catalyst Conference, a leadership conference that happens annually in Atlanta.  Ah, yes.  I attended Catalyst last fall.  (See The Story of The Traveling Duchess.)

They plan to market and promote my book at the Catalyst conference next year, and she began to explain why that’s an important audience – young thinkers, influential leaders.

I chimed in, “Yes, I attended Catalyst last year.  I’ll be there again this fall.  In fact, I may or may not have taken a picture of myself in front of the Waterbrook Random House booth in the fairway.”

They laughed with me. “Yes, you probably knew more about this project than we did last fall.”

Well, I knew it was happening.  That’s about all I knew.  I knew enough to devise a stealthy picture of myself with my publisher in the background.

Just keeping it real. Because I can’t believe this is real.