I don’t as a rule handle children’s books, but the booming Young Adult category has opened new possibilities for my work. Recently, I handled two books for the Razorbill imprint of the Penguin Books for Young Readers Group—and we were able to land both of them on The New York Times bestseller list.

Josh Lieb, author of I Am a Genius…, also happened to be Executive Producer of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. So, even though the book is aimed at a young audience, there is plenty of adult humor involved, including take-downs of Ray Bradbury and PBS fund drives. Armed with this and the fact that we felt media would want to know about someone behind-the-scenes at The Daily Show, we approached this as an adult campaign.


Classy was a different experience altogether. Here was a book that was focused at young women—many of them outside the reach of my normal media outlets. But it was a great gift for a Mom to give her daughter, and it could in fact be helpful to twenty-somethings who were still learning the ropes about becoming a lady.

So, in this case, I collaborated with a terrific in-house publicist who focused on the younger outlets—many of them online—while I concentrated on more traditional outlets. We built on the author’s extensive media and celebrity contacts and made a great team. As a result, he appeared on television and radio in every market he visited, Life and Style did a two-page spread, while People and Extra! covered his celebrity-studded events. The whole thing culminated with a sit-down with Hoda and Kathy Lee at The Today Show.