Baseball season is currently underway, and we here at Newman Communications have been lucky enough to be part of several baseball book publicity campaigns.

In A People’s History of Baseball, Mitchell Nathanson probes the less well-known but no less meaningful other side of baseball: episodes not involving equality, patriotism, heroism, and virtuous capitalism, but power–how it is obtained, and how it perpetuates itself. Through the growth and development of baseball Nathanson shows that, if only we choose to look for it, we can see the petty power struggles as well as the large and consequential ones that have likewise defined our nation.

Like the game itself, A People’s History of Baseball is both timely and timeless. The book was featured in places like the Los Angeles Daily News and USA Today. Some original pieces by Nathanson were places in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Mitchell Nathanson is a professor of legal writing at Villanova University School of Law and the author of The Fall of the 1977 Phillies: How a Baseball Team’s Collapse Sunk a City’s Spirit.

Click here to learn more about Mitch

New York Times bestselling author of The Bullpen Gospels, Dirk Hayhurst continues his hilarious roller-coaster baseball odyssey when he marries his sweetheart and finally makes it to the Major League in OUT OF MY LEAGUE:  A Rookie’s Survival in the Bigs.

After six years of laying it on the line in the minors, pitcher Dirk Hayhurst hopes 2008 is the year he will break into the big leagues. Then it finally happens—Dirk gets called up to the Majors, to play for theSan DiegoPadres. A dream comes true when he takes the mound against the San Francisco Giants, kicking off forty insane days and nights in the Bigs—with a big paycheck, bigger-than-life personalities, and the biggest pressure he’s ever felt.

OUT OF MY LEAGUE entertains from the first pitch to the last out, capturing the gritty realities of playing on the big stage, the comedy and camaraderie in the dugouts and locker rooms, and the hard-fought, personal journeys that drive our love of America’s favorite pastime.

Out of My League had a successful publicity campaign and appeared in print everywhere from the Cleveland Plain Dealer to the San Diego Union Times. Out of My League was also placed in Deadspin.com and ESPN the Magazine, while Dirk Hayhurst was on ESPN Baseball Today, NPR’s Only A Game and WGN Radio.

Dirk Hayhurst is the author of the New York Times bestseller The Bullpen Gospels. Drafted from Kent State University in 2003 as a senior sign, Hayhurst has pitched professionally for nine years on more than eight minor league teams and two major league teams, including the San Diego Padres and the Toronto Blue Jays. In 2011, he signed with the Tampa Bay Rays and pitched for their Triple-A team, the Durham Bulls, in Durham, NC.

Check out more of Dirk’s writing on his website.

 

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Need, Speed, and Greed

Author: Vijay V. Vaitheeswaran
Publisher: Harper Business

China Business Editor for the Economist, Vijay V. Vaitheeswaran, teamed up with Newman Communications to promote his new book, Need, Speed, and Greed: How the New Rules of Innovation can Transform Businesses, Propel Nations to Greatness, and Tame the World’s Most Wicked Problems (Harper Business). This book promotion tour took the author from Radio appearances to popular blogs and news sites across the web.

With the help of Newman Communications’ book publicity services, Vaitheeswaran traveled the U.S. on his book promotion tour sharing his insights with the media, including:

• KQED’s Forum with Michael Krasny
• Freakonomics.com Blog
• NPR’s Tech Nation
• Investor’s Business Daily
• TheStreet.com
• BBC’s World News America
• CNBC.com Blog post
• The Globe and Mail
• The Motley Fool

About the Book:

Over the past few decades, globalization and Googlization have kicked off the first phase of an innovation revolution more profound and more powerful than any economic force since the arrival of Europeans on North American shores half a millennium ago. These developments have brought us such advances as the Web, social networking, 24/7 connectivity, and global markets.

But the benefits of all this progress have not been shared fairly among all. It is true that the elites of Mumbai are closer today to the elites of Manhattan than they were two decades ago, but what about Kansas? The hard-working salarymen of the developed world are not getting wealthier, but the economic elites who have mastered the new rules of global innovation are. Even as rural women in Africa and Asia have seen their lives transformed by mobile phones and the Internet, the middle classes and blue-collar workers in prosperous countries everywhere have been squeezed by the new global realities. And as the first phase of the innovation revolution gives way to a much greater transformation, America and other rich societies must find a path to inclusive growth or else risk being left behind by history.

All this leads to the central political and economic question of our age: How can the extraordinary benefits of the innovation revolution be shared more equitably among all of society? Need, Speed, and Greed answers that question, offering the essential insider’s guide to this new world of innovation. Drawing on the best of the academic and field work in this emerging area, Vaitheeswaran inspires and empowers readers to improve their lives, their work, and perhaps even the world.

About the Author:

Vijay V. Vaitheeswaran is an award-winning global correspondent for the Economist.  He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, an adviser to the World Economic Forum. He is also the author of Zoom: The Global Race to Fuel the Car of the Future (co-authored with Iain Carson), and Power to the People: How the Coming Energy Revolution Will Transform an Industry, Change Our Lives, andMaybe Even Save the Planet.

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Titanic – Voices from the Disaster

Author: Deborah Hopkinson
Publisher: Scholastic Press

You’ve seen the movie, and you’ve fallen in love with the characters. But what are the real stories of the people who met the same fate as the RSS Titanic, and, better yet, what can survivors teach young readers about that infamous night in April 1912?

Leading up to the hundredth anniversary of the tragedy, Newman Communications has been at the helm a book publicity campaign for  TITANIC: Voices from the Disaster (Scholastic Press, March 2012) by Deborah Hopkinson, acclaimed author of historical fiction and nonfiction for young readers. In TITANIC, Hopkinson resurfaces a hundred-year-old tragedy through the stories and voices of those who survived the sinking of the RMS Titanic.

TITANIC renews the drama, detail, and depth that intrigued millions nearly a century ago, but with a better understanding of how the ship declared to be unsinkable sank in a matter of hours. Hopkinson’s strikingly humanistic approach to the Titanic redefines historiography, creating a truly complete picture of the wreckage that doesn’t rely on commissioner reports alone.

Letters and narrative accounts from TITANIC’s passengers prompt readers to think of those whose journey ended along with what Hopkinson calls “a masterpiece of human engineering:”

• In a letter to their parents, Harvey, Lot, and Madge wrote, “Well dears so far we are having a delightful trip the weather is beautiful and the ship magnificent…Lots of love and don’t worry about us. Ever your loving children.”
•  “You have to try to imagine it – the last moment I saw my dear sister stand there with little Thelma tightly in her arms.” Ernst Persson, third class passenger.
• “I almost thought, as I saw her sink beneath the water, that I could see Jacques, standing where I had left him and waving at me.” May Futrelle, first class passenger remembering her husband

“This book is an introduction to the disaster and to just a few of the people who survived,” says Hopkinson, “I hope their stories and voices remind you, as they do me, that our lives are fragile and precious. And I hope they make you wonder, as I do, what it would have been like to be on the Titanic that night so long ago...”

TITANIC has received starred reviews from Publishers Weekly, Kirkus, and School Library Journal.

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Following Atticus

Author: Tom Ryan
Publisher: William Morrow

Newman Communications’ faith in humanity was restored when we were visited by author Tom Ryan and his buddy Atticus M. Finch.  Atticus, who is the central character in Ryan’s book, Following Atticus is an adorable miniature schnauzer.  Atticus was a perfect guest and but didn’t have very much to say, so he let Tom Ryan do all the talking.  Tom and Atticus had just completed a successful  radio book  publicity campaign which found them talking of their adventures with more than 25 stations across the country, including:

• NPR in WI
• USA Radio Network
• Lifestyle Network

Now once again, with Atticus in the lead, Tom  came  back to Newman Communications  to begin a new adventure in TV, Online and Print book publicity campaign for Following Atticus.

Get a quick look at the beautiful trailer for the book

About the Author

Tom Ryan is the founder of the Newburyport, Massachusetts, newspaper the Undertoad and served as its publisher and editor for more than a decade. It wasn’t until he bonded with Atticus that he realized how stressed and unhappyhe was. Middle-aged, overweight, and acrophobic Tom and Atticus were an unlikely pair of mountaineers, but after a close friend dies of cancer, the two pay tribute to her by attempting to climb all forty-eight of New Hampshire’s four-thousand-foot peaks twice in one winter while raising money for charity. In a rare test of endurance, Tom and Atticus set out on an adventure of a lifetime that takes them across hundreds of miles and deep into an enchanting but dangerous winter wonderland.

As Ryan says:  “In telling the story of my friend, Atticus M. Finch, I often think of the something Antoine de Saint Exupery wrote, ‘Perhaps the act of love is my gently leading you back to yourself.’ For that’s what this little dog did. He led, I followed, and in the end I became the man I dreamed of being when I was a little boy.”

“Not your standard mountain adventure book. . . . Reading Following Atticus can feel like taking a long walk, or a series of walks, with a great storyteller. Why ‘follow Atticus?’ Because, [Ryan says], ‘Dogs, like mountains, bring you back to yourself.’” (AMC Outdoors ).

Tom Ryan, Atticus and Newman Communications would like to help you  see what it means to love an animal, find your true self and maybe create a few smiles along the way.

To learn more about Following Atticus please visit: http://tomandatticus.blogspot.com/

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A Major League Book Promotion Tour

When asked what comes to mind when you think about spring, book promotion usually isn’t the answer you get. Instead your likely to hear answers like, Green Grass, Flowers, and … BASEBALL! Yes, spring training is here! The grass is cut,  the teams are practicing and before you know it will be Opening Day! Get out your peanuts, cracker jacks, and your favorite baseball cap and get ready to cheer on the hometown team. While some of us are content to cheering in the stands, others have bigger dreams. Dreams of taking a major league outfield, the pitchers mound,  or running the bases after hitting a home run! That’s where Dirk Hayhurst’s story starts, when he got called up from the minors in 2008 to play for the San Diego Padres! Newman Communications had the great great opportunity to provide and coordinate Dirk’s book promotion and publicity tour packed with with a radio and print exposure!

Continue Reading »

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