Fun Without Dick and Jane: Your Guide to a Delightfully Empty Nest

Author: Christie Mellor
Publisher: Chronicle Books

Is $200 an hour too much to spend for exam tutoring? Is moving to an apartment near my daughter’s campus a valid option? If I don’t send a care package, does it mean I don’t care? How can I get my son to stay in touch without resorting to begging?!

These questions are on every parent’s mind as they face the moment they’ve been preparing for since pre-school enrollment: sending their little darling off to college. Luckily for them, Christie Mellor—bestselling author of The Three-Martini Playdate—has bestowed her trademark wit and wisdom with her new book, FUN WITHOUT DICK AND JANE: Your Guide to a Delightfully Empty Nest.

Christie Mellor came to us for a full book publicity campaign which  includes radio, TV, online and print. Our radio team was able to secure interviews for Christie on numerous networks and stations including:

• Lifestyle Radio Network
• Radio America
• WZLX-FM/Boston MA
• WMJI-FM/Cleveland OH
• Northeast Public Radio

and many more.

Newman’s National Team was able to secure many blogs for our author as well as The Huffington Post and an appearance on The Today Show.

Mellor understands that letting go is not an easy thing to do, however she believes that an empty nest can equal a newly fulfilled life. In FUN WITH DICK AND JANE, she provides wise council on how to:

• Deal with the house being too clean and too quiet
• Admit the things you may not miss about your little angel
• Rediscover your lost interests and find new goals
• Rekindle the romantic flame with your partner
• Step back out into social circles
• Say sayonara to “Mrs. Minivan”
• Run away from home
• Figure out what to do when the children come home to roost. Because they will, for holidays, breaks, and possibly for years after graduation.

Even if parents spent some quality time considering what life will be like once the darlings have left, they should still expect a bit of an adjustment period when the child actually does fly the coop. But when that time comes, FUN WITHOUT DICK AND JANE encourages readers to be so thrilled about what they are doing with their own lives that the thought of their children moving on to a next chapter will only be a source of joy, pride, and excitement about the great adventure that awaits.

Celebrate the jubilation. Be ready to honor the grief. And then move on—happily—to the next part of life.

About the Author:

While pursuing a happy life that includes an interesting husband and two almost-always pleasant children, Christie became a vociferous cheerleader for the “other kind of parenthood,” the anti-perfection, you-deserve-a-life kind. Her first book, The Three-Martini Playdate was a harbinger of a new trend for today’s beleaguered parents, helping them to withstand the unceasing and overbearing good advice and pressure to raise perfect, highly enriched offspring, She continued the thread with The Three-Martini Family Vacation, also with Chronicle Books. Raised by Wolves: Clues to the Mysteries of Adulthood, (Harper/Collins) was a book designed for the adult child whose parents did not read The Three Martini Playdate. Next came You Look Fine, Really, a book celebrating women over a “certain age.” Fun Without Dick and Jane – Your Guide to a Delightfully Empty Nest, is her latest helpful guide for parents, a bookend to the “Three-Martini” books.

Christie’s rants have been published in Great Britain in The Guardian, Junior Magazine, and the Sunday Express; in Australia’s Sunday Life Magazine, and on the Huffington Post. She’s been heard on Britain’s BBC radio and American Public Radio’s Marketplace, in addition to being reviewed, interviewed, and quoted in Newsweek, Playboy, Us Magazine, The New York Times, People, and other publications. She also can be heard singing her bitter little heart out each week at the historic Culver Hotel in Los Angeles, where she and her band Doozy play Depression-era music and vintage originals. Please visit her colorful website, at christiemellor.com.

Visit our site at Newman Communications for more Book Publicity information and services.

Colbert’s America: Satire and Democracy

Author: Sophia McClennen
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Colbert’s America
Sophia McClennen

Newman Communications client, Sophia McClennen and her new book, Colbert’s America: Satire and Democracy (Palgrave Macmillan) have been causing quite the media buzz.

Professor at Penn State, McClennen examines how the comedy of Stephen Colbert packs enough political punch to change the way a nation thinks.

COLBERT’S AMERICA covers the various themes and features of his satire and gives readers insight into the powerful ways that Colbert’s comedy challenges the cult of ignorance that has been threatening meaningful public debate since 9/11.

McClennen suggests that Colbert does more than mock pundits and politicians: he actually has helped influence a new generation of actively involved citizens. Satire offers the public a medium through which to express resistance to reigning political policies and social attitudes.  But Colbert’s satire goes even further, offering viewers myriad ways to engage with society.

Paul Farhi’s Washington Post article sparked the debate of whether or not Colbert should a worthy topic for academia.  His article has received more than 500 comments and been picked up across the country.

The Atlantic Wire and Newsbusters have both chimed into the debate as well.  McClennen has taken to The Huffington Post to share her thoughts on the debate and spoke with TVNewser.com.

McClennen argues that Colbert is a “new kind of public intellectual-satirist,” much like Mark Twain, Ben Franklin and Jonathan Swift and therefore worthy of our attention.

Newman Communications asks:   Should Colbert be studied in college?

Discuss.

Visit our site at Newman Communications for more Book Publicity information and services.

The Trust

Author:  Norb Vonnegut
Publisher:  Minotaur Books

The Trust
Norb Vonnegut

Norb Vonnegut returns to Newman Communications for his third novel, THE TRUST (Minotaur Books, July 2012). Having worked with Vonnegut for book publicity and promotion on THE GODS OF GREENWICH , Newman Communications is pleased to have him back with his much anticipated newest release.

Every one of Vonnegut’s novels has a big idea grounded in reality.  THE TRUST shows how some financial criminals hide behind the First Amendment–specifically freedom of religion. The idea for the story traces back to an incident when Pablo Escobar’s first cousin tried to open an account with Vonnegut’s PWM team at Morgan Stanley.

Having worked on Wall Street for twenty years, Vonnegut (cousin of the late Kurt) is more than qualified to tell the tale. He combines his wealth management expertise and intuitive, darkly humorous writing into a fast-talking, suspense thriller that burrows inside the world of big-money philanthropy.

The book publicity and reviews are piling in and the consensus is unanimous;  Vonnegut has a winner in THE TRUST:

• The New York Times says THE TRUST is “money-porn beach reading.”

“Norb Vonnegut is the seriously underappreciated author of three glittery thrillers about fiscal malfeasance. This may not sound like a red-hot franchise, but he has made it one. With “Top Producer” (2009), “The Gods of Greenwich” (2011) and now “The Trust,” he is three for three in his own improbably sexy genre.

“Mr. Vonnegut dreams up diabolically elegant business crimes, then sends smart-talking characters to follow the money. He draws upon his own Wall Street experience (with Morgan Stanley, among other employers) to provide the sound of insider acumen. “I’ve had 14 managers over the last 10 years,” Grove O’Rourke says at the start of the new book. Grove was the stockbroker hero of “Top Producer,” and now he’s back for an encore.”

• Associated Press writes: “Vonnegut turns out crisp prose and delightful conversations that move the reader from one exciting event to another.”   (July 16, 2012)
• Publisher’s Weekly:  “Drawing on his own years on Wall Street, Vonnegut (Kurt’s fourth cousin) bolsters this efficient thriller with credible financial and legal detail while offering in Biscuit a colorful foil to his rather stolid hero”
• Forbes.com shares Vonnegut’s journey from Wall Street to writer.
• Kirkus Reviews:  “Mommas, don’t let your sons grow up to be Manhattan brokers or board members of charitable foundations. They’d never survive the combination    of criminal plots and personal threats…    A fast and furious novel from Vonnegut and a guaranteed good time.”

Vonnegut will hold book signings and events in New York City, Rhode Island (his current home town), Connecticut, and in North Carolina where part of The Trust takes place  and in Charleston, South Carolina, Vonnegut’s childhood home and the  setting for much of The Trust.

Visit our site at Newman Communications for more Book Publicity information and services.

Man Made – A Stupid Quest for Masculinity

Man Made – Joel Stein

Author: Joel Stein
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Newman Communications and Joel Stein recently completed a successful radio book promotion campaign for the Time columnist’s new release, Man Made; A Stupid Quest for Masculinity. Newman’s radio book publicity team booked him on several top-market radio stations, inlcuding:

• KABC-AM/Los Angeles CA
• KOA-AM/Denver CO – Listen now
• WLW-AM/Cincinnati OH
• Dial Global Network/nationally syndicated
• WRIF-FM/Detroit MI
• Sirius/XM/nationally syndicated
• KRLD-AM/Dallas TX

In Man Made, Stein’s first book, he writes a hilarious and poignant adventure about the absurdities of modern masculinity as he attempts to acquire the manly skills he wants to pass on to his newborn son.

From the Book

The smudge looked suspicious. The doctor confirmed: “That’s the baby’s penis!” Joel’s reaction? Pure panic. “I pictured having to go camping and fix a car and use a hammer and throw a football and watch professionals throw footballs and figure out whether to be sad or happy about the results of said football throwing.” And so begins Joel’s quest to confront his effete nature whether he likes it or not (he doesn’t), by doing a 24-hour shift with LA firefighters, going hunting for wild turkeys, rebuilding a house, driving a Lamborghini, enduring three days of boot camp with the U.S. Army, day-trading with $100,000 and going into the ring with UFC Hall of Famer Randy Couture. Seeking help from a panel of experts, including his manly father-in-law, Boy Scouts, former NFL star Warren Sapp and some celebrities, he expects to learn that masculinity is not defined by the size of his muscles but by the size of his heart. This is not at all what he learns.

Visit Joel’s website at www.thejoelstein.com

Hear Joel on WFLA at http://www.970wfla.com/player/?mid=22093230

Hear Joel on KOA here www.850koa.com/player/?station=KOA-AM&program_name=podcast&program_id=cmn.xml&mid=22093868

Visit our site at Newman Communications for more Book Publicity information and services.

A Major League Book Promotion Tour

Out of My League - Dirk Hayhurst

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!

Newman Communications was able to get interviews on such radio stations and publications as:

• WBUR in Boston, MA
• WKSU in Kent, Ohio
• MLBBLOG.com
• SportsNet Radio
• Toronto Star

About the Book

The book tells the story of how Dirk Hayhurst got his big break by playing in the major leagues.  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.  But every time Dirk looks up, the bases are loaded with new challenges, on and off the field: a wedding balancing on blind hope, a family in chaos, and paychecks that beg Dirk to ask, “How long can I afford to keep doing this?”

Then it finally happens- Dirk gets called up to the Majors, to play for the San Diego Padres.  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.

About the Bestselling Author, Dirk Hayhurst

Dirk Hayhurst is the author of the New York Times best seller 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.  Hayhurst was born in Canton, Ohio, and resides in the off-season in Hudson, Ohio, with his wife Bonnie, a music therapist.

It was great to work with Dirk Hayhurst. Check out his book,  OUT OF MY LEAGUE in stores now and good luck to your team this season!

Visit our site at Newman Communications for more Book Publicity information and services.

LINCOLN, INC.: Selling the Sixteenth President in Contemporary America

Lincoln Inc.

Newman Communications’ had the pleasure of providing successful publicity services to promote Jacqueline Hogan’s recent release Lincoln, Inc.  including both radio and print publicity for the book.

As the book publicity campaign unfolded, it became clear that Lincoln is still among the most popular presidents, grabing spots on radio that included

• Nationally syndicated Jim Bohannon Show/Dial Global Network
• KYW-AM/Philadelphia
• WGTD-FM/Milwaukee WI
• and Daybreak USA/USA Radio Network

The print campaign included op-eds in

• The Christian Science Monitor
• The Atlanta Journal Constitution with a focus on how Lincoln might measure up as a Republican by today’s GOP.
• and The St. Louis Dispatch

Listen in to Jacqueline’s radio interview with WSLR-FM.

About Lincoln, Inc:

Nearly a century and a half after his death, Abraham Lincoln’s legacy and cultural clout is almost unparalleled. Noted sociologist Jackie Hogan details this phenomenon in her new book, LINCOLN, INC.: Selling the Sixteenth President in Contemporary America (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers; December 2011).

A professor and researcher at Bradley University in Peoria, Illinois, Hogan fills LINCOLN, INC. with insightful observations on the exploitation of one of America’s most beloved Presidents. From the time of his first campaign to today, Lincoln has been packaged into a brand and marketed to the general public. His image has been used to make millions for corporations and win elections for politicians.

For mor information about Lincoln Inc., visit the publishers site at https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781442209565

Visit our site at Newman Communications for more Book Publicity information and services.

When I Stop Talking You’ll Know I’m Dead

Author: Jerry Weintraub with Rich Cohen
Publisher: Twelve (Hachette Book Group)

When I Stop Talking, You'll Know I'm Dead

Newman Communications brought Jerry Weintraub’s  story to life  with a book publicity tour that had him speaking with national  radio networks including Westwood One, Talk America, and the USA Radio Networks.  Jerry also spoke to major stations such as WBZ in Boston, WCBS in New York, and KABC in Los Angeles as well as to numerous local stations across the country.

In WHEN I STOP TALKING, YOU’LL KNOW I’M DEAD, written with Rich Cohen, a contributing editor at Vanity Fair, we follow entertainment titan Jerry Weintraub from his first great success at age twenty-six with Elvis Presley, whom he took on the road with the help of Colonel Tom Parker, to immortal days with Sinatra, and his crowning hits as a movie producer, starting with Robert Altman’s Nashville, continuing with Diner, Oh, God!, and The Karate Kid series, among others, and summiting with Steven Soderbergh and Ocean’s Eleven, Twelve, and Thirteen, which together earned well over a billion dollars worldwide.

About The Book

Weintraub shepherds us from the poker tables of Palm Springs (the games went on for days) to the power rooms of Hollywood, and from the halls of the White House to Red Square in Moscow and the Great Palace in Beijing—all the while counseling potentates, poets, and kings, with clients and confidants like Bob Dylan, Led Zeppelin, John Denver, Bobby Fischer, George H. W. Bush, Armand Hammer, George Clooney, Bruce Willis, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon . . . the list goes on.

With wit, wisdom, and the cool confidence that has colored his remarkable career, Weintraub chronicles a quintessentially American journey, one marked by luck, love, and improvisation. The stories he tells and the lessons we learn are essential, not just for those who love movies and music, but for businessmen, entrepreneurs, artists . . . for everyone.

About The Author:

JERRY WEINTRAUB has spent more than five decades in show business, in the process earning a reputation as one of the savviest negotiators, smartest producers, and shrewdest film investors of our time. He has been praised and honored for his philanthropic work and, as UNICEF’s Man of the Year, was presented the organization’s Danny Kaye Humanitarian Award.

RICH COHEN, a contributing editor at Vanity Fair and Rolling Stone, is the author of five books, including the bestsellers Tough Jews, The Avengers, and Israel Is Real.

Visit our site at Newman Communications for more Book Publicity information and services.

Michael Jackson, Before He Was King

Michael Jackson was an incredible entertainer. Some of us are even lucky enough to remember his performance on the 25th Anniversary Celebration of Motown on TV. Jackson’s famous moonwalk stole the show and he received rave reviews for his dancing expertise.  As the news  of Jackson’s untimely demise spread the world felt a sense of shock and mourning .

Photographer Todd Gray worked with Michael Jackson for several years before Jackson requested that he become his personal photographer, a relationship that would encompass the singer’s performances with the Jacksons through the release of his smash solo albums Off the Wall and Thriller.

Newman Communications had the pleasure to work with Todd Gray, providing him with a radio audience on networks across the country to discuss his years with the “gloved one”. Reaching a multitude of listeners, Gray talked on the USA Radio Network,Cable Radio Network, The Family Network and numerous power stations from New York to Oregon.

Gray’s collection of unseen, intimate, and joyful pictures of Michael taken over a span of 10 years reveal him at home, with his family and fans, in career-making live performances, and the on the “Beat It” video shoot.

Gray, a young black man not much older than Jackson at the time they met, brings unique insights to his time with the singer, contributing stories and context to the images, presenting a rare, intimate portrait of Jackson at a creative peak as he grew from a brilliantly talented young man into a pop icon.

Todd Gray photographed Michael Jackson over a period of 10 years, often as Jackson’s chosen photographer. He has shot numerous album covers and directed music videos, and his photo-based artwork is in the permanent collections of museums in the U.S. and abroad. He is currently a professor of art and photography at Cal State University, Long Beach, and lives in Los Angeles.

Michael Jackson was a rare and talented performer who was known as “the King Of Pop” and we here at Newman Communications, are pleased to provide some insight into the life of this man “Before He Was King”

Visit our site at Newman Communications for more Book Publicity information and services.

Audio for this clip was provided by The SandBox / WFNX 101.7 – Boston.

Max Brooks, Zombie Expert and author of The Zombie Survival Guide, returns with his next installment to the Zombie series titled Recorded Attacks.

This time around, Max provides insights to humanities survival against zombies by exploring historical accounts of zombie outbreaks and attacks, and the measures that previous civilizations and cultures took to overcome and survive hoards of undead infected by ”the ancient viral plague”.

Visit our site at Newman Communications for more Book Publicity information and services.

Kathy Griffin

Kathy Griffin thinks that she is only a D-List celebrity, but with the release of her new book OFFICIAL BOOK CLUB SELECTION: A MEMOIR ACCORDING TO KATHY GRIFFIN, she will soon shoot to A-List stardom! Kathy Griffin has officially selected Newman Communications to help her reach superstar status with a radio media tour promoting this hilarious, yet raw and real story of her life (with the help of Oprah too…are you listening Miss O?). With interviews on some of the biggest stations across the nation, such as WBMX-FM in Boston, The Bob & Sheri Radio Network, and KIOI-FM in San Francisco, Kathy sure got her story out there!

In OFFICIAL BOOK CLUB SELECTION, the two-time Emmy winner & Grammy nominee is unplugged, uncensored, and unafraid to dish about what really happens on the road, away from the cameras, and at the star party after the show. You’ve seen her life today on the Bravo reality show KATHY GRIFFIN: MY LIFE ON THE D-LIST, but now take a glimpse at Kathy before she became the loud-mouthed, cynical (and sometimes envelope pushing) comedian she is today!

The book opens up about everything, from growing up in a dysfunctional family, to her love affair with junk food, to her well-publicized plastic surgeries (this section complete with pictures that Kathy describes as “something you would see on CSI”), her failed marriage as well as her relationship with Apple founder, Steve Wozniak. She leaves no topic off-limits!

Writing with her trademark wit, the feisty red-headed comedian is refreshingly candid, unflinchingly honest, and full of candid “did she really say that?” moments in OFFICIAL BOOK CLUB SELECTION. This book will make you laugh until you cry, or just pee a little bit!

Visit our site at Newman Communications for more Book Publicity information and services.