The Marketeers Club: Best of 2018

The following is an accumulation of 2018 publicity thoughts from Anna Weir, Jackson Adams, and Rosemary Sekora.

The past year was exciting for UNP. We welcomed a new publicist to Team Publicity in April, we celebrated the two new additions to the Discover the Great Plains series at the Nebraska Book Festival in August, and in October our author and favorite women’s volleyball coach John Cook was awarded Nebraskan of the Year by the Lincoln Rotary Club. UNP also received the Word Sender Award from the John G. Neihardt foundation—making us the first organization to be honored with the award. Throughout the year, our books and authors were highlighted in national media. Here are some of our favorite reviews:

In the New York Times Book Review, we saw Marian Eide and Michael Gibler’s After Combat along side African American Soldiers in Liberia by Brian G. Shellum. Sara Batkie’s collection of short stories, Better Times, was also highlighted. In the summer, Amy Essington’s The Integration of the Pacific Coast League appeared in NYTBR’s summer reading list. Beyond the Book Review, the New York Times chatted with Tom Carhart, author of The Golden Fleece, in an article about stealing mascots.

The Wall Street Journal applauded several of our baseball titles, including The Roger Kahn Reader by Roger Kahn and edited by Bill Dwyer, The Pitcher and the Dictator by Ace Smith, and Tom Yawkey by Bill Nowlin. We were thrilled to see WSJ also call out two Bison Books in its round up of “Five Best” Westerns: The Shootist by Glendon Swarthout and The Virginian by Owen Wister.

The Los Angeles Times published an op-ed by ML Cavanaugh, one of the editors of Strategy Strikes Back, a collection that garnered a lot of interest through a myriad of events.

And speaking of Bill Nowlin, his interview about Tom Yawkey for the Boston Globe was another highlight this year. The Boston Globe also gave a shout-out to Kim Adrian’s The Twenty-Seventh Letter of the Alphabet.

This year Publishers Weekly gave a starred-review to Sara Batkie’s Better Times. It highlighted several more of our books, including The Rebounders by Amanda Ottaway, Problematic by Dianna E. Anderson, Collision of Wills by Jack Gilden, and The Three-Minute Outdoorsman Returns by Robert M. Zink.

Kirkus reviewed many of our books, including Justice in Plain Sight by Dan Bernstein, When History Is Personal by Mimi Schwartz, The Presidents and the Pastime by Curt Smith, A Certain Loneliness by Sandra Gail Lambert, and Left to the Mercy of a Rude Stream by Stanley A. Goldman.

Booklist gave a starred-review to Charley Rosen’s biography of Micheal Ray Richardson, Sugar. Renya Ramirez’ Standing Up to Colonial Power and Amy Wallen’s When We Were Ghouls also received positive reviews.

The Guardian‘s review of Women On the Move by Roger Gilles garnered a personal cheer from Team Publicity. Similarly, on the same day, Shelf Awareness highlighted Kim Adrian’s The Twenty-Seventh Letter of the Alphabet and Sandra Gail Lambert’s A Certain Loneliness. Lambert’s memoir on (dis)ability also appeared with Sonja Huber’s Pain Woman Takes your Keys in BuzzFeed News.

We had to leave out a number of excellent reviews and books, like all 36+ media mentions for Alou: My Baseball Journey by Felipe Alou with Peter Kerasotis (some books may require their own posts altogether!).

Our partners at the Jewish Publication Society also saw a year of successful media coverage. For one, Gil Troy’s The Zionist Ideas appeared in the Jewish Review of Books, Commentary Magazine, Haaretz, Hadassah, Jewish Journal, Forward, Tablet, and Jewish Book Council. Forward also reviewed Jeffrey Rubenstein’s The Land of Truth, while Foreword Reviews highlighted Malka Simkovich’s Discovering Second Temple Literature. Booklist reviewed Barry Schwartz’s Path of the Prophets and Kirkus gave a starred review to Marc Rosenstein’s Turning Points in Jewish History. This year was also a landmark year for JPS, as it heralded the publication of The Commentators’ Bible: Genesis, the fifth and final volume of Michael Carasik’s outstanding series, and was highlighted in Publishers Weekly.

But 2018 isn’t over yet. We’re still seeing our books highlighted in gift guides and best-of lists. Take a gander below to see what titles you may have missed this year!

All in all, it’s been a successful 2018! In the meantime, Publicity is sliding on our sunglasses to get a good look at the upcoming bright new year. We’ve got a lot in store for 2019, and we really think you’re going to like it.

PROST,

-The UNP Publicity Team