Elements of Publicity Style

It has been a little more than a month and half since I began my internship. Three days a week, four to five hours a day, I have been learning the craft of book publishing publicity. Slightly more than half of my work is boring office stuff like photocopying, filing, mass emailing, stuffing envelopes and making contact lists from a neon-colored data based (the screen literally brings tears to my eyes). The other portion is writing "snappy" emails and letters to writers, editors and producers of all ilks. Although this does require a certain level of grammatical skill, several of the tried and true rules of good writing are reversed in publicity writing. Most notably cliche and hyperbole are whole-heartedly embraced. In writing class leading off with a cliche may have aroused the scorn of instructors and peers alike, but in publishing it's a hook which will inevitably lead to high profile interviews and starred reviews in all the trades. Sort of disheartening. Vagueness is also highly valued. In the two paragraph pitch one can't be bothered with details to support claims. Adjectives run rampant. The most common edit to my emails has been the addition of the word "fantastic." And I am learning from this. I have made a concerted effort to describe the writing, story or reviews of each book as "fantastic" in my last several emails. And it's working!