Today we’d like to introduce you to Holly Watson
Hi Holly, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
I’m originally from Sacramento and attended UCSB’s College of Creative Studies where I earned a degree in literature in 1996. I moved to NYC with my then boyfriend (now husband) who is originally from Mar Vista after college and began working in publicity at Viking Penguin Books, then at W.W. Norton & Co and Basic Books before moving back to Viking Penguin. After my husband Andrew Galambos graduated from Architecture School at Columbia, we moved to LA in 2004 and I was lucky enough to keep my job at Viking Penguin while he went to work as an architect. I worked remotely for Viking until the Fall of 2015 when I went out on my own as an independent book publicist and formed HWPR where I continued to do book publicity for big publishers, small indie publishers and university presses. In 2021, I brought on an assistant who has since been promoted to the associate position and who works with me on all my projects. While I still take on independent clients, I have worked as the primary publicist for the Brooklyn based indie press Akashic Books since the summer of 2022.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
It has not always been a smooth road because there are always challenges in terms of getting attention for books from the media and dealing with the changing media landscape, particularly with the cuts that have occurred in the coverage of books and the arts and the shrinking of local journalism. Since I first began working in publishing, I’ve seen (and been part of) many mergers of big publishers with each other to form even bigger companies and often resulting in the purging of employees. While I’ve been lucky enough to weather these storms and very grateful for all the authors and publishers I have worked with, it has certainly been challenging to deal with this at times. As a publicist, I have also been indirectly affected by the cuts in media and particularly as it affects coverage of the arts-every time an arts or books section of a paper is cut, or when a radio show that mandates coverage of books goes off the air, that is a loss not only for those journalists who lose their jobs, but also for communities as a whole, from the publishers and authors who relied on those folks to their audiences. Fortunately, the rise of podcasts and of people posting about books on Instagram and Tik Tok and of online arts papers like this one have helped mitigate these losses. As a book publicist, one of the most important skills is to adapt and be creative in our approach to publicity so that we can try and pivot to take advantage of these new opportunities.
Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
HWPR is a small literary publicity company based in LA consisting of myself-Holly Watson-and one employee Michelle Politiski (who is based in San Diego) and an intern. We’ve been around since 2015 and specialize in literary fiction, crime and mystery fiction, serious non-fiction including science and history, as well as pop culture. I think what sets us apart is the experience I have working on the “inside” of the publishing world for so long, since I worked for Viking Penguin and other publishers for over 20 years as well as my experience working as an independent book publicist. I have straddled both worlds and as such and am a good advocate for both the authors who hire me as well as the publishers I have represented. I do not work with self-published authors because it is a very different form of publicity and requires a different skill set. Some of the books that I have worked with since I went out on my own that I am proud of are: Paul Freedman’s “Ten Restaurants That Changed America,” Marin McKenna’s “Big Chicken,” Yunte Huang’s “Daughter of the Dragon,” T.C. Boyle’s “Blue Skies,” Ron Kovic’s “Hurricane Street,” and “A Dangerous Country” and Tananarive Due’s “The Wishing Pool” and other stories. I’m also excited about some of the books I am working on that are coming out this summer, including Robyn Hitchcock’s “1967” and Daniel Rachel’s “Too Much Too Young” and Chuck D’s “RapPilates.” I am always grateful for the incredible authors and publishers I get to work with and it is honestly impossible to pick “one” as a favorite because it is like choosing among children. As an aside, one of the things I’m proudest of is that it was Jared Diamond, award winning author and UCLA professor, who helped convince me to go out on my own. He really gave me the confidence to go out on my own at a critical time. T.C. Boyle-a novelist with whom I worked for several years at Viking Penguin and then again more recently-was also very supportive. Each offered me quotes for my website that certainly helped me launch and I don’t know if I would have made the move without their (and others) encouragement.
So, before we go, how can our readers or others connect or collaborate with you? How can they support you?
Please feel free to contact me if you are an author or publisher looking for additional publicity work keeping in mind that I usually book several months in advance and don’t work with self-published authors. If you are a journalist, bookstagrammer, book tokker or host of a book club interested in some of the authors I work with, please reach out! I would love to hear from you.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://hollywatsonpr.squarespace.com
- Instagram: hwpr_la
- Twitter: HWPR_LA
Image Credits
Lit Fest in the Dena photos credit to @BrianBiery
