Bright Triumphs from Dark Hours

As any book publicist will tell you, the success of a book depends on many things--but the number one key to success is to have a great and timely book to promote! Bright Triumphs from Dark Hours is one such book.

At a time when living in America resembles a roller-coaster ride on the way down, untold numbers are living Thoreau's "lives of quiet desperation," without the drive or know-how to shift gears. Even though there is talk that our economy is turning around, 2010 is going to be tough for many. Reading about how others have created bright triumphs from dark hours can be helpful and inspiring to those currently in the trenches.

David Heenan, a former David Heenan, a former senior executive with Citigroup and Jardine Matheson, trustee of the Estate of James Campbell, one of the nation's largest landowners, and a visiting professor at Georgetown University, is the author of Bright Triumphs From Dark Hours: Turning Adversity into Success (University of Hawai'I Press; January 2010 ).

Heenan examines the lives of ten extraordinary people who overcame great adversity in their personal or professional lives by applying winning strategies that guided them out of the darkness of near-defeat and into the light of success. He divides his profiles into three categories-crusaders, combatants and comeback kids-and draws not only from education but such genres as sports, the military, climbing and corporate downfalls.

Heenan shares these remarkable stories and explains the 6 life principles they all have in common. Then he explains how others can apply them in their own lives.

Here are the individuals included in the book:

* Joel Klein - New York City school chancellor takes on the monumental task of overhauling the city's embattled public school system

* Shirley Ann Jackson - A scientist who breaks down barriers and becomes the first African American woman to receive a doctorate from MIT and head a major research university

* Bill Snyder - A revered football coach who transforms a perennial loser into a national championship contender with average athletes

* Joanne Boyle - survives a life-threatening cerebral hemorrhage to lead the University of California's women's basketball team to national prominence

* Gary Guller - The loss of an arm could not stop this man from scaling the world's highest peaks

* The Frozen Chosin - Semper Fi. At the Chosin Reservoir on the frozen Korean peninsula, the U.S. Maries escaped the deadly fog of war to fight another day

* Sacagawea - She was the lone Indian, the lone mother, the lone female, and the lone teenager on the perilous Lewis and Clark expedition

* Scott Waddle - a split-second mistake by this navy commander caused the Ehime Maru disaster and was a sad ending to his stellar navy career

* Patti Dunn - Former Hewlett-Packard chair fighting to restore her professional reputation and her personal health while battling cancer

* Steve Case - High-Tech entrepreneur rebounding from the ill-fated AOL Time Warner merger to lead a philanthropic revolution

During these troubled times when many are losing their jobs and having difficulty making ends meet, examining the lives of those who have overcome great adversity and can give each of us hope and courage to come out of the darkness into the light of success.

Bottom line: We're neither hopeless nor helpless. There's a lot we can do to deal with adversity.

David Heenan is available for media interviews. Please contact me if you're interested.

Joanne McCall
National Media Publicist
joannemccallpr@yahoo.com or via facebook, twitter, or LinkedIn

Geneen Roth, author of Women Food and God

I have the very good fortune of being able to work with the most amazing authors and publishers because of my profession as a book publicist. Geneen Roth is among the very best. She's smart, funny, and kind. She cares about people and that comes across in everything she says and writes.

Geneen is the author of numerous New York Times bestsellers including her newest effort Women Food and God: An Unexpected Path to Almost Anything, a book which is getting a lot of attention, and rightly so. Geneen has been writing on the issue of food and our reponses to it over for 30 years. Here is what Oprah talks to Geneen about in the April 2010 issue of O Magazine.

Geneen says that the most radical part of her own story is not that she stopped dieting; it's that she stopped trying to fix herself. She stopped fighting with herself, stopped balming herself, her mother, her latest boyfriend for her weight. And since diets were her most flagrant attempt at fixing herself, she stopped them as well. Women Food and God. It's an exceptional book from an exceptional writer.

Book Marketing and Publicity Tip #5

Book Publicity Tip #5: Read, Watch, and listen to the online and traditional media outlets you want to feature, mention, or cover you and your book in some way.


I'm a big believer in doing what works. Always have been. The key here is to remember that as much as things change, e.g., platforms, popular media outlets, etc., some things always stay the same, e.g., treat people well, don't spam, get to know who you want to cover you, etc.


It does not work to get a huge list of media folks and then spam all 2000 of them with your latest pitch letter. You would be amazed at how many people do exactly that. I can see the temptation: you can save time, money, and effort, but it just annoys people and makes them never want to talk to you, which completely defeats the purpose. Spamming is just wrong on so many levels that I don't know where to begin talking about it. So, here is my suggestion:


Create your own "wish list". This is a list of both online and traditional media where you think you and your book should be featured or mentioned or included in a story. This list can contain everything from your wildest dreams to the obvious--from Oprah to your local daily newspaper.


Research, research, research. Find out what outlets are interested in what you have to offer by reading them, watching them, or listening to them. Who writes on your topic? Who should know about you and your book? You want to be able to pitch them intelligently and knowing what the outlet or writer writes about is critical. The point here is to show you care and to show that you're a professional. You understand their job, which isn't to educate you or anyone else on what they cover. Through research, you will know. Show them that. It will take you far.


There is much written by online journalists and bloggers on how they do and don't want to be approached. The truth is, it hasn't changed over the past several decades. Online or offline, we all want to be heard and respected. If you do your homework, approach media like a professional with an understanding of what their work is about, you will be successful. Will everyone say yes? No. But at least they will know you took the time to understand their needs and the next time it may be yes!