Now and then a listener will ask me how I go about obtaining interviews with authors? The majority of the interviews that I book, probably 90%, are obtained by contacting publicists who work for the publishers of particular books. The most competent publicists will often send me advance copies of books that they think might be of interest to me. That gives me time to read books before they are actually available to the public. If I like a book then I will have an opportunity to contact a particular writer's in-house publicist to attempt to arrange an interview that I can then feature on the program after a book has been officially published.
This isn't always the case. Sometimes I have to do some extra work to track down an author. Things got more complicated when I tried to book this interview with Colin Cotterill for his most recent book featuring Dr. Siri. I have had the author on the program before so I knew that it would be difficult to obtain another interview because I was already aware that he lives in a remote area in Thailand. The first time I had him on the program I was able to contact him because he was in the US for the Bouchercon which is an annual convention for crime writers.
When his latest book "The Ratcatchers' Olympics" came out I contacted his publicist and asked about an interview. He told me that Colin would be flying in for the Bouchercon this year in Toronto and that we could try to set something up when he was over here. I waited until Bouchercon was one week away. Then I sent an e-mail to his publicist and asked if we could set something up.
His publicist was in Toronto for the conference and he tracked down the author there and told him that I wanted to do another interview. That's how this one was arranged.
This is a wonderful series. In this book the year is 1980 and Dr. Siri has some adventures with the Lao Olympic team as they compete at the Moscow Olympics. These books are clever and very entertaining.
The Book Nook on WYSO is made possible by five local library systems in southwest Ohio: the Greene County Public Library, Washington-Centerville Public Library, Clark County Public Library, Dayton Metro Library, and Wright Memorial Public Library.
