Interrobang Marketing Strategy & Promotion

Interroblog: I noticed your new signature:

Elegantly understated. How do you feel about the fact that not only do you have to write these days, but you have to promote yourself as well? Has it taken any of the joy out of writing? Have you learned any fun tricks you’d like to share?

JS: I am psyched for the publicity part. The writing part is the part that sounds awful. All the authors who complain about the publicity – I don’t get that. You chat some radio host, drink free tea in a green room, you sign your book – I love all that stuff. I basically wrote a book to try to fulfill my lifelong dream of being on David Letterman. I’ve been thinking about the publicity for longer and better than my book.

I just realized that I am not a real author.

Interroblog: Let’s talk about humor as your product or Joel Stein the brand. How do you constantly ensure the quality of your product? Any advice to business people on injecting more humor into their work life? Is it weirdly creepy when marketing people talk about you as being a brand?

JS: I ensure the quality of my product by putting out a lot of it. I hope people say, “Well that wasn’t that funny, but it was pretty funny considering he wrote 20 things this week.” The great thing about the internet is that only your good stuff gets passed along so most people only see two articles from me a year, and they’re my best. Or my most offensive. The internet kind of screws me on that.

I love to be talked about as a brand. I never dreamed as a kid that I could be a brand. But it’s very fulfilling.

Business people should not try to inject more humor into their lives. That will go badly. Because all business people are horrible racists.

Interroblog: What about when a joke/theme/riff goes horribly wrong? Any tips for people on how to extricate themselves from potentially awkward situations?

JS: Apologizing – even if it’s done the right way, without a “but…” – never works. At least in public. A one-on-one conversation could very well work, but a mass apology feels calculated and fake, because it is. Just move on if you can, and learn from it. I’ve given a lot of horrible wedding speeches because people idiotically assume that writers are good talkers (we’re not: that’s why we write). And you just power through it. And then drink and slink away.

Interroblog. Please shamelessly promote your new book. What made you decide to write about your stupid quest for masculinity? Are we going to learn about your warm and mushy side?

JS: When I found out my wife and I were having a son I kind of freaked out. I suddenly thought about having to teach him to camp and fight and throw a football and all kinds of stuff I can’t do. So I went out and tried to learn it. He’s two and a half now and seems like a wimpy kid, so I may have wasted my time. But we’re going to camp whether he wants to or not. We’re also going to do Brazilian jujitsu. I didn’t learn all this stuff for nothing.

Interroblog: Any thoughts on the evolution of the publishing industry in general? As a columnist now author, you’ve got to have seen a lot of changes going on. Care to predict anything about the future of a professional writer?

JS: It was ridiculous that I ever got paid to write. I figure it can’t continue. Too many people – talented people – are willing to do it for free. I do it for free on Twitter for no good reason. I’m going to wind up as the oldest law school student in history.