Today on the media- bistro.com Morning Media Menu podcast, hosts Jason Boog of GalleyCat and AgencySpy‘s Matt Van Hoven welcome author Robert Rave, who wrote the novel Spin, which is about the world of boutique PR — a world Rave himself used to work in.

“As much as I would love to say that those experiences [in the book] are my own, just for the war wounds, it is a novel,” he joked. “It’s not the happy-go-lucky story that a lot of these books are.”

Rave also tried to offer some advice for authors looking to gain publicity for their books. “Unless you set yourself on fire, it’s really hard to get any kind of press for a book these days,” he laughed. “Even as someone with a publicity and marketing background, I found it very difficult to get anyone to write about a book.”

Also discussed: a publicist’s point of view on David Letterman extortion scandal. “I think he handled it really well,” Rave said. “He was very honest and said hey look, this is what I did, I had sex with people who work here and I’m sorry for that…I feel like if he were to spin that it would come off as false and he would be lambasted.”

You can listen to all the past podcasts at BlogTalkRadio.com/mediabistro and call in at 646-929-0321.