Sloane Crosley, The Most Popular Publicist in New York, (NY Observer) is everywhere these days with her new book I Was Told There'd be Cake which just made the New York Times bestseller list. Even Slunch has jumped on the bandwagon with their post, Why I want to hate Sloane Crosley...

Now what my publicist friends and I are wondering is, if Sloane's so popular, is she generating all her own buzz, or is her senior publicist over at Riverhead, Melissa Broder, doing it? How does Riverhead feel about promoting a Vintage employee? And, even more importantly, what are all of Sloane's authors at Vintage doing while she's on tour (aside from throwing her a party)?
Sloane's book wouldn't be doing so well if it wasn't for her own capable publicist, who the media has forgotten to mention. I got to chat with Melissa today about the Crosley campaign. "If Sloane's a publicist's publicist, I guess that makes me a publicist's publicist's publicist," said Broder. "Working with Sloane is great and its interesting to see how a publicist at another house does things and the fresh deas it generates." As for promoting a Vintage employee "we're promoting her book, not another company so there's really no conflict."

As an author I do sometimes find it weird to generate gobs of press for another author, but I can't imagine what it would be like to generate the amount or press Melissa has for Sloane, only to have all the mentions go on about what a great publicist Sloane is. Melissa has this take on it:

"It's not easier or more difficult than working on another title. Just different. But there is something very meta about all of it, like those Russian babushka dolls or a surgeon operating on a surgeon. And of course, this is the first time I've had the pleasure of promoting dioramas."

Sloane just landed this morning in NYC after her west coast tour. I'm sure we'll see her on the LA Times or SF Chronicle lists because of it. Her next event in NYC will be at Bookcourt in Brooklyn on May 21.