Black American publicist, Jia Gayles of The Knight Agency dreamed of breaking into the world of book publishing for years. After dabbling in magazine publishing and holding sales and marketing positions, she finally landed her dream job as the Promotions/Public Relations Director for The Knight Agency. The agency is best known for launching the careers of 90 Minutes in Heaven‘s Don Piper and Cecil Murphey, who’ve spent more than 125 weeks atop The New York Times bestseller list; Psy-Changeling and Guild Hunter series bestselling author, Nalini Singh; Harlequin powerhouse Gena Showalter; and Essence bestselling author Monica McKayhan.

Gayles heads up the agency’s efforts in cultivating new social networking opportunities, assists author promo efforts, and manages special events and monthly author chats.

She represents a growing trend in literary agency and management companies that have formed divisions of their companies that promote the books they represent. With publishers cutting back their marketing and publicity dollars for books, publicist like Gayles have become high in demand.

Jeff Rivera is the author of Forever My Lady and founder of GumboWriters.com