Last year, every other day brought a new article or weblog post about writers' dire, dire need for independent publicists. Lately, though, the topic's become less of a constant -- even if, as Quinn Dalton argues on beatrice.com, there's still a constant need for indy publicists' supplementary services.

"I thought I could be pretty effective doing publicity for High Strung," Dalton writes of her first novel. "I had been the director of public relations for an advertising agency for a number of years, and I figured that after getting great coverage for my clients, I'd do fine getting some for myself."

[But] It's a funny thing: Publishers want writers to be more media friendly, even savvy, but when writers promote themselves, they run the risk of being perceived as arrogant or grabby. I learned this, painfully, on a couple of occasions. So when my novel came out in paperback last July, I prepared a short but detailed media list, complete with pitch angles for the targeted journalists, and asked the in-house publicist assigned to me at the time if she would call these people--and not just leave a voice mail, but try to catch them on the phone, because a voice mail, like email, generally just gets deleted. The publicist could not see my point. "I just don't think calling will help," she actually said to me.

This is when I decided to hire an independent publicist for Bulletproof Girl.