Book Review: Fall Of Hades

Book Review: Fall Of Hades

Author: Richard Paul Evans

I’m always excited about Salt Lake Comic Con, but this year there was an added reason to look forward to the convention, the upcoming release of Richard Paul Evans’s sixth book in the Michael Vey series.  My son got me into the Michael Vey series and I’ve had fun reading the first five books and discussing them with him.

At Salt Lake Comic Con 2015 I met Evans and his team and had the opportunity to talk to him about the series and specifically book 6. It seemed like it took forever to get to the point that book 6 was ready to be released.

As the PR guy for Salt Lake Comic Con I work with the press and set up all the interviews. I set up a number of opportunities that included interviews with vendors, celebrities, artists and authors during the con. I knew that Evans’s new book was going to be released on September 13^th so I reached out to his team in advance to see if he would be interested in participating in some of these interviews I had arranged to discuss the new book.  Evans was interested so I set up interviews with all four of our local TV networks as well as a reporter from the USA Today.

I’ve pasted a couple links to some of the coverage below.

KSL TV:

USA Today:

Working with Evans and his team was fun. I got to hear a lot of details and back story about the book, how he came up with and developed different characters and various plot lines.

On the second to last day of Salt Lake Comic Con, Evans gave me an autographed copy of the book. I was so excited. It was one of three that had been distributed prior to the official release. When I got home that night I woke my son up to show the book to him. We had it nearly two weeks before it as available to the general public. I told my son he could read it first. He was excited and it took him about 2 days to read it. He was the big man on campus at school. He had read it and none of his friends had yet.

Once he finished reading the book he couldn’t wait for me to read it. It didn’t take me long to read the book either. I had waited a long time and was eager to find out who the “Voice” is. In the previous five books, Michael Vey and his Electorclan were being helped by a man known only as the “Voice.” None of the Electroclan knew who he was but they relied on him and the information he has about the enemy to be successful. Book 5 ended with one of the characters seeing the “Voice” but with the cliffhanger of not identifying him to readers.

In addition to finally finding out who the “Voice” is, the book had a lot of excitement and intrigue about the Electroclan’s plans and attempts to overthrow the Elgin. Evans also provided more development of the individual members of the Electroclan. It was fun getting more insight in the characters and the battle the Electroclan waged against the Elgin.

Book 6 ended with another cliffhanger. I love the cliffhangers but with the final book, book 7 not coming out until September 2017 I’m not excited about the wait. These books are so much fun and I get so into the different characters. Every little thing that happens to them has me cheering for them or feeling their pain.

My 11-year-old daughter has started reading the books and my wife has said she’s going to start reading them too. I’m excited for them to get into the books and join the discussions my son and I have about them. If you haven’t had a chance to start reading the books yet, I highly recommend them. Give them a try, you won’t regret it.

Now, if I could only find a way to fast forward to September 2017 so I can get my hands on the final book.

Smashing PR Success At Salt Lake Comic Con

Salt Lake Comic Con recently wrapped up its seventh event in three years. It was another smashing success and I was proud to be a part of the team and contribute to another record setting event. I met with somebody the other day that asked what I was most proud of with my work with Salt Lake Comic Con. There are a couple things, but for the purposes of this blog entry I’ll focus on one.

Leading up to the first event in September of 2013 I began setting up media interviews with the founders of Salt Lake Comic Con and the local media. The founders were thrilled with the press coverage and some of the celebrities that had committed to come to the convention took notice as well.  One celebrity in particular, Lou Ferrigno, the actor that played the Hulk on the Incredible Hulk TV series was impressed by the media coverage I was generating. In fact, he said he’d be open to doing some interviews if I thought I could arrange some.

I told him that I could and decided to be bold and told him that if he would come out a day or two before the convention started that I could set up a series of interviews with all the local TV and radio stations as well as daily newspapers.

Ferrigno was doubtful but said to go ahead and if I could provide him with a schedule of opportunities he would consider coming out a day or two in advance of the convention.

I began pitching the media immediately.  I hadn’t given it much thought before speaking but I was confident that most news outlets would be interested in talking to him. As I began talking to the press my hunch was confirmed. The press was very eager to meet with him. I began building a schedule of press interviews and within a couple days of our initial conversation reached back out to Ferrigno to present the schedule and secure his final commitment.

Ferrigno was impressed and agreed to come to Salt Lake City two days early.  When he arrived, I spent the two days leading up to the event chauffeuring him around town to meet with every TV station, radio station and daily newspaper.  I remember as Ferrigno, who is 6’5” tall climbed into my Honda Accord. His knees jammed up against the dash and I told him he was welcome to slide the seat back and create more room. My exact words were, “It’s usually my 11-year-old son that sits there so please feel free to move the seat back.”

Riding around with the Hulk was fun. He’s a great guy and he shared a number of stories and experiences from his career. The media we met with loved him. At one radio station, one of the hosts asked for a photo and requested that Ferrigno put him in the sleeper hold, similar to what he did to one of the characters in the movie, I Love You Man. Ferrigno obliged and started adopting this into the photo’s he’d take with fans at his booth on the show floor during the convention.

After the con ended, Ferrigno reported that he had his best show ever. He attributed the success to the fact that he came in early to do all the media interviews I set up for him. After that first Salt Lake Comic Con he engaged in more social media activities and began seeking media opportunities in other cities where he attended comic cons.

The next year as we were ramping up for the second annual Salt Lake Comic Con I got a call from Barbara Eden’s agent. He asked if I could do for Barbara what I had done for Ferrigno at the first Salt Lake Comic Con event. I told him that I could and proceeded to do the same thing for Eden. Every show since I’ve had agents or celebrities reach out asking if I could set up media interviews for them.

Word spreads fast in the con community and celebrities and agents alike know that Salt Lake Comic Con will do whatever it takes to make them successful. What started off as bravado on my part has helped make Salt Lake Comic Con a can’t miss event for celebrities which is something that I’m very proud of.

 

Creative Thinking

During a recent interview somebody asked me what I had done for a client that was unique or different. Two things immediately came to mind.

In 2001 while working for the Salt Lake Olympic Committee for the Olympic Winter Games of 2002 (SLOC), Mitt Romney came to the PR team and said he was going to be in New York and had a free night. He said if we had anything or wanted to plan anything for him he’d be happy to do whatever we recommended.

There was the usual talk about who we could reach out to for an interview. However, I wanted to do something different. Mitt was always up for different and I was eager to take advantage of his adventurous spirit.  I came up with the recommendation to see if we could arrange for Mitt to throw out the first pitch at a New York Yankees game. I checked the schedule and the night he was going to be in town the Yankees were scheduled to play the Boston Red Sox.

I presented the recommendation to the team and we decided to act upon it. In those days, all requests to throw out the first pitch went through George Steinbrenner himself. We wrote him and explained what we wanted to do and why. Mr. Steinbrenner approved the request and we set the date.

When we told Mitt about it, my boss arranged to walk Mitt through the lobby where a colleague and I were playing catch with our gloves and a baseball. As my boss and Mitt walked out, naturally Mitt was curious why we were playing catch and of course asked us about it. We told him we were there to help him warm up to throw out the first pitch at an upcoming Yankees game.

At first he didn’t believe us. As we assured him it was happening he kept saying, “no, no. no.” We thought he was excited but it turns out he had injured his shoulder a few years prior and was limited in his range of motion. He didn’t think he could throw the ball far enough and didn’t want to embarrass himself.

We spent the next couple weeks working with Mitt and helping him warm his shoulder up. We measured the actual distance from the pitchers’ mound to home plate. I acted as his catcher and by the time it was time to leave for the trip back East he was ready and could throw the ball the entire way.

His trip included a stop in Washington, DC before New York. As Mitt was wrapping up his visit to our nations capital and heading to the airport, he was driving past the Pentagon when the freeway was suddenly engulfed in black smoke. As they exited the plumb of smoke, Mitt realized that there had been an accident at the Pentagon. He didn’t know it at the time but terrorists had just flown a plane into the Pentagon and into the World Trade Center in New York City.

Mitt missed his flight to New York. He was scheduled to throw the first pitch out on the night of September 11, 2001. Needless to say, it never happened.

The second event that popped into my mind was from when I first started working with Salt Lake Comic Con in 2013. The founders of Salt Lake Comic Con kept telling me that the press always wants to interview attending celebrities but that the celebrities typically don’t do interviews during the convention. Hearing this, I made the recommendation that we do a kickoff press conference and invite celebrities to attend and participate.

I recommended that we set up tables in the Grand Ballroom of the Salt Palace Convention Center, the venue for the convention and treat it like Super Bowl media day where the celebrities can sit at a table and media can approach them and interview them.

As we were about to start the press conference, Lou Ferrigno, the actor that played the Hulk in the Incredible Hulk TV series asked how long the press conference would last. I told him an hour and he said he would stick around for 30 minutes. We had about a dozen celebrities in attendance and about 150 media that were all eager to interview the celebrities.

About 30 minutes in I walked over to the table where Ferrigno was sitting to tell him that 30 minutes had passed and get him out of there. One of his handlers saw me coming, stopped me and asked what I was doing. I explained my conversation with Ferrigno and his handler told me not to worry about it. In his words, “Lou’s having too much fun with this, he’s not going anywhere.”

He and most of the other celebrities stayed for about an hour-and-a-half to make sure all the media got the interviews that they needed. Ferrigno approached me after and told me that he goes to all the comic cons in the country and nobody else does a press conference like this. He expressed how much he enjoyed it and how beneficial it would be for the celebrities and creating awareness of their appearance at the convention.

Other celebrities expressed the same sentiment to me and the founders. Since that first show, Salt Lake Comic Con kicks off its convention with a press conference. It’s one of the things that has helped differentiate Salt Lake Comic Con from other cons around the country. Each year our celebrity participation at the press conference increases. They all know we do it and all want to be a part of it. Additionally, at that first con, multiple celebrities told us that the awareness generated led to them having their best and most successful con ever.

Both of these examples illustrate recommendations I made that were outside the box and that led to huge success for clients and companies I work with.