About a year ago, my agent (yes, I have an agent) said to me: Akim, get on the internet and make some noise.
At the time, I was working on the proposal for my hopefully forthcoming book about the decline of communities in America. But before shopping it around to publishers, he said it would be good for me to build a little name recognition, to do some advanced marketing, so to speak. Publishers like that kind of thing, especially for first-time authors.
Now technically, I’m not a first time author, but my other book is an academic one, thick with footnotes and burdened by Professor-speak. So as far as commercial presses are concerned, I might as well be a first time author. That’s why my agent thought I should “get on the internet.”
But what would I do on the internet exactly? Your guess was as good as mine. I mean, promoting the book would be a good start. But at the end of the day, I’m just a decent historian and a less than mediocre guitar player. What do I know about the interwebs?
“Timing, degree, and conviction are the three wise men in this life,” R.I. Fitzhenry once said. I’ve got a few degrees, and I’ve even been convicted once or twice, so I guess it was timing’s turn to make a substantial appearance in my life.
Enter my old friend Rae.
Not long after fielding my agent’s advice, I was on the phone with her. It just so happened that she was thinking of starting her own business. The industry she worked in, music, was going down the shitter. She’d taken a severance package and was now looking for the next thing. Having worked with everyone from The Rolling Stones on down, being an outstanding writer in her own right, and having a natural affinity for the new social media, she was toying with the idea of setting up shop in her home: running websites and handling social media for businesses that would just as soon farm out that work.
I told her about my sit
uation, and the timing did indeed seem perfect. She decided to start the business, I decided to start a website, and we agreed that I would be her first client. Coincidentally, she also happened to be the only person in the world at that point who’d read the entire manuscript.
Rae told me to come up with a name for the site. I gave her about a dozen different proposals, and from among them she picked The Public Professor. She then brought in her brother Chris to build the website. He did a masterful job and I still get compliments on how good it looks. At the end of last September we launched.
I think it’s fair to say that neither one of us knew exactly what we were doing, though Rae had an infinitely better handle on it than I did. With her guidance, what began as a site to promote a book that still hasn’t been put under contract, quickly transformed into a blog with fresh entries four days a week, along with a corresponding Facebook page, material syndicated to several other sites, a couple of pieces in The Huffington Post, and now a rumor that I will start Tweeting this Summer (you heard it here first).
Day to day, Rae proofread everything I wrote, chose the pictures, handled all the layout, and came up with the titles (I’m sure she’s cringing at this one). Beyond that, as the site evolved she went from directing it to being an absolutely vital sounding board. However, in the end, she decided not to develop her business and will soon go back to working for The Man. And so this week marks the first time that I am handling the blogs all by myself. It is only fair then that at this time I publicly thank her for all of her hard work.
Rae has always been one of the smartest and most talented people I know. I didn’t find that out by hiring her. So for me, the true revelation was that the occasional stresses and horn-locking, which come with any productive work relationship, didn’t strain our friendship, but rather strengthened it.
Whether this site crumbles into disarray or continues to grow, maybe even helping my agent to shop the book proposal, I cannot say. But what I do know is this: Working with Rae was an absolute pleasure, I learned more from it than I could have imagined, and it turns out that she’s even smarter and more talented than I realized, which is really saying something.
So Rae, as we close the prior chapter on this site, let me begin the new one by acknowledging how truly wonderful you are, and by expressing my heartfelt gratitude for all of the absolutely outstanding work you did, and more importantly, for being a great friend.
-Akim