“Working with Gretchen means having decades of industry experience dedicated to introducing you and your work to the world. She is honest, thorough, organized, and tireless. She will also talk through any emerging issues and challenges and find new paths forward.”
“For my first three nonfiction books, I handled the vast majority of media interviews and requests. This proved to be quite a difficult task, especially when the subject of one of the books was in the national news for two years. That experience helped me appreciate working with Gretchen Crary for my fourth book, Liar in a Crowded Theater. Gretchen has a wide network of media contacts and worked tirelessly to arrange media interviews and book events, and to get my book to every appropriate book review section. Gretchen is an incredibly clever public relations strategist and I can’t recommend her services highly enough.”
“Feminism is an integral part of the American story, according to this immersive timeline of the fight for women’s equality. Contending that feminists “saw themselves as helping the United States achieve its own goals,” historian and novelist Cobbs (The Hello Girls) highlights the movement’s role in the abolition of slavery, the creation of a social safety net, and other progressive milestones. She devotes each chapter to a different era and its “key development”; for example, the decades between 1920 and 1960 are focused on the “right to earn.” Each chapter also contains a dual biography of one public-facing individual who fought for change and one who is less well known, but was deeply affected by the issues at hand. To that end, the 1920–1960 chapter is divided between Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins, who helped push through the 1935 Social Security Act, and Ann Marie Riebe, a North Dakota rancher who fought to maintain her economic independence while remaining unmarried. Cobbs’s novelistic skills shine as she dramatizes policy debates and draws on personal memoirs and other sources to bring each woman to life. She also raises the profiles of underappreciated activists of color, including Martha Cotera, who pushed to make feminism part of the Chicano movement in the 1960s and ’70s. Feminists will savor the depth and intimacy of this optimistic survey.” — Publishers Weekly
“In my 30 years as a professional writer and author of a number of bestselling books, Gretchen Crary and her February Media was by far the most professional experience of my career. Her advice on navigating the seemingly intractable social media and world of alternative media—in conjunction with her deep contacts in mainstream—media elevated an otherwise scholarly treatise on conspiracy theories and why people believe them to a much wider audience. She was an absolute pro and a delight to work with in this highly competitive environment.”
“Working with Gretchen and February Media was an absolute pleasure. My book is a serious, scholarly work that would not have reached a mass audience without her skillful promotion, beginning with a compelling Press Release that tied together the book’s many threads. Having published four books with top university presses, this has been by far the most successfully promoted. Gretchen was able to line up a first serial with the Wall Street Journal, reviews in the New York Times and The Economist, and multiple NPR interviews. She also is a delight to work with. I highly recommend Gretchen and February Media.”
“Gretchen is all a writer could want in a publicist: intelligent, perceptive, responsive, caring, hard-working, and well-connected. I would recommend her to any writer.” — Derrick Jensen
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“Gretchen is a true professional and a joy to work with. Her organizational talents and broad industry contacts helped us reach a much larger audience than would have otherwise been possible.” — Max Wilbert
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“Gretchen Crary is the most caring, competent, and creative publicist I have worked with in my 25 plus years working in book publishing. She understands the traditional protocols used in book publicity, but at the same time, she’s not afraid to think and act outside the box. I highly recommend her.”
–Paul Cohen, publisher at Monkfish Book Publishing
“February Media exceeded my expectations – they were proactive, responsive, and went out of their way to identify and secure publicity for my book, with the outcome of better coverage than I thought possible being a first-time author. Highly recommend”
“There are two words that best describe Gretchen Crary and February Media: vision and integrity. My book came out within days of a nationwide shelter-in-place order. I saw my national and international book tour disappear like a glacier dissolving in time-lapse photography. “Not to worry,” Gretchen said, “there’s an opportunity here.” Gretchen had the vision to reimagine my campaign through the online presentations. I had no online presence to speak of. Within three weeks of my book’s date of release, she had taught me how to use Facebook personal and professional pages, Twitter, and Instagram to re-launch my book tour; and in such a way that the people I reached were greater in number and in demographics than would have been possible I had been on the road. I literally reached thousands more people than I would have in person, for two reasons: the live online events “housed” a larger audience than would have been possible at most of the venues I was to have spoken at; and the number of times my online events were viewed afterwards was in the thousands for almost each event. Every step of the way, Gretchen held my hand as I transformed myself into an online presenter. The second word was integrity. Gretchen seemed to intuit my anxiety about treating my book as a “commodity” or “product.” To this end, she helped me craft my message for mainstream media outlets in a way that would not force me to backtrack on my political message. For this I am even more grateful than I am for the way book sales took off due to my online presentations. Her fine sense of what sells, the breadth and depth of her experience and connections to major media outlets, coupled with the way she never asked me to change my message when she booked me on local, national, and international radio shows, podcasts, and interviews with print journalists gave me confidence when I spoke to the press and secured a lasting, trusting relationship between the two of us. Someone told me I didn’t need to hire a PR firm. They may have been right—but they were wrong about Gretchen and February Media.”
“Gretchen took the most intimidating parts of this process and made them manageable. An NPR interview? No problem – here’s what you do. How about a TV morning show? Covered. And that additional coaching meant the world to me. She did an incredible amount of legwork to make these opportunities happen, but she also mentored me on how to show up and stand out.”
”February Media took great care of me as a first time author. Without much lead time at all, they were able to get me booked on major national media like NPR’s Marketplace and other important NPR shows around the country. They gave me invaluable coaching for my TV interviews and helped me hone my message. I’m already planning to sign them up for my next book! Thank you, February Media!”
