Frank B. Wilderson III
"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."
