Marketplace of Ideas

“Working with Gretchen and February Media was both pleasurable and educational. I was struck by her enthusiasm, and her plainspoken yet always friendly disposition, telling hard truths while providing solutions and encouragement. She brings literary sophistication and street savvy, while also being incredibly detail oriented. And beyond being a strategic and tactical thinker with a vast rolodex that enables her to secure various sorts of promotion, she is also extraordinarily gifted at making sure that the author is prepared to succeed in whatever sort of venue—from NPR talk show to newspaper profile–that one might find oneself. I have worked with publishing professionals for thirty-five years, and give her my highest recommendation.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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

“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.”