posco publicity

about megan posco

I’ve spent the entire­ty of my career as a non­fic­tion book pub­li­cist, work­ing in-house and out-of-house, with well-known pub­lic fig­ures and unknown first-time authors. I got my start at Storey Pub­lish­ing, pub­li­ciz­ing books for cre­ative self-reliance, includ­ing guides to back­yard chick­en keep­ing and year-round gar­den­ing. At Har­vard Uni­ver­si­ty Press, I worked on schol­ar­ly titles across a range of sub­jects and helped aca­d­e­m­ic authors com­mu­ni­cate their research to gen­er­al audiences. 

After work­ing a few years out-of-house at a book pub­lic­i­ty firm, it became clear that the mod­el of charg­ing incred­i­bly expen­sive month­ly retain­ers repro­duces the inequal­i­ty already per­va­sive in the pub­lish­ing indus­try. When this is how pub­lic­i­ty works, the ideas that get the biggest mega­phone are not nec­es­sar­i­ly the wor­thi­est but the most moneyed.

The books that I love to publicize—those that imag­ine a bet­ter future and offer new per­spec­tives on impor­tant issues—are often writ­ten by peo­ple who don’t have the resources to work with expen­sive PR and mar­ket­ing firms. I’m hop­ing to lev­el the play­ing field for aca­d­e­mics, first-time authors, indie press­es, and mar­gin­al­ized voic­es by pro­vid­ing high-qual­i­ty pub­lic­i­ty with­out the big city premium. 

I believe my pri­ma­ry role is as an advo­cate for my authors, and I pride myself on cul­ti­vat­ing true part­ner­ships with them and their pub­lish­ers. I only work on projects that I gen­uine­ly care about and believe I can add val­ue to, which allows me to pitch the media with hon­est and unabashed enthu­si­asm. As my authors nav­i­gate the maze of launch­ing their books, I pro­vide can­did feed­back and real­is­tic expec­ta­tions, brain­storm all man­ner of ideas, and offer best prac­tices on all things book promotion. 

Out­side of work, I enjoy play­ing vio­lin and piano, send­ing snail mail, and try­ing to keep my house­plants alive. I also love spoil­ing my nephew, Cameron—you can lis­ten to me gush on NPR about see­ing him for the first time here. I’m cur­rent­ly based in Cam­bridge, Mass.

my impact

✽ As part of my pro bono work, I rep­re­sent John J. Lennon, an incar­cer­at­ed jour­nal­ist writ­ing from a max­i­mum secu­ri­ty prison in New York. Last autumn, I worked close­ly with him on his appli­ca­tion and inter­view prepa­ra­tion for a fel­low­ship with Galaxy Gives, a phil­an­thropic orga­ni­za­tion focused on crim­i­nal jus­tice reform. John recent­ly joined the 2023 cohort as the orga­ni­za­tion’s first incar­cer­at­ed fel­low, receiv­ing a $150,000 award to sup­port his writ­ing.

✽ After dis­cov­er­ing that the Texas State Board of Edu­ca­tion was meet­ing to deter­mine eight grade sci­ence stan­dards dur­ing the launch week of Mise­d­u­ca­tion: How Cli­mate Change is Taught in Amer­i­ca, I watched sev­er­al hours of the live-streamed meet­ing and helped author Katie Worth pitch an arti­cle that ran as a six-page report­ed fea­ture in the July 2022 issue of Sci­en­tif­ic Amer­i­can. You can read more about the pub­lic­i­ty cam­paign for Mise­d­u­ca­tion here.

more

kind words

“A good pub­li­cist is the secret to any suc­cess­ful book. Megan is more than that—she is one of the best pub­li­cists I’ve worked with in my near­ly 30 years in publishing.” 
—Joy De Menildirec­tor of Belk­nap Press at Har­vard Uni­ver­si­ty Press
“Megan is the best kind of PR per­son. She real­ly puts in the effort for her authors and I hope they know how lucky they are.” 
—Jacob Bro­ganassis­tant edi­tor with Out­look and PostEv­ery­thing at The Wash­ing­ton Post
“A good pub­li­cist is the secret to any suc­cess­ful book. Megan is more than that—she is one of the best pub­li­cists I’ve worked with in my near­ly 30 years in pub­lish­ing. It’s one thing to write a good book, and anoth­er to fig­ure out, in this crowd­ed mar­ket­place of ideas, how to bring it suc­cess­ful­ly to read­ers’ atten­tion. Megan is a mir­a­cle work­er and you could not ask for a more tena­cious and resource­ful part­ner. She is both cre­ative and relent­less in chas­ing down leads and find­ing the right angle to hook any giv­en out­let. She is also rare in her com­mit­ment to delve into the sub­stance of a book to find cre­ative ways of con­nect­ing its ideas and insights with the news. I couldn’t rec­om­mend her more highly.” 
—Joy De MenilRan­dom House, Viking, and Har­vard Uni­ver­si­ty Press
“It’s the plain truth that my book would­n’t have received a frac­tion of the atten­tion it did with­out Megan as its pub­li­cist. She’s mis­sion-dri­ven, strate­gic, per­sis­tent, savvy, and an absolute delight to work with. In addi­tion to get­ting my book some aston­ish­ing­ly good media atten­tion, she draft­ed excerpts, sharp­ened my talk­ing points, devel­oped edi­to­r­i­al angles for op-eds, answered ques­tions I had as a first-time author, and, in per­haps the most impres­sive feat, kept me orga­nized through­out. All I can say is that if you have a labor of love you’re launch­ing into the uni­verse, Megan is the rock­et boost­er you want attached to it.” 
—Katie WorthEmmy-win­ning inves­tiga­tive jour­nal­ist and author of Mise­d­u­ca­tion: How Cli­mate Change Is Taught in America
“Megan is the com­plete pub­li­cist. A strate­gist. A thought part­ner. A con­nec­tor. An edi­tor. A col­league for life.” 
—Dr. Justin Gestpro­fes­sor at George Mason Uni­ver­si­ty and author of Major­i­ty Minor­i­ty and The New Minor­i­ty
“Work­ing with Megan is a joy. She is a big-pic­ture strate­gist who can also zoom in to man­age the man­i­fold details of a well-run launch. She has a fin­ger on the pulse of what’s cur­rent and an eye for the long term and what is ever­green. She is a fun and seri­ous thought part­ner, reads vora­cious­ly her­self and con­sid­ers all man­ner of ideas. She has been fear­less in rep­re­sent­ing our inter­ests and in coach­ing us on how to do that as well.” 
—San­dra Such­er pro­fes­sor at Har­vard Busi­ness School and coau­thor of The Pow­er of Trust
“Megan’s pro­fes­sion­al­ism, exper­tise, and cre­ativ­i­ty are sup­port­ed by her deep com­mit­ment to her authors and their work. She’s adept at con­nect­ing books to tra­di­tion­al and uncon­ven­tion­al audi­ences, com­mu­ni­cat­ing her strat­e­gy through­out with a col­lab­o­ra­tive and open-mind­ed approach. Because of her hon­est enthu­si­asm and encour­age­ment, Megan makes last­ing rela­tion­ships with near­ly every­one she part­ners with.” 
—Jen­nifer Har­ring­tonassis­tant pro­mo­tion man­ag­er at Har­vard Uni­ver­si­ty Press
“I found pro­mot­ing my book almost as exhaust­ing as writ­ing it, but Megan was the per­fect part­ner: respect­ful of the mate­r­i­al (which she actu­al­ly read and thought about), inven­tive and relent­less in her pitch­ing, insane­ly well orga­nized (she pre­pared a detailed brief­ing for every pod­cast, radio inter­view and book­store event), and patient with her author. I’d work with her again in a heartbeat.” 
—Bill Kellerfound­ing edi­tor-in-chief of The Mar­shall Project and author of What’s Prison For?
“When I retrieved Megan’s let­ter from my cell bars, I opened it and saw it was hand­writ­ten. She’d done her home­work, read my work, knew I had a book deal, and offered to help me pro-bono. See­ing the angle, get­ting at the heart of it, this is how I pitch. It’s how Megan pitch­es, too. But she does it in nuanced ways, pro­mot­ing her authors. Few writ­ers and jour­nal­ists are good at pro­mot­ing them­selves. It’s weird. We nail the big sto­ries and we think the inter­view requests should just appear in our inbox­es. A good pub­li­cist is always con­nect­ing the dots, see­ing the play, and it’s often one you can’t make your­self as a writer. It’s been hum­bling and impres­sive to see Megan, the grinder that she is, help me pro­mote my own projects in the media. She is a tough and per­sis­tent pub­li­cist. Straight up, she was the miss­ing piece to my career.” 
—John J. Lennonincar­cer­at­ed jour­nal­ist and con­tribut­ing edi­tor at Esquire
“Megan impress­es me time and again with her cre­ative pitch­es, exhaus­tive fol­low up, and uncan­ny abil­i­ty to mon­i­tor every break­ing news sto­ry that touch­es on top­ics relat­ed to her books. Her intel­lec­tu­al curios­i­ty, work eth­ic, and orga­ni­za­tion­al skills make her an asset to any author.” 
—Sharon Kunzassis­tant direc­tor of pub­lic­i­ty at Hachette Books
“Megan is a dream pub­li­cist because she cares so deeply about get­ting impor­tant ideas into the world. Her pas­sion for books and authors, cou­pled with her stead­fast dri­ve, orga­ni­za­tion­al skills, and deep under­stand­ing of today’s com­pet­i­tive mar­ket, help her to iden­ti­fy media oppor­tu­ni­ties at both the lofti­est out­lets and the niche ones. Megan has cul­ti­vat­ed strong media con­tacts, under­stands their wants and needs, and care­ful­ly crafts and clar­i­fies authors’ mes­sages. Then, she pitch­es relent­less­ly, mak­ing cer­tain every book she works on is giv­en its best shot at get­ting into the hands of readers.” 
—Dr. Kat­ri­na Karkazispro­fes­sor at Amherst Col­lege and coau­thor of Testos­terone: An Unau­tho­rized Biography
“A care­ful eye, deep intu­ition, and acu­men are invalu­able in choos­ing a pub­lic­i­ty part­ner, and Megan has them all. It turns out she’s also incred­i­bly thought­ful, kind, and supportive—the things authors also real­ly need to suc­cess­ful­ly launch their work into the world.” 
—Kristin Keaneauthor of An Ency­clo­pe­dia of Bend­ing Time
“Megan is a dynamo! She com­bines exten­sive indus­try expe­ri­ence and know-how with deep cre­ativ­i­ty. She was brim­ming over with ideas for how to mar­ket The Pow­er of Trust, newsy pitch­es for a wide vari­ety of out­lets, and lots and lots of media tips. We were thrilled to be work­ing with her!” 
—Sha­lene Gup­tajour­nal­ist and coau­thor of The Pow­er of Trust
“As an alum­na, Megan has a long-stand­ing rela­tion­ship with the Eng­lish depart­ment at UMass Low­ell. In addi­tion to sourc­ing stu­dent intern­ships and attend­ing job talks, she annu­al­ly vol­un­teers to guest lec­ture in the Intro­duc­tion to Edit­ing & Pub­lish­ing class. With enthu­si­asm and can­dor, Megan’s lec­tures demys­ti­fy an indus­try that can seem inac­ces­si­ble to under­rep­re­sent­ed voices–especially first-gen­er­a­tion col­lege stu­dents. Her per­spec­tive has sparked curios­i­ty and inter­est. No few­er than five of my stu­dents remarked that her recent pre­sen­ta­tion inspired their voca­tion­al dis­cern­ment and helped them imag­ine new futures.” 
—Dr. Bec­ca Richardspro­fes­sor of Eng­lish at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Mass­a­chu­setts Lowell
“It was bril­liant to work with Megan. It’s not often I get the chance to col­lab­o­rate with some­one who’s a bet­ter project man­ag­er than I am. I’ve been lucky to work with some spe­cial peo­ple in my life and I’d put Megan among the top.” 
—Shan­tanu Nundy, MDChief Med­ical Offi­cer at Acco­lade and author of Care After Covid