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Grey Matter Direct offers innovative author and book marketing services. The genesis for this part of our agency is Loretta Barrett books. Loretta Barrett was Grey Matter president Ned Barrett’s aunt, who tragically died from a brain tumor on October 4th, 2014.
Beginning with her work at Doubleday books as an editor, Loretta broke the glass ceiling for women in publishing by representing a large number of important books by people like Angela Davis of the Black Panthers, the artist Judy Chicago and others. Loretta was such a pioneer that she was the first editor at a major publishing house to recognize the talent of Matt Groening of “Simpsons” fame. 
It was when the publisher told Loretta that Matt “would never amount to anything” that she realized her talents were being wasted. She started her literary agency, Loretta Barrett Books, and never looked back.
As a literary agent, Loretta was able to sign a diverse roster of clients that includes people like the actors Betty White and Donna Mills, AI visionary Ray Kurzweil and Pope John Paul II. Under Loretta’s guidance, their writing blossomed and many of their books remain perennial best sellers today.
After Loretta’s passing, Ned Barrett became co-owner of the agency along with her long term employee, Nick Mullendore. In the current structure, Nick is the literary agent and Ned and his team work with authors and celebrities to help them promote their books.
Grey Matter Direct employs a range of book marketing services to help authors sell their books. First, it helps if an author already has a strong social media presence and audience. In fact, this has become something of a gating element for authors who want to get a major publishing house to buy their book. Before seriously considering purchasing a book from an unpublished author, publishing houses will see how large and engaged their social media following is and will make their decision based on that. That is because the publishing houses have been hollowed out by the rise of digital media and no longer have the resources to pursue and market books by authors who don’t already have large fan bases.
For author clients of ours like the late, great Betty White, audiences weren’t a problem. Because of her decades of work on beloved TV shows, Betty White was able to command a huge audience. Most authors aren’t so lucky.
If you are trying to get a book published, then Grey Matter Direct can help. While my literary agency partner, Nick Mullendore, runs all new manuscript submissions through his agency, Vertical Ink, our team works with authors with all aspects of their marketing including:
A great example of one of our author clients is Dr. Roni Cohen-Sandler. Dr. Roni is a clinical psychologist who is also a prolific writer and speaker. She is an expert on teen psychology and has a special focus on mother-daughter relationships.
We created her website, create and send her promotional e-mails and help her with her speaking engagements. Click here to read Dr. Roni’s review of Grey Matter Direct.
We also engage in specialty author marketing. Otto Friedrich was the father of Molly Friedrich, who is one of the world’s leading literary agents and represents authors like
Otto Friedrich was a Time Magazine journalist and managing editor of The Saturday Evening Post. Since he died before the internet era, he had a very modest internet presence. Molly decided to memorialize her father by commissioning us to build a site for him. The site we created has information about his books and writing and has lots of material straight from his family’s archive.
We love working with writers and authors and would love to talk to you if you need some book marketing for your masterwork.
