How a Veteran Author Navigates the New Media Maze

I spent a few days last week in New York City with Joan Lunden,1 promoting her new memoir, Joan: Life Beyond the Script. She talked about our collaboration in her interview embedded below.

After leaving the studio of New York Living, Joan’s driver took us to the theater district for a bite to eat before recording another interview with Entertainment Tonight.

Our timing was perfect for a leisurely plate of eggplant parmesan at Serafina Broadway before the lunch rush. The comfortably established restaurant unfolds as a series of semi-private dining rooms beneath Chihuly-style glass fixtures, and the staff seated us with quiet precision—something I noticed because it has never happened to me before.

As we sat there I asked Joan to describe the biggest differences between this book tour and her ten others. (We set aside the most recent one,2 which launched the day before COVID shutdowns).

When her earlier books came out, she said the system was more centralized in publishers’ hands. She’d make appearances at a handful of bookstores, do a round of magazine interviews—often women’s titles—and the rest of the campaign moved forward without requiring her constant presence.

Today, she’s working with both a lifestyle PR team and a literary publicist—layers of support that, in an earlier media era, might have been folded into the publisher’s efforts and largely invisible to her.

The media landscape has shifted underneath everyone—quietly at first, and then all at once. For example, Good Morning America once commanded a daily audience in the tens of millions. Now that audience is fragmented—watching segments of the show on YouTube, catching recaps in listicles, absorbing commentary through influencers, and so on. There are simply more places for attention to go today than when she wrote her first book in 1990. And even when an author manages to generate interest—likes, comments, shares—there’s no reliable way to know whether any of it will convert to a purchase.

And yet, this landscape seems to suit Joan. She’s always been entrepreneurial—producing her own specials and cutting deals alongside her role at Good Morning America—so the increased involvement feels less like a burden than a return to the way she’s always worked.

Watching her move from studio to studio, I kept thinking about a common misconception: that a traditional publishing deal allows a writer to focus on the work while someone else handles promotion. That may once have been true, or true enough. It isn’t now—no matter how a book is published.

Which leads to a quieter truth: if you’re going to write books now, you have to be willing to stand behind them in public—to talk about them and help them find their readers. No publishing model—traditional, independent, or hybrid—removes that responsibility. It only changes how visible that work becomes.

If you’re curious about the craft behind a book like this—how decisions are made, what gets shaped along the way—I’m always glad to talk shop. Feel free to hit reply.

I’ll be back next week with some big news about Buckskin Rides Again!