Publishing Profiles: Meet Hannah Lopez, Riverhead Books Publicity Assistant
Hannah Lopez, publicity assistant at Riverhead Books
Hannah Lopez, a publicity assistant at Riverhead Books, has worked at Penguin Random House since May of 2022.
Hannah sat down to share what a typical day in publicity looks like, her most memorable career moments so far, and why many of her daily tasks involve jiffys (for those unfamiliar, she also explained what a jiffy is).
After reading her Q&A, if you’d like to learn even more, check out her video interview below!
How did you get involved in the publishing industry?
Hannah Lopez and her colleagues headed to a Riverhead publicity party via the train.
This was my first job out of college. I originally didn’t think I’d go into publishing. During my senior year of college, I worked as the editor of my school newspaper. I gained a lot of experience but learned I didn’t want to do that.
After looking on LinkedIn and chatting with people, I decided to apply for a job at Riverhead because it was creative and collaborative. I’ve really enjoyed working in publicity, and I’ve learned so much from everyone we collaborate with across departments.
Can you describe a typical day in your role as a publicity assistant?
Immediately when I get into the office, I media monitor. Any active titles we have, I scour the internet for listings and mentions of that title, and I add the mentions into databases. We have a sheet which includes our publicity plans for a title. I’m adding any title reviews into a praise document. Then, the reviews are added into internal databases, so our sales teams can see how the titles are doing. I send that information to the author and agent for awareness. Depending on active titles, that probably takes 30 minutes to an hour.
Hannah Lopez with several publicity colleagues at Riverhead Books’ annual holiday fundraiser.
Next, I look at all active schedules we have for our authors. If there’s anything upcoming, I send a schedule reminder to the author. I check if anything—from meetings to flights—needs to be reconfirmed. I also go through my email and check if there are any design requests I need to submit for our campaigns.
As a publicity assistant, I’m responsible for pitching our paperbacks. Often after lunch, I send out our one-off book mailings to different media contacts or book sellers. If it’s a day with an actual mailing scheduled—not just one-offs—that task can take an entire day. Sending book mailings includes everything from getting all the labels ready, getting the jiffys (also known as bubble mailers) ready, and putting materials inside the book we’re mailing out. We write handwritten notes and also put press releases inside the books.
How do you work with other departments across Penguin Random House?
We work with a lot of departments but most closely with marketing. I believe it’s different depending on where you work and the size of your team, but at Riverhead, Publicity and Marketing go hand in hand. We collaborate on designed assets for a book, such as stickers that go on the outside of the bubble mailers. When we do Indie Next campaigns, Publicity and Marketing work as a team together, emailing booksellers and going to stores to make sure we get the book out there.
I run Riverhead’s TikTok, previously worked on our Instagram stories, and I’m also on the LinkedIn team. Publicity has a lot of collaboration with Marketing when it comes to social media. For example, Marketing sends out the tweets, and Publicity writes the tweets.
Even though Publicity and Marketing have separate contacts that we pitch to, we have a meeting every week where we discuss projects and ideas. If we have a publicity party to promote a title to the media or booksellers, both marketing and publicity talk about it—Marketing really helps come up with ideas on what we can do at a publicity party to get people talking.
Aura photos taken at the publicity party for Patricia Lockwood’s WILL THERE EVER BE ANOTHER YOU. (Hannah’s aura photo is the top right!)
For example, we just had a publicity party for Patricia Lockwood. Her book cover for WILL THERE EVER BE ANOTHER YOU has a cat with a rainbow holographic and smoke around it. It looks like one of those aura photos. Because of that, we had an aura photographer come to the event, and it was a fun activity that started conversation.
We’re also in regular contact with Sales, Editorial, and other departments.
Is there a particular publicity campaign you’re proud of?
Cover for Liz Moore’s THE GOD OF THE WOODS (Riverhead Books)
Last summer, we started a campaign for THE GOD OF THE WOODS by Liz Moore. She had a huge publicity schedule. On her tour, she had many stops. For the campaign, we contacted and coordinated with a lot of bookstores. We worked with our travel department to book hotels and flights. She was filming her TV show at the same time, so we worked around that schedule and sent calendar reminders.
For her campaign, the mailings were ginormous. We had customized boxes with crinkle paper, and I sent like 250 mailings out for both the galley and the hardcover versions of the book. It took me two days to do it. The title was also a Barnes & Noble pick. For some background, when you see the posters and other materials in Barnes & Noble, those are hand shipped to the stores—at least for Riverhead authors. That was a long process because the boxes we put the materials in aren’t prepared. It’s like going to war that week because we make the boxes, put everything in them, and print out specialized instructions for how we want everything set up. There were 600 stores, and we sent them to every store.
Hannah Lopez at The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon (l to r: Hannah Lopez, Liz Moore, Bianca Flores, Nora Alice Demick)
It was a lot of mailing, but it’s also so much fun. When the author is so great and the cover is pink and green, it was so fun to brainstorm how we wanted assets to look because it was so much fun to play with. She was also the Tonight Show book club pick. We got to go to Jimmy Fallon, meet him, and watch her on the show. It’s those small moments where you realize, “These are amazing opportunities, and I never would’ve imagined I’d be backstage talking to Jimmy Fallon.”
For some campaigns, you work on them until there’s a stop after a few months. However, there are some campaigns where you’re continuously in contact with the author and sending out books and materials. Also, in publicity, there are certain moments where you get to talk to really cool people. One of our authors is Miranda July. I’ve seen her movies before, and now I’m giving her books to sign and having a regular conversation.
What do you find most rewarding about your job?
It’s just this feeling I get when I go into a bookstore and see a book that I’ve worked on since before it even had a cover. I see it sitting in a bookstore perfectly packaged on a new release table or on a shelf, and it feels surreal. You’ve been working for this for months and know about this book intimately. Now, it’s finally out in the world. I get the same feeling when I’m on the train and see someone reading a Riverhead book. It’s almost like you have a little secret. There’s a part of me in the book, and you’re reading it right now.
Cover for Moshin Hamid’s THE LAST WHITE MAN
I remember the first book I ever worked on was called THE LAST WHITE MAN by Mohsin Hamid. I loved working on that book, and I loved the cover. I got to work with this author a lot. Right when it came out, my best friend visited me in New York. We walked to a bookstore, and I saw the title in the store. I thought, “Wow, this is the book I’ve been working on.” It’s really cool when you have friends and people who aren’t in the book world who notice the book in public.
This isn’t an expectation of course, but when you work on something, sometimes in the acknowledgements they’ll mention your name and talk about Riverhead. Even though I’m not the one writing a book, my name is in print, and it will always be there whenever someone reads this book.
How do you feel like your role contributes to our mission: to ignite a universal passion for reading by creating books for everyone?
As a publicity assistant, I work so directly with the author. Part of my job is to make the author comfortable and make sure the publishing experience is easy, and they can focus on their book.
Riverhead authors are unique, nuanced, and bold, and so are the readers. The authors are going to these bookstores and talking directly with readers and booksellers. I want to make sure they can really connect with the audience and deliver the message of their art while not worrying about delays or the small details. To reach the people they aren’t able to meet in-person, I make sure they can talk to the media. I ensure their book is in public conversation by coordinating and reminding them of interviews or an upcoming podcast. I ensure that our authors’ stories—that they put their whole entire heart into—are received and delivered in a way that fulfills them and what they envisioned.
Since we work in publishing, I have to ask—what are you currently reading?
Right now, I’m reading SUNRISE ON THE REAPING by Suzanne Collins.