| Alexandria firm helps sell the Right’s stuff
Virginia Business
June 2004
Conservative
authors take note: Your journey to the New York Times
bestseller list should probably start with a visit to
Shirley & Banister. This 19-year-old Alexandria-based
public affairs firm is fast becoming known as the publicity
machine for pen-wielding right-wing pundits and politicians.
Among its clients and titles: Ann Coulter and “Slander:
Liberal Lies About the American Right”; Sen. Zell
Miller and “National Party No More: The Conscience
of a Conservative Democrat”; and John Podhoretz
and “Bush Country: How Dubya Became a Great President
While Driving Liberals Insane.”
“We didn’t plan it this way, but fully one-third
of our business now is authors and publishing houses,”
says senior partner Craig Shirley, who once served as
an adviser to the first President George Bush. “And
I think we’ve developed a well-earned reputation
for being pretty good at it.”
With the long presidential campaign just getting underway,
“we’ll have that much more opportunity to
put our authors and books in the national spotlight,”
says partner Diana Banister, who notes that the company
is gearing up to promote a spate of new conservative
titles this summer on such topics as the Clinton impeachment,
Senator John Kerry and razor-thin election results.
The firm has a knack for getting their books and authors
into the middle of whatever the political news of the
day happens to be. But some of Shirley & Banister’s
success is clearly the result of whom it knows. The
10-person firm’s client list reads like a Who’s
Who of conservative values, including the National Rifle
Association and the Washington, D.C.-based Heritage
Foundation. And, it boasts personal contacts at 2,700
radio talk shows (most of them conservative), as well
as all the cable and network news shows and major publications.
“Authors and publishers alike come to us and recommend
us because they know that we know conservative media
in this country,” Shirley says.
Despite its ties to conservative media the firm doesn’t
shy away from the rest. Nor does it mind stirring the
pot a bit. The first interview that Shirley & Banister
lined up for Ann Coulter after “Slander”
hit bookstores was with the Today show’s Katie
Couric — in spite of the fact that Coulter had
referred to the talk show host in her book as “the
affable Eva Braun of early morning TV.”
The controversy certainly didn’t hurt. “Slander”
topped the New York Times bestseller list for eight
weeks.
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