Episode 21 • Carolyn Howard-Johnson

Carolyn Howard-Johnson’s several careers prepared her for promoting her own books and those of others. She was the youngest person ever hired as a staff writer for the Salt Lake Tribune—“A Great Pulitzer Prize Winning Newspaper”—where she wrote features for the society page and a column under the name of Debra Paige. That gave her insight into the needs of editors, the very people authors must work with to get free ink. Being familiar with the way news is handled helps her see how different books fit into different news cycles.

Later, in New York, she worked at Good Housekeeping Magazine and handled accounts for fashion publicist Eleanor Lambert who instituted the first Ten Best Dressed List. She wrote media releases for celebrity designers of the day including Rudy Gernreich, and Christian Dior, and producing photo shoots for Lambert’s clients.

She has been a columnist, reviewer, and staff writer for the Pasadena Star-News, Home Décor Buyer, Glendale News-Press (an affiliate of the LA Times), Myshelf.com, and others and has appeared in commercials and on dozens of TV and radio shows.

She studied at University of Utah, USC, Cambridge University, UK; Herzen University in St. Petersburg, RU; and Charles University in Prague and was founder and operator of a chain of retail stores.

She has been an instructor for UCLA Extension’s renowned Writers’ Program since 2003, and is helping other writers with her HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers.

She was honored as Woman of the Year in Arts and Entertainment by California Legislature members. She received her community’s Character and Ethics award for her work promoting tolerance with her writing and was named to Pasadena Weekly’s list of fourteen women of San Gabriel Valley women who make life happen.

Specialties: Book promotion, book PR, proposal writing, manuscript editing (fiction and poetry only), editing/writing of query letters, cover letters, media releases, media kits, consulting on publishing,

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