One of the strangest things about the timing of my book release is, I was among the last authors with an in-person event to appear on Book TV. The episode was only meant to play about once or twice, but given the quarantine situation, within a week, the show would have no new episodes. I set up an alert to find out when it would air, and ended up receiving bunches and bunches of messages, "Dear Joanne mcneil, [Lurking] is scheduled to air in 4 minutes on C-SPAN 2." The alerts usually were at three in the morning, which made it all the more strange. If I stayed up particularly late, I would see these automated emails informing me that my face was on television.
Here's the episode, by the way. I thought it went pretty well.
Book TV is now airing virtual book events so I no longer get these alerts. Although, it is possible my upcoming event at the Brooklyn Book Festival will be recorded so I will get new alerts and possibly see my face on TV at 3am once again.
I was also lucky to have one podcast episode scheduled before the coronavirus took over all conversations and way of life. If you have thirty minutes, and would like to know more about the book, I think my appearance on the Theory of Everything was one of the best interviews I did. It is certainly the best general introduction to the book besides, I guess, reading the book. It helps that Benjamen Walker is a friend and a serious reader. Plus, he has a solid history of the internet already and could ask in-depth questions specific to the book.