Not quite Thanksgiving. Not even close to Christmas. Coming up on Veterans’ Day, and that’s pretty much it. It’s that awkward time of year where your mind is already skipping ahead to holiday plans, but you know in your heart that if you use the words “holiday” and “gift idea” in a pitch before November 30, journos are legally allowed to hunt you down and kill you.

Unless they’re long-lead. Then it’s cool.

Flacking for books is hard around this time of year. The work for the big Christmas push is pretty much done, since publishing schedules are funky like that, but it’s too early to work on 2010 titles. (Jesus, 2010. I’m 5 years away from being in a really disappointing version of Back to the Future 2, aren’t I?)

On top of all that, there’s the office parties, the holiday vacations, and the mass exodus of that season’s interns. It just makes for a weird few months.

I wonder if PR people in other industries have these sorts of seasonal changes. I imagine they do, to some extent, but with publishing still chained to the yearly calendar, our cycles are pretty much written in stone. Oh, sports PR probably has the same issue, right? But with the different sports being played in different seasons, there might not be a noticeable difference. Financial PR looks pretty unaffected. That’s a 24/7/365 sort of job, I guess.

I’d like to hear if you have any weird annual ups and downs in your business calendar. Maybe a busy summer of conferences and fairs? Maybe an annual event that throws everything else off?

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