Spotlight: Creative Edge Publicity
- May 6
- 3 min read
By Mickey Mikkelson
I’m Mickey Mikkelson, Founder and CEO of Creative Edge Publicity and this is the story of how I went from tiny beginnings in the literary publicity industry to accumulating a client base of approximately 100 authors worldwide including representation with three New York Times best-sellers, three USA Today best-sellers, as well as representation with multiple small press publishers and an affiliation with the award-winning social media and PR firm, Abundantly Social which Is owned by Aimee Ravichandran.
Living and working within the Alberta, Canada market, I originally graduated from the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology with a Marketing diploma that took me to working special events for Canada’s largest book chain, Indigo. That work was done in 2002 and ultimately, I left there ten years later to work with a technology and insurance company servicing the Alberta and Saskatchewan credit union market.
Creative Edge Publicity Is Born!!
Working in the corporate environment changed my life because that is where I met Miranda Oh, the first author I would ever sign!! She had written a book called Chin Up Tits Out and because I had bookstore experience, I offered to help her market her book. We started by booking eight book signings in the Alberta market, tying the events into our corporate trips during the day. So, imagine spending eight-hour meetings with credit union executives during the day and then adding additional three-hour book signing events at night.
Busy Times!!!!
The work was worth it as Miranda was able to network at every store that she went to and our success led to several book events in Winnipeg, where she lives. After our trip ended, we both decided we didn’t want it to end and so I signed her as my first client and with the help of my autistic nine-year-old daughter (at the time), she helped me design my company logo and select the name Creative Edge.
The premise of the logo was two puzzle pieces connecting, which is what our mandate is. One puzzle piece is blue showing support for Autism, something that Creative Edge is a big supporter of. All of this was done in March of 2015, and by August of that same year through marketing, word of mouth referrals, and overall networking Creative Edge was able to sign thirty-five authors under its brand.
Challenges and Success!
The whole purpose of Creative Edge was to be a place that could help authors develop their platforms, managing media expectations, and not do it at a substantial cost for clients. Initially, that platform posed to be a challenge simply because I was still learning and I did make mistakes.
To offset that, I made the decision to not charge for my services for the first six months in the industry. Creative Edge was a part time vision and I worked full time in the corporate world for the first four years of its existence. The decision to not charge clients was likely one of the smartest things I ever did because it allowed me to hone my craft with less pressures, less expectations, and as I grew my knowledge and how to build relationships with both clients and media, my represented authors opportunities also grew. Eventually, I was able to develop a results-based platform where charging clients still ensured they got value from effort and that pricing platform is still relevant today on a full-time basis.
Our Mandate and Platform!
Creative Edge’s belief for helping authors traditionally and independently published is that the value has to be results based, meaning we take no monies up front and authors only pay if they get interviews and bookings.
That mandate has created loyalty among clients and although there is pressure to be accountable to each client and drive awareness, each client also realizes that there is a vested interest on both sides of the equation. Our business model is built on connection, collaboration, and overall personal relationships.
We have formed a community within our author team, but in addition to that we have been able to leverage and develop friendship with our media partners. We have media relationships that interview a Creative Edge represented author every week, there is a magazine that gives us interviews and guest posts every month, and we have multiple book reviewers that review eight to ten books every month. All of these instances are what the power of connection is and in the publicity world without connection, there is no success!!!
Connect With Mickey
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