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On The Table Read, “the best book magazine in the UK“, Hollywood publicist Dan Harary talks about his new memoir, Flirting With Fame, and the experiences that inspired him to write it.
Written by JJ Barnes
I interviewed Hollywood publicist and author Dan Harary about his life and career, what inspired him to start writing, and the work that went writing his memoir, Flirting With Fame.
My name is Dan Harary – last name rhymes with “Ferrari.” I grew up along the New Jersey Shore, went to Boston University and worked in Manhattan briefly at Columbia Pictures in 1980. Later that year, I relocated to Los Angeles, and it took me a few years to get established within the entertainment industry. I worked as a “go-fer,” typist, receptionist and secretary for a few companies before becoming the first publicist for The Playboy Channel in January of 1984.
Since then, I’ve been a publicist for nearly 40 years, including positions at Columbia Pictures Television, and two of Hollywood’s most prominent entertainment PR agencies. I launched my own company, The Asbury PR Agency, in October 1996 and have run it ever since.
During the past 26 years, I’ve represented hundreds of companies, people and events from every corner of the entertainment and lifestyle industries.
During Spring 2021, while it was still COVID lockdown, I was a few months out from my 65th birthday when it occurred to me that the very FIRST celebrity I ever met or worked with – Woodstock folk singer Richie Havens – had been in 1972 when I was 15 years old. So once I realized that it has been 50 years, exactly, that I have been interacting with famous people, I thought that could make for an interesting book.
Thus was born the idea behind: “FLIRTING WITH FAME – A HOLLYWOOD PUBLICIST RECALLS 50 YEARS OF CELEBRITY CLOSE ENCOUNTERS.”
The first step I took while planning the structure for FLIRTING WITH FAME was simply writing down a list of as many celebrities that I’d met, worked with, or interacted with since 1972. Once I had that list in chronological order, the rest was easy.
I wrote “FLIRTING WITH FAME” between April and June 2021. In August, 2021, I happened to mention to an author friend of mine that the book was finished and he suggested I pitch it to a small publisher in Florida called Bear Manor Media – a company that specializes in books relating to Hollywood and the entertainment industry. Within one hour of my email to the owner of that company, I had a book deal. It then took until my 66th birthday – June 19, 2022, until the book actually existed on Amazon and is now available for purchase by the public.
As I’m getting older, I realized that I had so many funny, odd and off-beat stories about my interactions with celebrities that I simply felt a need to share them with the world! LOL!
Believe it or not, the biggest challenge with this book – by far – was getting all of the approvals to use the photos that appear within the book of me and famous people. It took me over 6 months to track down all of the photographers and representatives of these celebrities to get me approvals. That was a huge chore, since there are so many photos that appear inside this book.
Well I have a pretty good memory with dates and places, so most of the research here was from my head. However, there were a number of things I did have to look up on Google, such as film titles, the years that some films or TV shows were released, and dates of some Hollywood events I worked at, such as the various AFI Lifetime Achievement Award dinners.
Again, as mentioned above, the book takes place in chronological order – concurrent with my life, so that, along with the list I’d written down of the many celebrities I’d met over the years, allowed me to just “fill in the blanks” as I chronicled my career path as from the POV of having met these many famous people.
I had a book agent for a brief time, and she did a first pass at the editing. But, as her mother was dying at the time, she didn’t do a thorough job. I found myself having to essentially work as my own editor here. I must have read this book eight times through to finally nail down all of the errors and typos.
My first – and best piece of advice – would be to WRITE WHAT YOU WANT TO WRITE ABOUT and don’t let anyone else tell you what to say or do! Write down YOUR STORY the way it makes YOU FEEL. Then, once you have a finished book, you have to turn off your Creative Hat, and then put on your Marketing Hat, as you pursue the incredibly tough road to finding either a great literary agent or book publisher. I happened to get incredibly lucky in finding a publisher for “FLIRTING WITH FAME” so easily, but I’d written another book that took me 42 years to finally get published!
Yes, I have three more books that will be published during the coming months: In September 2022, my long-digesting novel “Carrots: A Sex Odyssey” will be published, also by Bear Manor Media. That book is a look at the history of my life dealing with depression and sex addiction.
Then, in March 2023, my book “AFTER THEY CAME” will be published by Genius Publishing. That sci-fi book tells the tale of two benevolent Aliens who come to Earth to rescue mankind, while solely working with one sad man who felt that life had passed him by.
And finally, my fourth book, “Inside The Cutting Room: A Backstage Look at New York’s Last Rock ‘N Roll Mecca” will be published in Spring 2025 also by Genius Publishing. That book chronicles the history of a famous nightclub in New York which happens to be owned by my lifelong best friend, and which happens to be the spot where Lady Gaga was discovered back in 2006!
I am proud of all four of my books! But to be honest, I think my mother, who’s about to turn 88 in the fall, is MORE proud of them than I am! LOL! No one tells you how much work goes into book-writing. You have to give up many hundreds of man-hours sitting alone, staring at a blank computer screen. But if you have a vision, inspiration and a good story to tell, I say GO FOR IT! And even if you never find a publisher, you’ll still have the satisfaction in knowing that you gave birth to a story that’s never been told before, and one that was solely yours to tell!
https://www.facebook.com/daniel.harary.3
https://www.linkedin.com/in/dan-harary-53b6b61/
https://www.instagram.com/danharary/?hl=en
Website: www.danhararyauthor.com
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