"Publicity releases prior to the publication of the novel. These are terribly important to the publisher, since with them he hopes to establish good word-of-mouth on the book. These are the first intimations the writer receives as to what others think of his completed manuscript, but if he is wise he remembers that they are the output of people with an ax to grind in relation to the book. The same things would be said, more or less, regardless of the merit of the book. Nevertheless, the writer has a right to hope that they're true. The ones for this particular manuscript were rather exciting, and I did hope that some of them were predictive."