The Campaign

"The Campaign" tells the story of what happens when a small ad firm expands and finds itself with more business than they can handle, just as the Sassi Sausage company comes to them wanting them to produce a Super Bowl ad for them. The business side of the firm sees the millions in potential revenue from such an ad, but the creative side is already grossly over-taxed. When push comes to shove, Sara Hackman, the lead creative writer issues a challenge to the suits. "If you think what we do is so easy, then take the ad and do it yourselves " To her shock and dismay, they do just that. After all, how hard can it be? Well, it turns out it can be pretty hard. Their star pig dies, their producer flees the country fearing arrest, the budget is in shambles, and the deadline is fast approaching. Can the suits find a way to get the ad done, and will it be effective? "The Campaign" is inspired by Tracy Kidder's "The Soul of a New Machine." While reading that for at least the tenth time the author thought, "What if I wrote a fictional nonfiction book?" Thus was born "The Campaign." An earlier draft was entered in the 2012 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award and made the top fifty of five thousand general fiction entries. A prize from that contest was a Publisher's Weekly review of the submitted manuscript that concluded with, "An original plot, solid characters, and a good jolt of humor make this a winner." Just unfortunately not 'the' winner. Minor revisions have been made, but the story is essentially the same.