About
Red Pencil
Publicity + Marketing

Helena Brantley is a publicist who specializes in promoting nonfiction books and events. She established Red Pencil Publicity + Marketing in 2010.

Early in her career, Helena worked at public relations, marketing and advertising agencies in New York City and Washington, D.C., where she promoted consumer brands. Later, she ran the small communications office of Call to Renewal, a nonprofit that sought to reduce poverty by bringing together people of faith from across the political and religious spectrum. There, she worked with HarperCollins on the launch of the book God’s Politics, by Jim Wallis.

In 2005, Helena was recruited to work for HarperCollins in San Francisco, where she created and managed many book publicity campaigns, including a string of national and New York Times best-sellers.

Today, as the principal of Red Pencil Publicity + Marketing, Helena works from an office in Oakland, California, with a small team of subcontractors. She is hired by large and small publishers, and by authors, to promote nonfiction titles to television, radio and print media. She also creates and promotes events, and she engages on social media as part of her work.