Kristen Matthews, book editor for the “Early Show” on CBS, says book publicists shouldn’t let their authors call book review editors like her and pitch a program segment. “Some of them can’t stand to hear the word no,” she told 200 members of the Publishers Marketing Association this afternoon. Others refuse to accept their publicist’s… Read More
Pitching
Memorial Day weekend ideal time to pitch
Reporters already are knocking off work for a long holiday weekend. TV assignment editors are searching everywhere for a good local angle to Memorial Day. News staffs are lean and will continue to be, straight through until Tuesday. But the print and broadcast media still need enough stories to fill all that airtime and all… Read More
Every author should hear this media panel
If you’re going to New York City next week for the BookExpo America convention, don’t miss Steve Harrison’s media panel on Saturday. I’ll be there. I attended this last year when it was part of the convention, and it was one of the highlights of my trip. A panel of top-tier print and broadcast journalists… Read More
How to convince a magazine to write about maternity boutique
This week, 10 Publicity Hounds have tips Andrew Ingram of Toronto, Canada. He and his wife own a high-end maternity boutique. A local magazine that has a Best of Toronto section and a fashion guide continues to ignore them. Andrew wants clever publicity ideas that will get the boutique into the magazine and elsewhere. From… Read More
Pitch stories to Religion News Service
When I attended my niece’s high school football game in Ohio last fall, I couldn’t help but notice that some of the cheerleaders looked like (starts with the letters SL and rhymes with mutts). Apparently, it’s not just me feeling old again. A story in my local paper yesterday discussed the spirited debate over what’s… Read More
Why food bribes work with broadcast media
The Milwaukee Brewers are off to a good start this year–yet another reminder of how using food to entice reproters to cover your story works. While Harley-Davidson was welcoming several hundred thousand bikers at its giant 100th anniversary reunion in Milwaukee several years ago, popular afternoon drive-time talk show host Mark Belling opened his show… Read More
Getting the mainstream media’s attention for an ethical business campaign
Shel Horowitz of Frugal Fun in Massachusetts asks: “In June, I started a campaign to change the business paradigm–to create a climate where ethical business is the norm. I see this as a 10-year effort, and I have a background in both marketing and organizing. This is not the first time I’ve attempted to do… Read More
May sweeps month not a good time to pitch TV news
If you’re pitching your local TV stations and not having much luck this month, it might be because we’re in the middle of May sweeps. Newsrooms everywhere are broadcasting their big investigative stories designed to boost the all important Nielsen ratings. Unless your pitch is time-sensitive, hold off pitching for another few weeks. Use this… Read More
How an author/therapist piggybacked onto runaway bride
As I was writing last week’s tip about how to piggyback off the runaway bride story, my friend Barbara Bartlein was doing just that. Barbara, a professional speaker and author of the book “Why Did I Marry You Anyway? –12.5 Strategies for a Happy Marriage,” saw all the attention the Runaway Bride was getting and… Read More
Use Celebrities for Publicity
Celebrity chefs Emeril Lagasse, Curtis Aikens, Wolfgang Puck and Martha Stewart caught my attention when I saw their smiling faces looking back at me in the June 2003 issue of Cooking Light magazine. Those four–and six other celebrity chefs–accompanied a brief on how your personality reveals the type of cook you are. A recent study… Read More