Issue #853 Sept. 20, 2014
Publisher: Joan Stewart
“Tips, Tricks and Tools for Free Publicity”
In This Issue
- How to Follow Up Pitches
- More NYT Bestsellers Lists
- Media Kits for Indie Authors
- Hound Joke of the Week
This Weekend in the Hound House:
This time of year, my cellar should be crammed with fruits and veggies I’ve canned already. All I have to show for it so far are 10 quarts of dill pickles. Next on the list: A new recipe for corn relish, and my famous spiced pears in a fragrant syrup of honey, cloves and cinnamon. No more homemade salsa. Too messy. Trader Joe’s Double Roasted Salsa is best.
1. How to Follow Up Pitches
More than a decade ago, when I hosted a teleseminar on how to follow up pitches to journalists, the recommended number of follow-ups was seven.
You could call or email a journalist seven times after pitching.
Do that today, and an editor will blackball you.
These days, you have so many tools at your disposal for following up. Social media ranks right up there as one of the best.
Many of the same reporters, editors and bloggers who despise phone calls and pesky email follow-ups welcome short queries via Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn. How do you know if they do?
Simple. You ask on those sites.
But your first contact with them shouldn’t be a pitch or a follow-up. If you’re smart, you’ll start following people you might want to pitch later. You’ll answer their questions and help them when they ask for it. You’ll share their content. You’ll also pitch ideas and sources that have nothing to do with you.
If you spend a little time learning about them, and helping them before you ask them to help you, you can catch their attention.
Learn my step-by-step directions for knowing who wants what, how they want it, and when to deliver it. “The New Rules of Following Up Pitches to Journalists” explains everything you need to know. It’s a replay of a webinar I hosted, and it comes with the handy checklist “11 Things You can Offer to Journalists and Bloggers When You Follow Up.”
2. More NYT Bestsellers Lists
The New York Times Book Review is adding 12 new monthly charts to its Best Sellers lists, in print and online, and more room for reviews, essays and features.
This means authors will have a greater chance to make one of the lists.
The new lists include Travel, Humor, Family, Relationships, Animals, Religion, Spirituality and Faith, and Celebrities, with more planned for next year.
Read more about it.
If your book doesn’t make it onto one of the Times’ new lists, you still have plenty of opportunity to let reviewers tell the world about it. You can find thousands of reviewers on book review and recommendation sites, on Amazon.com, at blogs, in ezines, and in print publications.
Do you know how to pitch them? If not, I can help.
The video replay of the webinar I hosted on “How to Ask for Book and Product Reviews from Bloggers, Journalists & Consumers” comes with a big bonus package that includes 5 fill-in-the-blanks email pitches you can steal when asking for reviews.
Publicity Hound Ken Okle, an author and former journalist, says the video “should be required viewing for anyone who plans to publish a book or wants to put a little zip into their existing books sales.” When you use my templates, reviewers will be VERY impressed.
3. Media Kits for Indie Authors
If you’ve written a book, you need a media kit.
It’s a package of marketing materials that will help reviewers, journalists, bloggers, retailers, event planners and buyers promote your book.
You no longer have to guess what goes into the kit and figure out the quickest way to create it.
Join me and book publishing expert Joel Friedlander for a free webinar at 4 p.m. Eastern Time on Thursday, Sept. 25. We’ll explain “The Indie Author’s Guide to Creating a Killer media Kit” and explain how to build it in a fraction of the time it takes most authors.
You can register for the free call here.
4. Hound Joke of the Week
Maybe you’ve been looking for love in all the wrong places. A dog will treat you better than anyone you’ll meet at happy hour. Trust me. I’ve been to happy hour.
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