Issue #939 Aug. 4, 2015
Publisher: Joan Stewart
“Tips, Tricks and Tools for Free Publicity”
In This Issue
- Find a Reporter’s Email Address
- Don’t Hide Your Address
- Press Release Words to Ban
- Hound Video of the Week
This Week in the Hound House:
We’re cleaning up after a violent thunderstorm with marble-size hail swept through Wisconsin on Sunday night. No major damage, but a giant bolt of lightning struck the roof three houses away from mine and caused a bad fire. That’s one of my worst nightmares.
1. Find a Reporter’s Email Address
If you want to pitch a reporter, editor, broadcaster, blogger or book reviewer, but you can’t find their email address, try one of these tools:
- Google Search: Type their name “+ email address”.
- Their company website.
- The Society of Professional Journalists Freelance Directory.
- Contact someone they’ve interviewed and ask that source for the email address. Also ask, “How did the interview go?” You might learn something interesting about the reporter.
- Call a friend who works for a PR agency and ask her to look it up in those big expensive media directories.Some of those ideas came from Brian Lang’s article 60+ Tools and Tips to Find Someone’s Email Address.
2. Don’t Hide Your Email
If you’re annoyed when you can’t find reporters’ email addresses, you know exactly how they feel when they can’t find yours. Your email address and phone number should be everywhere:
- On press releases
- Under the Contact Info tab on your LinkedIn profile and “Advice for Contacting” near the bottom of your profile. I’ll bet 9 out of 10 people don’t include this.
- On every page of your website. Yes, every page.
- In author resource boxes at the end of articles and guest blog posts, assuming you want calls (why wouldn’t you?).
- On a “Contact Information” sheet in your media kit. Include links to your social media profiles.If you missed the live webinar I hosted yesterday with Joel Friedlander on “The Indie Author’s Guide to a Killer Media Kit,” you can watch it, and take advantage of our special offer on a series of 15 Media Kit Templates I created that will shave weeks off the tedious chore of creating your own kit.
3. Press Release Words to Ban
Stop “announcing” things when you write a press release. It sounds stilted.
Enough already with being “excited” about your new product or book.
And my skin crawls when I hear the word “awesome.” Put it in a B.S. quote in your press release and I’ll hit “Delete.” Here are 45 alternatives to this overused word.
Tech journalist Robin Wauters has his own list of 10 Words I Would Love to See Banned from Press Releases.
Fiction Authors: I need your press releases for your book launches and other news for a special project I’m working on. If I use yours, you get a $50 coupon for products at my website. Email it to JStewart@PublicityHound.com. I’ll reply and let you know what I’m doing.
4. Hound Video of the Week
Thanks to Publicity Hound Jo Steinberg of Mequon, Wis., for this video of 10 incredible scientific discoveries about dogs.
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