Publicist / P.I. – Part Two

Yesterday, we discussed how to find out if a blog or website was high-traffic. Today, we’re discussing finding contact information for members of the media.

Reviews, author profiles, and radio/TV interviews are necessary to expand your name recognition and reach potential readers. But how do you land them? Simple. You email the appropriate contact and pitch  your book. But how do you know who to contact?

As a publicist, I subscribe to a media database which gives me all the contact information I need. As an author, it’s not worth spending the $3000 a year for the subscription. Instead, you’ll have to play detective.

Obtaining big media contact information can be tricky, but with a little digging and a lot of cold calling, you can obtain the pertinent e-mail addresses and phone numbers. If you’re lucky, they’ll have everyone’s name, title, and contact info in the “About Us” or “Contact us” sections of a webpage. Unfortunately, most of the time, it isn’t that simple.

Book reviewers: Most newspapers list the email addresses of their editors, but not their reviewers. There are a few things you can do to find the pertinent contact information. First, search the paper’s book reviews and assess who is reviewing similar books as yours. Most reviewers have a genre preference. Once you know their name, you need to find their email. If they’re a permanent reviewer on staff, they should have an email address at the paper’s domain name. Look at the other contact information on the site. If all the editors’ emails are firstname.lastname@newspaper.com, then fill in the blanks and see if it works. You can also search the reviewer on Facebook or Twitter to see if they list their email address (most do). But remember, don’t pitch your book through a Facebook message or Twitter direct message (that’s an author taboo.)

Radio/TV producers: Unfortunately, most of this contact information isn’t listed on the site. It usually requires cold calling. Identify the television or radio show that reviews books or hosts authors. Search the website, as well as Facebook and Twitter for the producer’s name and contact information. If you can find the producer’s name but not the email, simply call up the station and ask to speak to them. If you don’t have the producer’s name, you can still call up the station and ask for the producer of SHOW X, but it may require finessing. If it’s a local radio station in the Midwest, you should have no trouble getting through. If you’re calling NBC for the producer of the Today show, you may not have an easy time getting through.

If you get the producer on the phone, introduce yourself, and say you want to send some information but couldn’t find their email address. Most of the time, they’ll give it to you, but sometimes, they’ll hear your pitch over the phone. Be prepared.

If the station won’t put you through without a name, you have one last resort. If you’re trying to contact a TV show, tune in to the show and watch the end credits. They will always list the executive producer and they’ll usually list the associate producer or booking agent. Radio shows usually thank the producer at the end of the show, so listen carefully. If they just give a list of names, write them down and use Google to find out which is the producer.

Finding this contact information requires time and effort, but obtaining it is the first step to leveraging media coverage.

Tune in tomorrow when we’ll investigate finding the right bookstores or other venues to schedule events. Please note that parts of this blog post originally appeared on Hey, There’s A Dead Guy In My Living Room.