How to Get Book Authors on NPR
Here’s a first-rate tip from the recent Bulldog Reporter webinar I moderated on building relationships with journalists:
The question was this: how can unknown authors, and their publicists, get on prime NPR shows like “All Things Considered”? Answer: create a relationship with NPR Senior Producer Ellen Silva, who produces the “You Must Read This” segment and [...]
Pitching wire services is always a key media relations tactic
News wire services are still alive and reasonably well: AP, Reuters, Dow Jones, Bloomberg, and so on. They were never directly reliant on advertising revenue for survival (though their customers were/are), and they have found new life on the Internet, where their 24/7 service dovetails perfectly with the web’s insatiable need for news.
The care and [...]
Show a little love to build blogger relations
News bloggers who are competing on a minute-by-minute basis with other blogs — such as the feverish competition among technology gadget blogs — are always hungry for an exclusive, or at least to the get the news about a new product a few minutes before the competition.
So the next time you have a story such [...]
Eating My Own Dog Food: Keep Posting to Your Blog!
Quick history: I posted 4-5 times a week for BNET when this blog was there, even posting in advance while I travelled with my family in Europe over the summer. So after that blog ended earlier this month, I breathed a sigh of relief. No more blogging every day if I didn’t want to, right? [...]
The 3 Essential Skills of PR – Part 3
In my first post in this series, I laid out the three skills every PR person should have if they want to succeed:
Developing strategy
Writing
Pitching
Today, let’s talk about pitching.
At first glance, pitching might appear to be the most tactical element of PR and not one of the three essential skills. But in fact, it is the [...]
The 3 Essential Skills of PR – Part 1
There are three essential skills every PR person should have if they want to succeed:
Developing strategy
Writing
Pitching
In today’s post, let’s talk about how to be a strategist. Tomorrow and Wednesday, we’ll cover the next two.
Being a strategist is the hardest part of PR, which is why the best strategists get the big bucks and the best [...]
The 3 Essential Skills of PR – Part 2
Yesterday, I laid out the three skills every PR person should have if they want to succeed:
Developing strategy
Writing
Pitching
In yesterday’s post, I talked about being a strategist. Today, let’s talk about writing. Tomorrow, we’ll talk about pitching.
As I’ve said repeatedly on this blog, the paucity of good PR writers is baffling. It may be the single [...]
More Free PR Resources
I was thinking about post-Thanksgiving leftovers and realized I had some leftovers in my files to share with the Catching Flack readership. To wit:
PR Fuel: Free tips and advice from eReleases.com
Free PR tips and articles from eZine Articles
PRArticle Library: A trove of articles on a variety of PR topics
Library of PR Articles from AllBusiness.com
Steven R. [...]
How to Get Yourself to Use Fewer Words
Do you use too many words when you write? Who doesn’t?
If so, perhaps you should heed the timeless words of William Strunk Jr., author of the #1 book about writing, The Elements of Style:
Omit needless words: Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same [...]