If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

Now that I have my own Internet radio show (also known as a podcast) that reviews books, I have a whole new view of the media.

I now know what “the media” wants because I am the media!

So here’s what I want (and what other radio hosts/reporters etc.) want.

Number one thing: I want you to make it extremely easy for me to have you on my show. I want you to do the work.

That means you need to give me

a good idea of the content of your book, and your bio, and questions I can ask you.

I usually need a review copy of the book. I need links to your site. If you have any audio, I would give a quick listen to that. (Another reason podcasting is great for authors.) If you have a blog–again, that gives me a quick window into what you’re doing, who you are.

What I (and other media folk) are looking for is someone with a hook, a story, something interesting and unique.

For instance, on today’s new Books ‘n’ Such podcast, I interview William P. Young, author of The Shack. Now, this book was rejected by both secular and religious publishers, and so he and some friends formed their own publishing company to publish the book. The book was published a year ago, and has sold more than 700,000. Last week, it was #12 on the Publisher’s Weekly bestseller list.

That’s a story. A phenomenon. I’ll share more on this a bit later. In the meantime, you can listen to the interview here.

Here’s a big thing to know: Media people don’t have a lot of time. Media people have lots of things coming at them–hundreds of emails, pitches, press releases, etc. There are so many books out there, you have to somehow hook us. It helps if you take the time to study the kinds of books your reviewer gravitates toward.

I interview authors whose books I like. Whose books I think are important in some way. Of course, they have to be well-written. They have to look like they’re professionally done. I don’t really care if they’re self-published or not. Truth is, though, that most self-published books are either not well-written, or they’re not well packaged. Both are important.

You may have to be persistent, without being a pest. Don’t take it personally if media folk take a while to get back to you.

As with any relationship building, you will do best if you put yourself into the other person’s shoes (in this case, an overworked media reporter or radio show host). How can you make that person’s job easier? Approach it from that stance, and you have a chance.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 30th, 2008 at 2:30 am and is filed under , , Marketing Your Book. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.