The Media Interview

Author Carl Weisman blogs about his experiences as a published writer, including doing media interviews:

Wow! That was intense. Imagine doing twelve interviews in one morning, including four 10 minute interviews back to back without a break. If you ever find yourself doing radio publicity for one of your books you just may have to do it too. It’s exhilarating and nerve racking at the same time. I wouldn’t have missed that experience for anything.

He learns some valuable lessons, including mentioning his website more and doing more to sell books, such as not saying too much:

You have to train yourself to give partial answers to the interviewer’s questions. When you’re done, the audience should be dying to know how the story ends. When an interviewer asks me a question about my book, I get so excited I want to tell all, but that doesn’t benefit book sales.

Karrine Steffans achieved notoriety with her 2005 book, Confessions of a Video Vixen, a tell-all about her sexual encounters with the rich and famous. One of her lovers had a pet name for her - superhead - and the name stuck. Now she’s out peddling her new book, another tell-all called The Vixen Diaries.

What’s puzzling in all of this is that Steffans claims that she was a different person nine years ago, the time covered by her books. If she’s past all that and admits that much about her lifestyle was negative, why promote it all through the books, and why be surprised when everyone wants to focus on the gory details instead of her “new self”?

Listen to these two interviews in which Steffans tries to live down her Supahead image:

Interview on WJLB Detroit

The Ricky Smiley Morning Show - more from Ricky Smiley here.

I was reading Where Do You Stand’s piece on Dick Cheney’s wife promoting her new book on The Daily Show. Justin calls Lynne Cheney’s chat with Jon Stewart “one of the most awkward interviews I’ve ever witnessed”. Even Comedy Central promotes the clip as “an extremely uncomfortable interview.”

Now it’s Daily Show guests who often appear a bit awkward, but this time it was Stewart himself who didn’t quite know where to go with things. Part of it I’m sure was that he was trying to restrain himself from asking some truly embarrassing questions. There were enough slightly embarrassing questions, and Lynne Cheney was well prepared for stepping into the lion’s den - unlike Paris Hilton on David Letterman. Cheney threw in some of her own jokes without waiting for Stewart to make them, and she steered things away from potentially sticky points.

This is part two of the interview (part one is here), with some of the more awkward moments - see what you think.

Author Will Weaver on being prepared for unprepared interviewers:

My 2 1/2 minute TV interview was with a woman anchor with big hair and pancake make-up, who scanned my novel’s inside cover during a cut-away to a commercial, then returned, on-air, to brightly to ask me questions about the novel

–but I know the game, and so have my sound bites fairly well in order, things she can grab ahold of and use to sound intelligent…..

Barnes and Noble’s revamped website includes an area called Barnes and Noble Media and it’s a treasure-trove of author interviews as well as interviews with musicians and filmakers. Thanks to Social Media Optimization for alerting me to this. Here are the relevant sections from the B&N press release:

The new site features “One on One” Podcasts hosted by public radio veteran Katherine Lanpher, “One on One” interviews are in-depth conversations with today’s leading writers, musicians and filmmakers. Hermione Lee, Robert Dallek and Frances Kiernan launch the “One on One” podcasts. Updated weekly, future podcasts will feature Amy Bloom and Ann Patchett.

Meet the Writers. The company’s archive of hundreds of exclusive multi-media interviews with writers will be prominently displayed on relevant pages of the site, available for immediate viewing, and download.

Self-published parenting author Brenda Nixon was interviewed on the CAN Marketing Blog about her experiences with getting and doing radio interviews. Here are a couple of excerpts:

Interviewer: What are a few problems you’ve encountered on radio and how did you overcome them?

Brenda: Only a couple times have I had a host who wasn’t a skilled interviewer. He/she stumbled over or repeated questions. In those cases, I elaborated on my answers and tried to make the interview as informative for the listener as possible. One time I was interviewed by a San Francisco shock jock who used profanity and vulgar statements. With him, I continued to answer legitimate questions and simply ignored the inappropriate ones refusing to be lowered to his style of communication. I wanted his listeners to gain something of value from the interview.

Do you give stations suggested questions before an interview?

Some request question and others don’t. If a radio producer or host doesn’t mention a need for questions prior to the interview, I’ll ask as a courtesy.

Lots more useful tips in Part One of the interview and Part Two.

Reading through a post by author Tricia Goyer entitled You Never Know… I was reminded that doing your very best in every media interview is important because you don’t know what might come of it.

So often we get focussed on selling a book, promoting a product, convincing the audience, that we forget about other benefits - in Goyer’s case she got a speaking engagement from one of her media interviews. In a sense, then, your media interview is also a kind of job interview too.

Sorry about the added pressure

Author Carolyn Hughley is doing her first TV interview in the morning and she’s having a bit of trouble sleeping…

I crawled back out of bed and headed to the bathroom to take two sleep aids, thinking they might help. I no sooner swallowed that last pill when I suddenly began worrying that I’d sleep too soundly and not hear the alarm. Then I worried maybe the alarm wouldn’t go off, or I’d forget the things I wanted to say.

To find out how the rest of the night went and what happened at the interview, check out this blog posting from Carolyn, the self-proclaimed “Queen of Worry.”

I love what Lorri Allen is doing over at her Soundbites blog. She’s got an interview with author Mellanie True Hills (A Woman’s Guide to Saving Her Own Life) about what it’s like to be interviewed and what Mellanie’s best advice would be for any interviewee, not just authors.

In her blog posting, The High Cost of a Six-Figure Book Advance, Sallie Goetsch makes the following points, which apply to anyone trying to get the word out about their product, not just authors:

Getting into the public eye

To get visible enough fast enough, you probably need a publicist, which means shelling out several thousand dollars. In order for media attention to do you any good, you have to look good and sound good every time you appear. That means getting professional media coaching before you start lining up interviews to make up for not being a celebrity. You need to arm yourself with a repertoire of sound bites for all occasions and rehearse until you can spout them in your sleep.

That doesn’t just take money, it takes time. It takes work. And no one can do it for you, either, because you, as the author, have to be the one in the limelight.

I can’t stress Sallie’s last point enough - media coaching costs money, yes, but what it really takes is time; the time to practice the skills you learn and to keep revisiting them even when you’re experienced at interviews.

As with anything, a coach doesn’t do the work for you; they help you understand what to do and how to do it. Your time with a media coach is just the beginning of a lot of practice.