The Media Interview

Angela Tunner, one of my clients, is the author of Simply Summer, a cookbook that doesn’t require the oven to create easy gourmet dishes, and she’s on tour right now. On a radio talk show in the mid-west, during one commercial break, nothing could have prepared Angela for the ad that ran just before [...]

Another voice weighs in on the email interview debate:
Being interviewed is usually a miserable experience. One can expect to be misquoted, one does not always have time to reflect on answers, and it can be very stressful. I try to give only email interviews now, after so many experiences with being misquoted – which is [...]

A TV reality show for authors? There’s a casting call on June 16th in Florida apparently for aspiring scribes vying to beThe Ultimate Author. But don’t think that being a great writer is enough to win the show’s prize of a book deal:
Contestants in this competition must be smart enough to spell well, [...]

When I travel for a media interview, I’m always paranoid that I’m not going to wake up in time and miss the show. So, I go a little overboard on alarms: I request a wake-up call, I set the alarm clock by the bedside and set the alarm clock on my cell phone. [...]

Had a client on the radio the other day and he arranged with the station to have a link from their website to his home page. Several times during the interview the hosts mentioned about going to the website for more information. So far so good.
When the program ended, my client began monitoring [...]

wall·flow·er: a person who from shyness or unpopularity remains on the sidelines of a social activity
Are you being a wallflower in your media interviews? Are you waiting on the sidelines of the conversation, hoping the interviewer will ask you THE QUESTION?
Never let yourself come away from an interview saying “I wish they’d asked [...]

Of course, part of building a brand is knowing how to look good on the boob tube. “Authors who are media-genic are going to increase their chances ten-fold of being published and published successfully,” says publicist Lisa Ekus, who also notes that she gets twice as many bookings for authors who are media-trained. Interestingly, her [...]

Check out this detailed account on the Huffington Post of how the message of a media interview can get misrepresented in the editing process and perhaps more importantly how the misrepresentation certainly seems deliberate.
According to business psychologist and author Debra Condren, she was approached by a producer from ABC’s Nightline, who was looking for [...]

Excellent analysis of the costs and benefits of doing a book tour, from author Ron Franscell, who’s posting his thoughts on each day of his current tour. His conclusion?
book tours don’t make good, short-term economic sense. Their value is for the longer run, and provide the best opportunity for authors to commune directly with [...]

Best-selling author Sue Monk Kidd has some wonderful stories on her website about her adventures doing book tours. This excerpt is a good example of why it’s important to have your key message firmly entrenched in your mind - life has a way of trying to distract you:
My first order of business in Philadelphia [...]