Two veteran magazine editors discuss their experiences fielding media requests. Lindsay Williams, a freelance writer, is a former editor of CCM Magazine, and also worked in the marketing department for book publisher Thomas Nelson. Chris Well, editor of DIYauthor.com and host of the DIY Author podcast, is a 30-year veteran of the media, with experience as an editor and contributor in print media, broadcasting, and digital media. In this conversation, the two share their experiences–and their expectations–when hearing from authors, musicians, artists, and others who want to be covered in the media.
WHAT THE PRESS AND OTHER MEMBERS OF THE MEDIA WANT FROM AUTHORS
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Becoming a Member of the Press
Chris Well: Lindsay, why don’t you let’s find out about you. How did you get started as a writer and also an editor?
Lindsay Williams: Growing up, I always had an interest in writing. It was something that I always loved and experimented with. When I went to college, I decided to go into journalism–so, I have a journalism degree. After I graduated from college, I moved to Nashville and I started as an editorial assistant at CCM magazine, a Christian music magazine. I spent four-and-a-half years there. I learned so much from my time there–I grew so much as a writer, learned from the people around me, and I also grew so much as an interviewer, and as an editor. I worked my way up and I became the managing editor of the print magazine and when the print magazine ceased publication, I became the editor of the online digital magazine. After that, I worked in book publishing for two-and-a-half years at Thomas Nelson on the marketing side. After that, I dropped out on my own as a freelancer. For the past almost two years, I’ve been doing full-time freelance work. Now, I write for a variety of magazines and online publications mostly doing feature writing, but I occasionally do other stuff that veers from that. So it’s been sort of this long journey of writing.
Chris: When you say feature writing do you mean that you are writing it for the publication or do you mean that you are writing it for clients?
Lindsay: Both. Mainly, I do a lot of profiles as far as feature writing is concerned, so I interview a lot of artists, authors, actors. The majority of the stuff I do–since I do live in Nashville–is music-related. That’s where a majority of my contacts are from. In addition to writing feature stories and reviews for magazines and websites, I do a lot of press writing–press releases and artist bios. Every time an artist puts out an album, they have to have a new bio written that they use to send to the media. So, I write a lot of those. I also write marketing copy, do some book editing, and do some editing for a publishing house in town who basically has me look over their catalog copy. So it’s a variety of things.
Good press materials make a good impression on the press
Chris: As an editor, you would have received many press kits and press materials. How much of what you saw during that time informs how you approach creating those kind of materials, now?
Lindsay: Until I was actually freelancing full-time, I didn’t realize how invaluable that experience was. Now, I’m on the other side of it, but I think it’s given me a better understanding for what editors want–what they don’t have time for, what mistakes not to make, you know, how to craft a pitch that’s effective. I think it’s given me insight into how editors work also just relationally–how to get to know an editor, how to approach an editor. It’s sort of interesting, having seen both sides. My time as an editor has definitely helped me become a better writer and a better media person in general.
Chris: When you were at CCM, was that all music related content or were you also at that time were you getting stuff from publishers, from authors, from other kinds of people?
Lindsay: The majority of the stuff was music related, but at the time we had a book column that sort of evolved into just in entertainment column. So we’d get pitches and information from authors and other distributors who were working on movies and DVDs and any kind of faith-based releases. It was a variety of things.
Chris: So, a lot of your stuff you dealt with was music-related. But over the years, I’ve been at specifically book-related magazines or lifestyle magazines. I found of all of the different kinds of press kits I received, and all the times I’ve been contacted by people who wanted to be in my news column, or have their client interviewed or story done–the music people and the movie people were the two that really understood the importance of creating press materials for the editors. And the book publishers, even though they work with words, rarely seemed to understand that.
Lindsay: That’s ironic, right?
Chris: Was that your experience too, or did you not see that as much?
Lindsay: It was definitely my experience. I think I even saw more of it when I worked at Thomas Nelson, ironically enough. We would hire a lot of publicist who also had music backgrounds. They might not have done as many books or worked as many books, but they knew how to do PR well. So, we would hire them to work on some of our projects. It seems like there are a lot fewer book publicist out there than there are music and media publicist who I think know how to actually execute an effective PR campaign for a book.
Chris: The thing that I have said on many occasions is that a mediocre publicist in the music industry often does as well or better than many of the publicists working at book publishers. And in fairness to the book publicists who are actually pretty good–the mediocre music publicist are also pretty good. It’s just that the standard is just so much higher in terms of: they understand the importance of multiple points of contact; they understand multiple kinds of content; they understand it’s not just one press release that says this product exists. You know, I can think of the better publicist in music–in fact, in fact I can think of one band in particular where the publicist they had would think of a different reason to send something about that band about every six weeks. I’m going to encourage authors that they really need to think about multiple press releases in the same way: It’s not six times saying, “I have a book.” It’s–every six weeks or so–you find a completely different point of entry to the brand or the book or whatever it is. With publishers–it’s so rare to find a publisher that even makes a kit at all.
Lindsay: It’s true, yeah. Going back to what you said about press releases, I think consistency is the key. Because, as a media person, I get probably 20 press releases in my inbox a day. And that’s interspersed among all of my other emails. At the end of the day, I don’t have time realistically to read every word of every press release that comes through my inbox. If you have a publicist who’s sending press releases consistently–but is writing them in a way that there’s a fresh angle every six weeks or however often it is–it keeps the author the product in front of the media. It’s kind of like a it’s like a little nudge. You know, like, “Hey, I’m over here. Maybe that last angle I sent to you didn’t really appeal to you, but maybe this will.” So, it’s really important.
The importance of multiple points of contact
Chris: You bring up the point that I had forgotten: When your inbox is full, and if you’re getting stuff in the mail, and all of these emails–you may not see if somebody sent a press release. Or, you may see some of them at the wrong part of the editorial cycle for this to fit. The reason to do the six different things is you’re trying to–it’s like the editor’s on a raft going down the river, and these are six different opportunities to get on this raft. And five of those, you may miss each other. The reason there’s six is that you have six times as many chances of getting on that raft with the editor.
Lindsay: Right.
Chris: Now that I’ve started that analogy, I have no idea where the editor’s going in that raft. I really should have thought that through. But I really want to encourage authors: You need to think about multiple points of entry, multiple contacts, unique opportunities for a person in the media to want to hear about what you’re doing, or who you are, but in a way that’s not annoying and you’re not just hammering the same message over and over.
Lindsay: And that’s a delicate balance. I think it’s hard to achieve that. In one way, that’s why it’s important for the author to stir up opportunities to talk about and to make sure that whatever they are doing, whether it’s online or whether it’s other interviews that they are talking about that, they’re talking about things that they are doing things to stir interest around their book.
How does an author get ready for the media?
Chris: I hadn’t thought about it in these terms, but the kit that we will be creating for some authors is also multiple points of entry: It’s three kinds of bios, two kinds of articles, and a press release. Which means that’s your six chances to get on the raft. What are some ways for an author to be ready for the media ? And when we say the media that really is anybody with an audience. You know it’s a blogger. It’s a person at a magazine. It’s the person at a radio station. It’s the person at a television station. It’s a reviewer on Amazon. It’s anybody, anywhere that you are trying to approach and say, “Hey, I exist. I have a book. Please tell your audience about me.” What are some ways for an author to be ready for the media?
Lindsay: Authors need to have their “elevator” pitch nailed down to where anyone–whether it’s your mom, or the mailman, or a high profile magazine editor–when they ask what is your book about, you can immediately answer that question concisely and clearly. Whether you’re telling this to someone in an interview, or you’re writing this out, or whatever form of communication you use. You have to have a very short elevator pitch of who you are and what your book is about that you’re currently promoting.
Second, I think you have to put yourself in the shoes of the interviewer: Think about what questions they are going to be asking. For the most part, you can do a pretty good job gauging what interviewers are going to ask when you do interviews, no matter the medium–they’re all going to want to know about how you first started writing, where you developed your love of writing, they’re all going to want to know about other authors who influenced you and your work, they’re going to want to know what the motive is behind your passion for writing. They’re going to want to know what your book is about, and they’re going to want to know more about your central characters. If it’s nonfiction, they’re going to want to know about the topic, and why you’re interested in that particular topic, and why you have credibility to write about a particular topic.
So, you need to do some legwork ahead of time to kind of nail your answers. Write them out if you have to, bring some notes with you–definitely if you have the opportunity to do this on a phone interview. I would say 90-percent of the interviews I do for my work, I do them over the phone. So, you have a really great opportunity to have some notes in front of you when you’re talking to a media person. I also do occasionally Skype or FaceTime interviews, but more often than not, it’s a phone interview or in-person interview. The key to that is just being personable, being conversational, and being well-prepared ahead of time.
Chris: Whenever I’m teaching someone how to do interviews, I always say you’ve got a good interview if you got an anecdote out of it. A lot of these media, what they really want is not the facts as much as they want the story. So I would say to authors, whatever the book–if you have short stories, if you’ve got a memoir, if it’s a business book, if it’s a cookbook–figure out what the stories are behind what you did. Because that’s the thing that engages people, when you can tell the story behind the story.
Lindsay: Absolutely. And I’ll add onto that to that, it’s really easy to tell the same stories over and over–especially if you have back-to-back interviews, and the interviewers are asking a lot of the same questions. So, I would say, come up with enough that you can kind of pull from the well of things, so that you’re not regurgitating the same information over and over. Some things are going to be the same no matter what, but media are definitely grateful when you have something new and fresh to give them. Not that you have to do something exclusive to every media outlet, but it’s good to tell a different anecdote or or tell the story in a fresh way for whoever you’re talking to.
COMING IN PART TWO: THE ESSENTIAL COMPONENTS OF AN AUTHOR’S PRESS KIT
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