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On November 19th, 2009 I had a wonderful time being interviewed for Authors Access with Victor R. Volkman and Irene Watson about whether Press Releases are still revelant to marketing and promoting books.

We covered a wide-range of talking points, including:

* So What Exactly Is A News Release?

* Why Is This So Hard To Do? What Makes This So Special?

* So What Exactly Do Media People Look For When They Receive A News Release?

* So What Do You Need To Do To Write A News Release That Really Works & Truly Gets Media Attention?

* How do you know when you’re ready?

* What Specifically Should Authors Do To Create This Galvanizing Candy ­This Magic Script.

* What is the Magic Formula (DPAA+H)? (“Dramatic Personal Achievement in the face of Adversity, plus a little Humor”)

* Which Are Better For Authors To Aim At - Book Reviews Or Feature Stories & Why?

* How do you know when you achieve success with a news release?

* So once you have a trash proof news release, what do you do with it

Download the free Authors Access podcast interview free at:

http://authorsaccess.com/archives/164
A pdf file that summarizes all the talking points is also available here:

Are News Releases Effective for Marketing Your Book? http://www.directcontactpr.com/files/files/arepressreleasesaneffectiveway.pdf

The Trash Proof News Releases is available as a free ebook at Smashwords:

Trash Proof News Releases

http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/5921

If you write what you think is a trash proof news release, send it to me and I’ll send you my extra two bits!

Paul@DirectContactPR.com

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Read a book. To get from passive knowledge to active maximum enjoyment and real tangible benefits you need to do more than just read.

Take notes while you read. Underline ideas that you like. Highlight the things you’d like to make happen.

After reading, review the notes.

Think about each and every underlined passage.

Now think, actively dream and visualize about how you can use the idea.

Now write down what you want and need to do to apply the idea to your life, business, career, project or whatever.

Then identify the tasks you need to perform to make this idea happen.

Now create a schedule to do the tasks.

Now implement that schedule and take the first action on your list of task.

Keep going.

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One of my clients just shared his experience of being bumped by a big media for a TV interview.

This does happen people some of the time. The question is ‘what do you do when it happens to you?’

You can strategize and come up with actions and ideas to best position yourself when it happens if you stand in their shoes and seek to understand what happened to them when they made the decision.

Media are businesses that are best viewed as publishers (in the case of print) or producers (in the case of radio, TV or some other electronic medium) who make their living from two income sources:

1. Paying subscribers
2. Paying advertisers (the number of whom is dependent upon the number of paying subscribers).

Media decisions are almost always made in favor of one proposal for media coverage over another because of the perceived value of the news, entertainment, or education offered and the direct impact it has on these two income sources.

Media evaluate these story by story, day by day, for each income producing media coverage opportunity that they have to offer. There are three key questions they ask:

1. How many people in my audience will be interested in this?
2. What is the value of the information to my audience? and
3. How much time and efforts (or people and money), will I need to invest to create this story?

The pass-fail answers have to be:

1. A lot of people 2. A lot of value and 3. Very little cost

So when something out competes you, you can at least you can empathize (or sympathize) with the media as a fellow publisher!

So the key thing to do is try to be understanding and professional when you follow up and speak to them.

Now this next step is the crucial one.

Never let conversation die. Don’t think that ‘not now’ means ‘not ever’.

The key action is to make another proposal for media coverage. Ask them:

- Can we re-schedule?

- What is the date and time for the interview?

If the planned coverage is based on a current event or issue and the timing or opportunity passes by, then look ahead and create another proposal.

Say

- If we can’t do this show, then how about we do this one instead?

- Can I send you more information and another proposal?

- Would you like to see some Q and A’s on this topic?

Never let the conversation stop. Once you have opened the door to a relationship as a professional guest, entertainer or contributor always offer to send them some additional ideas or information.

In fact, it is a good policy to never let a media person (or in fact any book sale prospect), get away without you making another proposal to send them something more, so you can keep them mentally engaged with you, and ensure they are taking steps towards doing something to help you promote or sell your products or services.

Just remember that these are very important people who hold the key to placing your message and magic words in front of thousands, even millions of people. Think about what they do for a living and give them ideas and answers to help them do their job.

Of course, “the magic words” have to be there. Your media pitch, whether it is in a phone call, a personal email or in a news release, has to offer the media content and value. Your proposal has to turn them and their audience.

That is how you can turn a cancellation, or even a no, into a new interview or feature story opportunity.

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I just had to share this one hot off the press.

About a month ago I wrote a news release for client Susan Casey, author of the book Women Invent! The book was first published in 1997.

I decided to create a feature story and I worked with the author to develop quality detailed content with an offer of photos highlighting the accomplishments and achievements of famous women inventors from the past 100 plus years. We sent out the news release email html in early February to a custom list of science, education, and women’s media nationwide.

Here’s the link to the article published yesterday March 31, 2009 in Fast Company Magazine:

http://www.fastcompany.com/article/some-greatest-inventors-were-women

Lesson learned - the age of the book doesn’t matter. Galvanizing content and timeliness matters.

March is Women’s History Month.

Good to the last drop!

If anyone wants to see the news release pdf file please send me an email.

Paul J. Krupin - Direct Contact PR
Reach the Right Media in the Right Market with the Right Message
http://www.DirectContactPR.com Paul@DirectContactPR.com
800-457-8746 509-545-2707
http://blog.directcontactpr.com/

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Connecting in a caring way.

You can write an email. You can write an article. You can write a news release. You can create a script for an interview.

You can now send it out and try to get people to pay attention to you.

You can post it on web sites and make it available to millions of people who are searching using key words. That’s the idea. They search and they find you.

Will anyone pay any attention to you?

Not unless you care and they realize it.

There 20,000 people posting on blogs every hour. There are millions of people and businesses updating their web sites every day.

There are millions of people twittering away merrily with their little snippets of ‘wassup’ messages.

Are they connecting with you in a caring way?

Which ones actually get through to you? Which ones do you pay attention to?

Our newly elected President Barrack Obama knows how to connect.

I just signed up to be a follower on his Twitter account.

Within minutes I received the following email message:

“Hi, pjkrupin (pjkrupin).

Barack Obama (BarackObama) is now following your updates on Twitter.

Check out Barack Obama’s profile here:

http://twitter.com/BarackObama

Best,

Twitter

Can you believe it? The President of the United States is following my updates on Twitter.

In fact as of today, he’s following more people than are following him.

He’s following 166,088 people, and he has 144,000 followers.

He (or someone on his staff) is listening to more people than there are people listening to him, at least on Twitter.

This is amazing to me. This gives me a unique online experience.

He’s connected with me and he says he cares.

Try it yourself. Sing up at http://twitter.com/BarackObama

See how you feel when you get that message that says, “Barack Obama (BarackObama) is now following your updates on Twitter.”

What an example to emulate.

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Last week someone on the Self-Publishing discussion list at Yahoo Groups asked “what goes into a news release”.

It took me a while to wrap my mind around an approach that I was satisfied with since we have so many diverse creative people on the list. The response had to be useful to all.

In many ways, this is perhaps the most common question I receive from authors once they start promoting and marketing. I rephrased the question a little.

How do I get people to pay attention to me?

I reviewed the news releases that I’ve done for the past few years for authors and publishers seeking to identify the common characteristics of those communications that produced the stellar media responses and the book sales that went with them. I sought to take a fresh look at that set of key issues that appear in the marketing communications that produce the best success.

It was a fun exercise. So here’s what this exercise revealed about:

How to be Galvanizing

1. Be right and be first to tell people that you are right on.

2. Be wrong but keep trying to do it right and be the first to admit it, telling people what you did wrong and are doing about it.

3. Communicate clearly and help the people you can help the most. Put your audience first.

4. Demonstrate purpose. Do something noble and heroic and active, don’t just talk about it.

5. Be passionate and surprise people by doing something interesting, unusual, and real.

6. Make people laugh and smile at you, with you and at themselves.

7. Give people relief from a headache or the pain they are experiencing now.

8. Show people a half naked man or woman. Why? Because it works. Now make it relevant or meaningful to your ideas in some surprising and legitimate way.

9. Tell people about their innermost fears or insecurities.

10. Predict what is going to happen six weeks from now and why it is important.

11. Be spontaneously alive and exuberant about people and your ideas.

12. Show people courage and do something amazing and brave.

13. Be astonishingly honest and sincere. Achieve authentic.

14. Be irreverent and make people realize the folly of their beliefs..

15. Tell true dramatic and personal stories. Focus on achievement in the face or adversity. Help people see themselves in the story.

16. Shake people to their roots. Tear apart a sacred cow.

17. Scare people with a prediction. Identify and describe the common enemy or the crisis on the horizon.

18. Use a really good relevant photograph. Give people visual evidence so they know they are in good company.

19. Do your absolute best and create something truly remarkable and memorable.

20. Create a vivid metaphor that illustrates and relates to your audience at a deep personal level.

21. Create a visual picture that makes people realize what their future will be like.

22. Tell people exactly what they need to do to be healthy, involved, authentic, purposeful, connected to the future, inspired to find greater meaning and motivated to take immediate action to fulfill their destiny.

It’s my belief and experience that these triggers to getting attention and galvanizing people are useful and applicable to all the marketing communications you use to promote your books or products or services.

You must develop, test and prove that you have content that can do this yourself. You can also get help from experienced people to do this. You can hire publicists or marketing experts to assist you.

Then you can place these ideas into the headline and lead of your news releases. You use these ideas to flesh out the content of your problem solving tips articles, feature stories, and interview talking points.

You use these ideas to make what people read, hear, or see about you sticky. You want them to take it with them and show someone else what you have done.

Your goal is to make such an incredible impression — an indelible memory about you — that gets people so interested in you that they are motivated to buy *everything* you have available.

It’s applicable to situations where you are speaking to people whether it be one on one, or if you are talking to a group of people and you goal is to get people to buy your book or your services.

It’s also applicable whether you are publishing an article in a newspaper, doing an interview, or posting something to a web site or a blog or an article site.

I hope you find that even just one of these is something you can use and benefit from.

All you need is to find and use is one.

Once you have these ideas you can create the news releases and marketing communications you need to get better sales and better coverage with media.

A galvanizing message will tend to resonate with certain types of people and media. You may have to change your target to match the message. You may have to change your message to match your target.

If you find out that one galvanizing idea works for one group or type of people, you may have to find out whether it works as well if you present it to another type of demographic pool of people. A message that works with mature seniors, may or may not work well with fitness, health or women’s. A message that works well with techies may not work well with business or education. You may have to find out what works and this may take time and effort.

Depending on what you have to offer, a targeted media list and a targeted approach to media may be what works the best.

I would enjoy feedback and comments on this post. Please feel free to contact me if you have any ideas on how to make these better.

Paul J. Krupin - Direct Contact PR
Reach the Right Media in the Right Market with the Right Message
http://www.DirectContactPR.com Paul@DirectContactPR.com
800-457-8746 509-545-2707
http://blog.directcontactpr.com/

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Here is a great story. It is also a beautiful illustration of how to get event publicity.

Can you imagine how much better it would be for kids at high schools if people agreed to zero put-downs, zero rumors and zero gossip.

That’s what Chicken Soup for the Soul story author Bill Saunders challenged students to achieve. And the kids agreed to do it, too. And the results were immediate and substantial.

The article titled: ‘Chicken Soup’ author urges teens to action is in the Nov 8 edition of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/s_597494.html

Share this with your friends.

Why did the newspaper jump on this one?

DPAA + H

This tells a human interest story which talks about local credible people in the throes of real social challenges. It is dramatic, personal, achievement in the face of adversity, and it even has some ironic humor.

It also contains a simple and unique solution to a common problem that faces lots of people.

These are the crucial elements of media coverage success.

Is there are reason to doubt why Chicken Soup for the Soul is worthwhile? Here the contributing authors show in no uncertain terms that they know how to walk the talk. This is true leadership excellence in action.

Now if only adults could learn the same lesson.

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“Giving money and power to the government is like giving whiskey and car keys to a teenage boy”
——The one and only PJ O’Rourke

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“The word ‘politics’ is derived from the word ‘poly’ meaning ‘many,’ and the word ‘ticks’ meaning ‘blood sucking parasites.’”
——George Stephanapoulus

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“Smoke Cuban cigars. Don’t think of it as supporting their economy–think of it as burning their fields.”
——Kinky Freidman

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“The best argument against democracy is a five minute talk with the average voter.”
——Winston Churchill

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“The last of the human freedoms is to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances.”
——philosopher Victor Frankl

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“Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, small minds discuss people.”
——Admiral Hyman Rickover

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“You can easily judge the character of others by how they treat those who can do nothing for them, or to them.”
——Malcolm Forbes

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“A lot of people who don’t know him well think he tries too hard to be eccentric. But those of us who know him know that he actually tries very hard to be normal—and never quite gets there.”
——Hillary Rodham Clinton on James Carville

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“Those who cast the votes decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything.”
——Josef Stalin

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“Yes, it’s true that species extinction is sad, in a way, but it’s nonetheless pleasant to go get the paper without being bothered by pterodactyls. And a mastodon would wreck the lawn.”
——PJ O’Rourke

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How do you do that so that the right people talk about you in a way that helps your business?

What you need to do is sprinkle the airwaves with certain types of information that result in communications between people that ties back to your business so that:

1. drives interest to your business or website
2. produces traffic or incoming calls or visits and prospect inquiries; (so you can covert prospects into customers); or
3. produces direct sales (so you don’t have to convert at all).

Here are the ways to do that:

1. tell a remarkable story
2. offer up a really incredible product or service
3. break some important news
4. be phenomenally helpful, educational or entertaining
5. be innovative
6. be unique
7. be original
8. be unusual
9. be incredibly knowledgeable
10. help the people you can help the most

What you need to do is develop this information and package it into a core document which can serve as a source for a suite of other specific communications you can use in a variety of ways.

Now recognize that there are over 20 different categories of online and offline media that you can place your message.

Package it and present it so that it is readily usable in each technology and situation. What you need to do is reformat the message the same core message can be readily injected and utilized by these various technological mediums.

Then you’ll be able to persuade other people to get the word out for you.

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Books aren’t dead. Publishing isn’t dead. It’s just that publishing technology keeps on evolving. The way we sell intellectual property is diversifying.

I work with many, many creative people and companies and what I am observing is that the number of ways people buy written words that they can read and acquire for value is increasing. As a publisher, this represents a major challenge. But the rewards in a country of 330 million people are still phenomenal. So I believe it’s worth the effort.

In the publishing field, you can start with a single book and then do what Dan Poynter has been saying for many years now. You diversify the intellectual property and sell it in what ever way people will buy it. So that means turning a book into a tape, video, ebook, or a workshop, or a teleseminar, or a web seminar or whatever your particular target pool of people will want and purchase. You can package your IP small and big. You can format it for pdf, Kindle, large print, tape, video, audio (mp3), video (MPEG, WMV).

Promoting it is the same. First you learn what you have to say to interest people and produce the action you want. Then you incorporate that learned tested message into your marketing materials. You start with your person to person discussions. Then once you learn what turns individuals on you expand it to small groups. Then you can move on to your news releases and then use the same core copy in your direct marketing materials.

Now you also have the ability and choice to reformat the same core copy and adapt it so that you can use it in all sorts of prime media formats and Internet media formats.

What you need to do is be systematic and test and develop and retest and redevelop till you have the content and communications that produce the same effect on people each time you use them.

What I’m seeing is that the use of technology is a force multiplier. Whether you put proven messages into a news release and convince a publisher to share your news is what you are aiming for. The choices of placement are now expanded. With prime media you have newspapers (daily and weekly), magazines, radio, tv, news services, syndicates. With the Internet web sites you also have the online counterparts to all the above. But you also have content opportunities at other people’s web sites, blogs, forums, discussion groups, ezines, mailing lists, audio, video sites, and the news search engines and specialized search engines. There is also social media – blogs, and the MySpace, Facebook types of sites, and the Twitters and more. People are now receiving plug messages for good stuff in all sorts of ways. Encouraging snippets motivate people when they come from trusted sources.

So in addition to creating THE TRULT GREAT BOOK, you also need to have galvanizing copy that not only gets you published but also searches well and motivates people to action off of very small snippets. You start with the book. Then you learn and document the best way to turn people on.

Once you get that down you can leverage it using the technology and mediums available to reach people. Each technology has its own style, format and communication system requirements. This means you may have to learn new styles and ways to communicate. But if you for example have a great problem solving tips article that produces media interest, you may also be able to use that core in articles and posts online at forums, blogs, mailing lists, ezines, and other places.

Even the David Meerman Scott’s New PR methods are basically just adapting to the new technologies. They say “write news release that sells product” because people can see it on a news search engine.

However the success still hinges on the quality and remark ability of the product, and the persuasive content and quality of the news release. People respond to quality. They ignore and bypass mediocrity. The good stuff rises to the top. The bad stuff sinks away out of site.

People tell their friends when something is really good. They also steer their friends away from stuff that’s not that good. That’s because people want to be seen as helpful to others in the marketplace.

And if the statement “You gotta get this!” or “That book is incredible!” gets flowing on social media sites from person to person, you can find yourself swamped with orders.

From my perspective as a publicist who helps people achieve success, the two base requirements for creators who want to achieve success are 1. create something really good and 2. develop the proven communications needed to trigger action by your target audience.

You must learn how to sell your product by speaking to people. Your personal experience with your products with your customers and audience is very valuable. You use their feedback to guide you to the best communications you can use.

Once you have this then you can use all the available technologies to communicate meaningfully with your particular audience.

This may take some systematic careful planning and effort. But it really creates opportunities. One book can be sold in many different ways. Each one is an income stream that can be developed and can contribute to a very significant income.

The most important thing you can do is to create something remarkable. That’s what you have to do first and foremost. It’s like making candy. You test your recipe by giving it to people and refine your formula till people just get a little taste and instantly want more. You’ll know when people like your candy by their reaction.

In my view, what you need to do is simply devote yourself to being the best that you can be. I see that success is going to people who help the people that they can help the most. This is true whether they are a writer or a comedian or a manufacturer of products or a provider of services. If you devote yourself to excellence and service of others, then people recognize and appreciate what you do, because you do it so well.

My job as a publicist always seems to be trying to help people find out what they do best because sometimes they don’t really know because they have not asked the right questions and really paid that much attention to the very people they are trying to reach, help or entertain, and sell.

It’s up to you as the creative source to produce the candy that make people go crazy and tell their friends all about it. That’s the base challenge – the key requirement. The creation has to be really good. If you are an author or a publisher, you need to write a really good book. If you are an inventor, you need to create a product that really makes a difference. If you are a service provider, you need to offer advice or help so that it really does solve a problem and improve what people can do.

If you don’t do that first, then not much can happen as you try to get people interested in it.

Once you create a product that taste like candy, then you have to learn how to get people to talk about that candy.

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