Thursday
Jul012004
RTIR National Publicity Summit - Prep for The Big Time
Thursday, July 1, 2004 at 11:52PM
Today was definitely a stressful, hectic Rebel Housewife kind of day. The in-laws are visiting, which is great, but I actually feel the need to keep the house and kids under some degree of control and act the calm, collected Mommy, and put together meals...not easy when I'm trying to be The Rebel Housewife too!
Website Update: Still working on it! But it's coming together and looking GREAT and will be 'live' in the next couple of days.
Preparing for the RTIR (Radio Television Interview Report) National Publicity Summit in New York, July 14 - 17th--less than two weeks away! This is a gathering of about 100 authors and publicity seekers, meeting face-to-face with 50 - 70 media people: television producers, journalists, agents and publishers to pitch for publicity, i.e. Who am I and Why I should be on your show...and it's more complicated than "because I wrote this great book!" They don't want to talk about the book itself--that would be a commercial--they want a full-fledged segment idea for their show or publication--What can you do for the show, our ratings, and our audience/readers?
It's a shift in thinking about what I'll actually be doing when I sit down on the couch with Oprah (for example! ;-). I'm learning--
These last several weeks before the Publicity Summit, the great people at Bradley Communications (publishers of RTIR and Book Marketing Update--another great publication for authors) are offering teleconference training, personal consultations, and opportunities to practice and perfect The Pitch, before we get face-to-face with the media people.
Today was my first opportunity to practice the pitch--I was SO nervous! Everything that could go wrong prior to my appointed time did go wrong, so I didn't have a chance to prepare as well as I had planned, and I was frazzled. I listened to the man before me go through his pitch and he was incredible--very polished, smooth, interesting and entertaining. "Please don't make me go right after him..."
Sure enough, 10 minutes early, Steve Harrison asked if Sherri Caldwell (that's me!) was on the line...gulp! Suddenly I really wasn't nervous at all--I gave my pitch, 2 1/2 minutes of intro and enticement...and I waited to be picked apart (they can be quite frank and brutally honest--constructive criticism, which is great, but still...) "That was great!" "REALLY?!" Whew!
We went on to talk about fleshing out my pitch with some concrete ideas and examples, and how I could make my tips and strategies "visual". He also suggested I think about how to make the pitch appeal to a male audience as well...and my 10 minutes was over just like that--it was GREAT! I can do this!
Of course, as soon as I got off the phone, I was off and running all day long with the kids and the in-laws, and then worked on the website tonight, so I haven't had a chance to sit down and flesh it out, but I will--I'm putting together a one-page pitch presentation to take with me and hand to the media people.
I can't believe it's less than two weeks away!
Website Update: Still working on it! But it's coming together and looking GREAT and will be 'live' in the next couple of days.
Preparing for the RTIR (Radio Television Interview Report) National Publicity Summit in New York, July 14 - 17th--less than two weeks away! This is a gathering of about 100 authors and publicity seekers, meeting face-to-face with 50 - 70 media people: television producers, journalists, agents and publishers to pitch for publicity, i.e. Who am I and Why I should be on your show...and it's more complicated than "because I wrote this great book!" They don't want to talk about the book itself--that would be a commercial--they want a full-fledged segment idea for their show or publication--What can you do for the show, our ratings, and our audience/readers?
It's a shift in thinking about what I'll actually be doing when I sit down on the couch with Oprah (for example! ;-). I'm learning--
These last several weeks before the Publicity Summit, the great people at Bradley Communications (publishers of RTIR and Book Marketing Update--another great publication for authors) are offering teleconference training, personal consultations, and opportunities to practice and perfect The Pitch, before we get face-to-face with the media people.
Today was my first opportunity to practice the pitch--I was SO nervous! Everything that could go wrong prior to my appointed time did go wrong, so I didn't have a chance to prepare as well as I had planned, and I was frazzled. I listened to the man before me go through his pitch and he was incredible--very polished, smooth, interesting and entertaining. "Please don't make me go right after him..."
Sure enough, 10 minutes early, Steve Harrison asked if Sherri Caldwell (that's me!) was on the line...gulp! Suddenly I really wasn't nervous at all--I gave my pitch, 2 1/2 minutes of intro and enticement...and I waited to be picked apart (they can be quite frank and brutally honest--constructive criticism, which is great, but still...) "That was great!" "REALLY?!" Whew!
We went on to talk about fleshing out my pitch with some concrete ideas and examples, and how I could make my tips and strategies "visual". He also suggested I think about how to make the pitch appeal to a male audience as well...and my 10 minutes was over just like that--it was GREAT! I can do this!
Of course, as soon as I got off the phone, I was off and running all day long with the kids and the in-laws, and then worked on the website tonight, so I haven't had a chance to sit down and flesh it out, but I will--I'm putting together a one-page pitch presentation to take with me and hand to the media people.
I can't believe it's less than two weeks away!