Tidbits & Tidings: Media Contact List - How To Make YOUR List
"Media Contact" Treasure Trove (Promotion) & Voice Actor Workshop Discount
Tidbits & Tidings Weekly: Issue #4
Tidbits & Tidings is a weekly summary that gives you a sneak peek into what I am researching in book marketing and what I am up to outside the book marketing world.
You will get the first glimpse of potentially explosive book marketing ideas, plus a peek inside my crazy brain – where my mind leads me on books, ideas, and some personal stuff cause hey…
You never know where the big ideas could come from
~ Tess from the movie, Working Girl
Share with your writer friends…
Book Marketing Tidbits & Tidings
book promotion trick
Actress Selma Blair, the gal who discovered she had MS as an adult and is now an advocate, came out with her memoir, Mean Baby, in May 2022. I just started the book and Whoa… I am blown away so far. It is funny, well-written, introspective, and interesting. Hopefully, the rest of the book is as good as the beginning – I’ll report back.
Back to the Book Promotion trick: I checked out the Amazon book page for Mean Baby and the treasure trove of possible media contacts on the page under editorial reviews is outstanding! Ok, what do I mean by media contacts. I wrote about media contacts on this substack Here and Here.
Media Contact List is a LIST that YOU create of media that you want to pitch - your book, your story, or you - to promote your book. Creating a media contact list is an important part of your marketing plan (a marketing plan is essentially a “to do” list for your book publishing, marketing, and launch) and it something that you create over time. Perhaps you create it as you are writing your book. You may think of media folks: magazines, newpaper, radio, tv, bloggers, websites, celebrities, etc who might like your book and want to do a story, interview or mention of it. Keep an excel spreadheet or heck, a piece of paper on hand, to jot media contact ideas down as you think of them.
the trick
If you are writing a memoir – go to a memorist’s Amazon book page and have a look at the endorsements and the media and industry reviews that the publisher has posted on the page. These review “blurbs” come under “Editorial Reviews” on the book page.
For the book Mean Baby there is a treasure trove of media contact ideas. The media contacts listed reviewed the memoir Mean Baby. Perhaps they will review, mention or interview you and your book! Have a look and pop the names on YOUR media contact list.
As you put your marketing plan into action at a later date, you can research specific journalist’s names, emails and submission instructions.
As a quick example, here is what you will find on the Mean Baby Amazon page under “Editorial Reviews” : (Note that the specific reviewer / journalist’s name is shown… this is media contact research gold!)
The New York Times
The Wall Street Journal
People Magazine
The Washington Post
NPR’s Morning Edition
The TODAY Show
Bustle
Marie Claire
Real Simple – who knew Real Simple did book review spots? Now you YOU do!
AP – Associated Press
Disability Visibility – An example of why it is important to identify your MESSAGE and AUDIENCE ie. Ms Blair is an advocate for fighting MS. A disability publication would be interested in featuring her memoir!
The Independent
And then… those industry book reviewers – every one of the reviewers listed selected Ms Blair’s book for review.
Publisher’s Weekly
Booklist
Library Journal
BookPage
Now, yes of course, Ms Blair is an actress and famous actors are well publicized and have oodles of money to spend on promotion but if you got just one or two reviews for your memoir, it would pay off, right?!
What Am I Doing/Reading this Week? Popourri
voice talent and audio book ambitions? promo code for you
ACX – I was recently introduced to ACX because they are working with my book publisher, Harper Collins, to produce the audio book version of my first book, It Gets Easier and Other Lies We Tell New Mothers to be released 11/22/22. Yours truly is the narrator and I went back to the studio (SweetCreek studio) this week to correct a few things in my initial recording of the book.
One – Yes, super cool to be narrating my book
Two – Harder than I thought it would be but definitely something I want to continue to do
ACX is the Amazon owned company that helps publishers and authors produce and publish an audio book. I am new to the platform and its services but I understand it also provides a way to connect voice actors with projects. So, as I voice actor, I could presumably get some jobs narrating and producing audio books. More to report on that as it evolves.
If you are interested in a voice actor career or side-gig, a pretty cool summary on how ACX works with Narrators (voice actors) is at the link.
Voice Coaches Promo Code for You: I took voice actor lessons in a class with Voice Coaches. If you have a similar desire to be a voice actor, Voice Coaches offers a intro workshop for $30 where they introduce you to voice acting and you get an idea if it is right for you. I took the workshop before I signed on to the course and for $30, it was a steal. I decided to move forward with it and take the course (a bigger investment but worthwhile for me – obviously, right? I narrated my own book, how cool is that?) The folks at Voice Coaches are offering a discount on the intro workshop with the promo code WOLK – 50% off. That’s $15 for a workshop that will help you determine if voice acting is for you.
Thanks for reading the Tidbits & Tidings Newsletter this week. I welcome any questions or comments.