Chandler Bolt [00:00:01] Hey, Chandler here. And joining me today is Steve Harrison. Steve is a co-founder of Author Success and the National Publicity Summit. His company has helped launch books. Maybe you’ve heard of them, a couple of smash hits as well as a bunch of other books. Chicken Soup for the Soul and Rich Dad. Poor Dad. If you like the book Rich Dad. Poor Dad. Check out that interview on this podcast with Robert Kiyosaki. Steve and his brother Bill have been in business together for more than 35 years and have helped 15,000 nonfiction authors write, publish and or promote their books. Today, we’re going to talk about ten ways to sell books through media appearances and maybe even more than ten ways. We’ll see as we get going here. So I’m super excited for that. Steve, welcome. Great to have you here.
Steve Harrison [00:00:52] Oh, great to be here.
Chandler Bolt [00:00:54] Yeah. So I guess first things first, why books and how did you start working with authors?
Steve Harrison [00:00:59] You know, I was in college. I was a sophomore. I was dating this girl for ten weeks who was a senior. She graduated, and my summer job was selling books door to door. And. Yeah, for Southwestern. That’s right. Cool. Okay, you know what? While in the publishing company. So it was actually selling books that nobody was interested in, nobody cared about, you know? But how do you get people to care? And I learned a lot. I actually did that for a number of summers. And when I got when I when I had fully graduated, you know, I had a long distance relationship with this girl. And she was in Philadelphia. And my brother had just purchased a newsletter for that the media would receive to find out about authors who were on tour. And he said, Hey, I’m starting this publication that’s going to I’m going to reinvent it to let authors get publicity. Basically would let the media know about guests. And I said, okay, I’ll help you for three months. Well, here we are, 35 years later, I married the girl. We have three kids. And so, you know, it’s just it’s been a real labor of love. And I just it kind of found me.
Chandler Bolt [00:02:14] That’s cool. And Small world, we have so many people that work. It’s obviously that come that work for Southwestern. It’s like all of our best people in our sales team come from Southwestern, so there’s a lot of crossover there of selling books door to door.
Steve Harrison [00:02:28] Yeah, Yeah. Well, it’s great. It’s great experience. And, you know, I think that for us with our our magazine we had to do was we what we found was a lot of times authors would send us their copy that they wanted to put out there to the media and it would say things like award winning book. And we’re like, Nobody cares about that, you know? And we put it out there and it wouldn’t do well. And then we found when we rewrote the copy and rewrote like the headline in the intro. They did a lot better. And what we found from that actually is we just learned what kinds of hooks and headlines get the media interest.
Chandler Bolt [00:03:10] That’s cool. Let’s talk folks here in just a second. I guess first, I mean, obviously, you guys have had, you know, clients on Good Morning America Today Show, FOX News, ESPN, New York Times, a bunch of different publications. Why? Like, why media? Why PR, why? Why should authors care about this? Why is this something that they should pursue to help them some more copies of their book?
Steve Harrison [00:03:33] I once heard about a book marketing consultant who had a seminar, put a book up there and just had everybody sit there and look at it, and he said, You’ve learned the first thing, books don’t sell themselves. You know, and what I think what the publicity really offers is, first of all, free exposure where you’re able to talk about your topic and have you know, invariably most times when people interview you, they give you a blog. Generally, they invite people to find out about the book and a lot of, you know, succeeding as an author’s creating a snowball effect. So, for example, when you’re interviewed, somebody else has built that audience, whether it’s a TV show, whether it’s radio, whether it’s a podcast, a magazine, someone else has built that audience. And so people who hear your stories, who hear your advice, can connect with you and say, you know what, I like that guy. I like I like what that lady has to say. I could see where her book could benefit me. And they can buy it and it can it can generate sales directly, can also generate sales indirectly, because it gives you credibility when you can say frankly, I mean, you know, you can say, you know, as seen on Good Morning America when you get on a show like that. But frankly, if just when you put out a podcast that you’ve been on, even just to your own Facebook following brands and people that know you say, oh, I didn’t know that Betsy was doing interviews, maybe we should have her do a workshop for our company. Maybe we should buy that book for our our daughter. So it creates one thing, creates another thing, creates another thing.
Chandler Bolt [00:05:16] Now let’s say I’ve got a lunch. In three months. Shit. Is it too late to start going after media? Is it. Is it too early? Like, when is kind of the right time for an author to start pursuing media around the launch or just around the promotion of their book?
Steve Harrison [00:05:34] Yeah, well, I think you definitely want to do more when you’re launching. But I say you got to start thinking about policy even while you’re writing your book. There are things you can do in your book to make it more attractive because you want to have a book where when you send it to media, they say, Oh, I would love to do this story. I’d love to interview this author. I could see right here from chapter three. This would be a great hook. In terms of timing. If you’re if you’re three months out, you’ve got to realize media work on different lead times. So radio, TV, podcasts, usually there are two weeks, three weeks. Major sprint is going to be sometimes three months, six months out. So you want to you know, you want to kind of think of who is who’s most likely to buy your book, who’s that audience and what do they read? What do they watch? And put together a list. I call it the fabulous 50 of Where Do I Really want to Be? And I wouldn’t make the national TV show your very first, you know, person to pitch but start doing interviews. I even have seen that the most successful authors. Do interviews while they’re writing the book. You know, and I think Tim Ferriss, with the four hour workweek, began this change because he was making he was talking about his topic and he was connecting with bloggers and building relationships with media so that they knew about his book. And so when he came to launch, he had relationship. They were they were really willing to promote him. So it helps you write a better book as well. I mean, I think you and I both know sometimes people make the mistake of writing a book and they’ve never really talked about it or taught it. But you start getting on some podcast because a lot of times people think, Oh, I have to have a book to get on a podcast. Now you have to have expertise. And if you have expertise and you have something that you can point to. You can definitely do well.
Chandler Bolt [00:07:46] Yeah. And I love the the part that you mentioned there is, is Yeah. A lot of people. Oh, my books are not out yet. I can’t talk about it. Well, the process of talking about it not only can that you know, drives pre-sales and preorders if your book is available for preorder, but it also to your point, helps you start to articulate better the concept. Now, you know, I mean, especially if you’re an external processor like me, you know the extra process into a processor, it’s all right. I clarify an idea by talking it out loud. So whether it’s on a podcast, whether it’s on TV, whether it’s, you know, whatever the medium is, you can start to test different concepts or content around the topic and which will make for a better book. So that’s awesome. I love that you talk about a concept of a hook. Um, and I know, you know, for people like me and you are doing media, doing PR and doing marketing, it’s like we know what a hook is, but a lot of people don’t. What is a hook? Why does it matter? Especially when it comes to getting yeses in PR media?
Steve Harrison [00:08:48] If. Chandler and I have a TV show together, and we know we want to break for commercial and we’re going to interview you, though we’d say coming up and we might say, you know, what would we say? Coming up, We want to tease the audience into staying through a bunch of commercials to then watch our interview with you. Right. So that’s how people want to think about it as a tease. What would you say and what would be that phrase that coming up, What would they say that would get people interested? Because, you know, what would will be that phrase? When people are searching a podcast where they say, I want to you know, so for example, like with your show, I looked at what you’ve done and said, okay, where could I contribute the most value for what you’re doing? All right. Ten ways to sell more books, you know, through media appearances, right? Because that fits you. So that’s like a tease, which we are now in the process of of fulfilling on. But that’s how you want to think about it. The and so that’s where a hook would be with that phrase and we can give some different formulas there. There are formulas.
Chandler Bolt [00:09:56] Let’s let’s do that. So so now we know what it is. How do we how do you come up with it? Any any tips or kind of formulas that you have, like you mentioned?
Steve Harrison [00:10:05] Yeah. First of all, think of specific situations that people have. The person you’re selling your book to. What are specific situations that problems they have and give a how to angle. So for example, like Elizabeth Lombardo is a psychologist and she came to our National Publicity Summit where we train people and then she was, you know, reaching out to media. And the first hook that got her on the Today show was how not to be an overstressed mom. Now, her her book, it was Prescription for Happiness at the time. That was the book she was promoting, but she didn’t go with the title. Hey, I want to share the prescription for happiness. She went with the problem. So what’s the you know, make a list of some problems, some very specific situations that people are in. I once had a motivational speaker who we first tried to put her out to the media. You know, she was all about positive attitude, goal setting, things you and I really believe in. The problem is there are so many people out there talking about that. And I said, listen, we need something more specific. What’s a situation where where someone needs to learn how to be more positive? She said, Well, a lot of people are unhappy in their jobs and say, okay, why don’t we make the hook? How to love the job you hate? And when she got over 70 interviews that year, she got on CNBC. She was a speaker. She got booked for speaking. She didn’t even have a book at the time. But guess what? The title of the book ended up being How to Love the Job You Hate. So this is I think Look at that. Look at problems. Look at. Situations people are in. Also, if you can be timely. So generally for your book, there is a time certain times of year where whether it’s Valentine’s Day, like I’ll never forget, you know, Greg, go back, who wrote a book on thousand one Ways to Be Romantic, but obviously tie in with Valentine’s Day. But he would also tie in with August because that’s National Romance Awareness Month. You know, So the other thing you can look at is what’s going on in the news. I think being timely is one of the best ways of getting publicity in May, because there’s a lot of media that like to cover news. So if something happens on the news and you can tie in with that. Boy, it really helps. I’ll never forget we had a sales consultant who wrote a book on storytelling for salespeople. And I said to him, Great. Well, listen, we’ve got to make you timely. And ironically, the Super Bowl was around the corner. And I said, Why don’t you let’s try, you know, the Super Bowl? And he said, What do you mean? I talk about sales. I don’t talk about the Super Bowl. I said, Yeah, but what do people watch the Super Bowl for? They watch a lot of them watch for the commercials. And here’s the key question. I said, Would you be willing to do a little research about the Super Bowl commercials? I realize that’s not in your book, but would you be one to talk about, to look at the Super Bowl commercials, do a little research and promise to come on and talk about which commercials just entertained but didn’t sell the product and which ones really were actually good. And he he did the strategy twice and over that because it worked so well. And I know he got over 50 interviews, he got on ESPN, he sold 40,000 books, and he even got a major can. Somebody in Australia heard him and said, I want to book you for my company. And he ended up doing like a quarter million dollars worth of training. So it’s just. But, but, but who would have thought that, right. Yeah. I’ve got a book on sales, but what else can I tie in with? Now, of course you should be. You got a book on sales, you should be on podcasts for salespeople. And there’s your core audience. But looking, thinking in terms of timely how to some other good hooks would be where if you’ve got a. Like a question you can raise. Is spanking child abuse controversial in a week or is there something like for TV, where could you make it visual? So like we had a husband and wife team where when they came to our publicity summit, we’re getting them ready to meet all kinds of media, TV and podcasts and radio. Their whole passion is making getting the toxins out of people’s homes. And we said, Could you do a makeover where you say, give us a random family. We’ll go in, we’ll take different measurements and we’ll show them how many toxins are in people’s homes and.
Chandler Bolt [00:14:50] Cleaning products killing.
Steve Harrison [00:14:51] You. Exactly. And that ended up being the hook. Chandler ended up the hook went with is is your house killing you? So raising raising the question. Right. So yeah.
Chandler Bolt [00:15:04] I like that. So you’re talking about a hook and media hook. And then earlier you talked about, hey, you know, kind of like we always talk about like the marketing starts before the marketing starts. Like, you should think about PR even when you’re writing it. Do you see crossover and how you can embed hooks in titles, subtitles, or the topic topically with the book so that when it comes time to, you know, go on podcast, get on board? Yeah, totally. Like, is there anything you see there in any tips for that?
Steve Harrison [00:15:36] Yeah, totally. I mean, the so I call it making your book Media genic. Right. So ideally, now again, the preface I’d give is that if you’ve written your book, you know, maybe some of these ideas are for the next book. Nobody does this perfectly when they’re starting. But ideally, you know, your book title would be a hook. So, for example, like I know years ago we were working with David Bach and he was learning a lot from us about hooks. And so he created, you know, the Automatic Millionaire and literally the hook on TV. Coming up, How to be an Automatic Millionaire. I mean, you’re going to stay tuned for that, right? So your title with the other thing is can your table of contents. The chapters ideally would be hooks. And what I mean by that is it would actually they’re like teases where I, I got to read it. And so you should be able ideally to send a media person your book and he or she would look at it and say oh my gosh, chapter seven. I just we’ll just do that as the segment. That’s fantastic. So all this that’s what’s really cool is that, I mean, some things that I find there’s a certain basic human psychology. So like if you’re thinking about like, how do you make your book more media genic? Here’s some things we found is, oh, opening with a strong story. Dan Harris is the author of the book 10% Happier and Pay Attention to books that are written by media people because he opens his book literally with a crisis story of how he had a panic attack on Good Morning America and he couldn’t even speak. And he’s like, Oh, what am I going to do? Do something. Do do something, you know? That’s a powerful opening. That’s his story. And I think a lot of people don’t tell their story and instantly pull people in. And that is something now that can make you more media genic. Some other things are myths. So what are myths? People believe that you they’ll be very happy when you break them. That like I had a client where he said, You know what? So in other words, what do a lot of people think? That just ain’t so. So in his case, he was a financial consultant, mortgage consultant, actually. And he said, you know, a lot of people think that if you’ve had a bankruptcy, you can’t get a mortgage. That’s not true. Well, see, that was a really good hook. You know how to get a mortgage even if you’ve had a bankruptcy. But that audience, you know, there’s that was really good. So there are different ways to put different hooks throughout the book. The chapter titles, stories. Myth breaking. Yeah, it’s fun to do.
Chandler Bolt [00:18:28] I was just just looking at my table of contents. I’m like, Huh? Was there? All right. Is there anywhere where I’m titling chapters or sections or whatever where it’s it’s provocative or intriguing or could be a standalone thing. So let’s maybe shift gears a little bit. All right. We got we got our hook. We’ve got we’ve embedded this into the content of the book. We’ve made the book a little bit more media genic. Right now we’re like, how do we get our first? Yes. Like, any tips on on kind of first? Reaching out and getting getting in the first. Yes.
Steve Harrison [00:19:07] Yeah, I would first look at your own network. Who do you know who has a podcast or who knows somebody at a show? It’s amazing. This is something people we often forget, right? Like, you know, we just forget there are people in our lives that somebody knows somebody, you know, and be willing to ask people, Hey, could you introduce me to your friend? What kind of radio show does she do? What kind of podcast does she do? And so, first of all, look for that look. Maybe you’ve got some author friends who’ve done some podcasts say, Hey, who is that? How do you contact that person? Would you be willing to introduce me? That’s great. The other thing you want to look for is, Hey, what is my book about if it’s about breast cancer? Okay, let’s look for, you know, Breast Cancer podcast. Let’s look for magazines that cover that. Journalists who are writing on that and build a little list, your fabulous 50 list. And here’s the big key. What most people don’t do, they think it’s going to take a lot of time, but actually it takes it makes things so much more efficient, and that is to watch the show or read the publication, at least look at the description, be familiar with what they cover and how they cover it, because every media outlet has a formula. You know, they have a certain way. They might be interviewing people who give out to advice. They might be wanting people to share their inspirational stories. They may be doing controversial stuff. They you know, they may want quick tips for their column. And what you want to be doing is you want to be giving them something that is completely tailored to them. You want to give them something where they say, that’s exactly what we do. And so if you want to think about it as approaching them, we find the best way is email or direct message and make the make it first. Everyone’s favorite topic is themselves. So like I remember, I never forgot I had a there was a CNN producer that I met very briefly. I knew she didn’t remember me. It was like five years later I sent her an email. I said, Betsy, are you still doing standup comedy? I heard back from her in 3 minutes because I said in the email, Betsy, we met briefly. You may not remember, but last time we talked you mentioned you were doing some standup comedy at the time. You’re still doing that or you’re doing something else. Listen, here’s why I reached out to you. So begin with them. I liked It’s got to be real and sincere, but I loved your column. About the how to how to recover from a divorce. You know, I notice it seems you like to cover stories that empower divorced people to begin their new chapter. I have an idea for a story or for an interview. And then you give them the hook. Tell them about what you’re doing. Because a lot of times, I mean, most people are afraid to contact media because they want to be rejected or they think they don’t have enough. Oh, I don’t have my book done or my book isn’t good enough. It’s it’s it’s it’s you know, it’s like, oh, it’s not a bestseller. Oh, it’s only an Amazon bestseller. It’s not a New York Times bestseller. There’s always a narrative of, Oh, I can’t yet and yet. These media need you. I mean, they really do. They need guests. They need people to interview. And they can’t always interview the same people or quote the same people. So you’re actually when you come from a place of service and say, I notice what you cover. And here’s what I think. Here’s an idea. What do you think? You tell him a little bit about yourself and how you might serve them. I tell you, so many people are sending media things like award winning book or they’re pitching the Fox TV producer who’s doing news segments. Hey, I could do a cooking segment. It’s so clear they don’t know the show. I often, you know, I’ve interviewed a lot of media with our publicity summit and things. They say what percent of the people who pitch you. Are are on the mark and they say just 10%. So there’s real hope. I mean, you know. Yeah, there’s a lot of people out there, but if you tailor what you’re doing. Oh, it’s and it’s just a much more enjoyable way. It’s a much more efficient way to get yes’s.
Chandler Bolt [00:23:42] Got it. That’s great. So tailor the messaging, create your fabulous 50. Start with people who you know, who might have a podcast or who you know, who might know someone in TV then doing kind of your research, direct messages, emails, that sort of thing, to get reach out and tailoring the message to them and to what they care about. Industry charts that increase. It sounds like all those things increase likelihood of getting to get this right. Absolutely. And then what happens when I think this is people’s biggest fear and it’s also where most people get up are I’ve reached out. I got nothing back. I reached out to five people. I didn’t hear anything. What do you do then? Any tips for either handling rejection or follow up to get a yes? What are your thoughts there?
Steve Harrison [00:24:28] Well, as you and I both know, there’s a big difference between not hearing anything and know. A lot of people don’t realize that, which is don’t say necessarily get silence. Silence never means no. Silence just means silence. It’s all you know is you haven’t heard back. Now, the media are different from most people in that, you know, most of us have been raised that someone reaches out to you, you need to respond. The media figure, oh, you get the fact that they’re on assignments, they’re doing all this stuff and they don’t have to get back to you. But so if you don’t hear anything after a week or two, send send another email, send another subject line, be pleasantly persistent, be somebody who is giving them ideas for shows that they could do. Where don’t you don’t want to say, Hey, I never heard from you. That’s amateur. You want to get you want to be pleasantly persistent. If they say no, it’s usually because you just don’t fit what they’re looking for. It’s not personal. But I tell you, there’s so much silence where people just take it as a no. And the bottom line is give them another hook. So. I have a story. I tell my seminars that I my hardest client to promote was myself years ago because I was doing something totally different. I was actually with very little acting experience playing Hamlet in a community theater. And I told everybody, okay, I’ll do all the PR and marketing. And I knew I had to get the core audience. I knew I had to get the artsy fartsy people who would see anybody play Hamlet. I had to get into the Philadelphia Weekly. And they said, no, I thought we had a good story, you know, church group, Presbyterian Church group doing this play. Now, sorry, we only do professional productions. But I noticed and this is again, the key. Notice what they do say yes to. I noticed pictures of famous people and who are coming to town to perform, you know, in Philadelphia. I said, How can I give them pictures of famous people? And so I had some notice here. I knew I knew I was planning this out months ahead of time. And I ended up writing to famous actors who had ever played Shakespeare and give me one piece of advice and send me an autograph photo. And then I said to the Philadelphia Weekly, Do a story about this guy who’s playing Hamlet, me, but do the story on what these famous people said to him. And the story ran, and we sold out all these performances. And so there’s I find there’s pretty much always a way. I think that mindset really does help. So a no is just a reason to make sure make sure it’s a no, not silence. Give them another hook, look back at what they’re doing and see how you can serve them.
Chandler Bolt [00:27:26] That’s really great. I like that. Okay. So we’ve been pleasantly persistent. We’ve not received the silence as a no silences in the know. I love that there’s a difference between now I hear him back and know and we’ve gotten our first. Yes. What? What now? How do we do? We kind of turn. Turn a soft yes into a firm commitment. And what should we do to prep for that media appearance to make sure that that appearance sells as many copies of our book as possible?
Steve Harrison [00:27:56] Yeah. So this is we’re again, watching the watching the show, reading, you know, being at least familiar with how they cover what they do for an interview program. A lot of them will appreciate sample questions. They may not always use them, but a lot of them just, you know, they’re busy. I think one thing what people don’t realize is that podcasters, journalists, producers are busy. So the more you can make it easy for them, the better. They’d love to go home early, you know? And so give them as best you can a show in a box, so to speak. Now you do want to think about a few things before you do the show. One is, what are you going to say at the C to the call to action? In other words, how do you want to be seen? Do you want people do you want to say, go to get my book on Amazon? Okay, fine. Or do you want to say, hey, I’ve got a special offer, Here’s this free thing so that you can have people get on your list? Another good reason to be doing interviews, even if your book isn’t out yet. So that’s that’s important. There’s a little bit of planning you want to do before the interview. So you want to ask yourself a couple of things. How do I want to be seen? If you want speaking engagements, are you going to tell a story somewhere where it fits about speaking? You know, probably. Good idea. That’s called seating. Right. You want to think about how to enter. So much of things is like we listen to podcasts or radio shows in our car. Imagine we’re driving. What do what does the average person need to hear to pull to the side of the road and say, hold it. I got to I got to get this thing now, You know, get their phone out fast. I got to get this this book. I got to order this. Think through the stories you might want to tell, the points you want to make to to so that you have a basic roadmap of some of the things that you really want to say. Now you’ve got to serve the host and whatever he or she asks. But a lot of times I find people don’t have a real blueprint. For tapping into the conversation that’s going on in people’s minds in terms of generating sales.
Chandler Bolt [00:30:06] That’s great. And so have that blueprint and then have a clear call to action. Right. It’s like, okay, what is the very next step that you want people to take and make sure that that’s clear in your messaging? Right. The thing I always talk about, Steve, is when I got my first and my first media coverage, it was in the local newspaper when I was running a painting business in college, and I knew what I wanted people to do was call me to paint their house. Right. And how am I going to get them to put my phone number? And a newspaper article is probably not going to happen. Right. Because in that kind of kind of promotional. But they need a picture for the the for the article. And I says, hey, like this here’s one of my lawn signs. This is like one of the main things that we we do is I go put them around want to take a picture of me with this in front of one of the houses or in front of the house. It’s like, Oh, cool, that’s a great idea. And so I gave them that. But then in that picture is my phone number is the lines I with the phone number. And so now in the big picture, there’s everyone they see. The story is like, okay, cool. I here’s how I can call Chandler to paint my house. Do you have any examples like that where it’s like, how can authors be clear in their call to action when they’re on those media appearances?
Steve Harrison [00:31:23] Yeah, the I love that, by the way. You know, we wanted to hire people. We rented a billboard in Philadelphia and it bombed. It didn’t work. But then we pitched the Philadelphia Inquirer and said, Do a story. It’s so tough to get employees. This local company. They rented a billboard and it still didn’t work. And all they ran was the photo of the billboard. And we got like the best people who weren’t looking for jobs. So it’s it’s very similar, right? I like your story. Yeah, I like the authors. I think for authors, when you’re doing Zoom, have your book, you know, cover in a sizable way where people can see it and they can, you know, you’re coming across that way. That’s one thing. Also, don’t give your website out if you’re doing every year, you know, Dr. Carmela, John AECOM, you know, have something like, you know, more energy now, you know, and maybe redirect to Dr. Carmela Zhang. And in terms of, you know, other things that that that people do, sometimes people wear a T-shirt. You know, you kind of have to you know, you can try some different things. You always want to get a feel for how that show is. They give the host typically, you know, they tell people about what you have. It’s going to be you’re the last thing you want to talk to them about, but it’s something you’re going to want to at least know how they cover. So if you get to a TV show, for example, to a studio, you know, or they’re interviewing you via Zoom, say, listen, I really want to give you a great show. Is it at the very end, can you just you know, how we tell people about the book is somebody just like times people don’t think about that. The other thing, you know, what we find is a lot of times people say in my book, in my book, hosts hate that. You know, in my book, in my book, in my book, however, you know, and it doesn’t really help you. But when you say, well, you know, Chandler and Rich Dad, poor dad, the reason I put that together is like just in Rich Dad, poor dad. We talk about how your house is not an asset, so you just put the title in there. So it’s a quick way. It’s more helpful and it’s feels less of a pitch. Really? Mm hmm.
Chandler Bolt [00:33:30] I like that a lot. Well, hey, this has been awesome. I guess a couple final questions. What will be your parting piece of advice for the person who’s heard all of this, Steve, and said, Hey, this is awesome. Them this this would be great in this probably works good for them. But like this isn’t it for me. Like, I don’t know if I want to do this whole PR thing down for myself out there. Like this is too intimidating. This is a scary like. What’s your parting piece of advice for people who are kind of just a little bit hesitant? Do you use PR and media for for their bucks?
Steve Harrison [00:34:04] Well, you know, there’s local media. They have to write about local people. And there are podcasts that whatever your topic is, meditation, negotiation, there are people that are asking themselves, who am I going to have on my show next week or next month? And if you can be doing them a big favor by, you know, with maybe trembling hands, typing your first, you know, pitch and reaching out and you get that first one and you say, oh, my gosh, you know, you do your second one. By the fourth one, you’re going to be thinking about having your own show. You know, I mean, it builds your confidence one thing after the other. And so don’t try to do this perfectly. Nobody does. Just get moving. Just take action and look at progress. And you’re going to. And, you know, if you’re writing a book, I imagine you’re listening to us right now. You’re the kind of person where you want to do well by doing good. And you’ve got a message that you want to share. And it’s a way whether people buy your book or not. Getting on more shows, getting them out, but you’re able to make even more of a difference, which I think is a great privilege that we have in this business, is that. We can change people’s lives, whether they buy from us or not. But if you’re set up right enough people go buy your book. They sign up for your coaching program.
Chandler Bolt [00:35:28] Yeah, that’s great. Well, Steve, where can people go to find out more about you and what you’re up to? I think you’ve got a link specific to our crew with some free publicity resources and then anywhere else that people can go to to find out more about you and what you’re up to.
Steve Harrison [00:35:44] That’s you know go to author success dot com is our site. But you know one thing that I encourage people to do which I did with we use it put together is a tailored special three bonuses of author success dot com forward slash Chandler will give them three sample pitches PR pitches that they can use to imitate. I have an e-book 500 called Formulas for Fame 501. Publicity strategies and headline formulas. So they can use that to write a better book and also get more publicity. And then we have a training by four national TV producers on how to get on top shows. So just I appreciate all that you’re doing. Chandler and I wanted to put some resources together.
Chandler Bolt [00:36:26] Awesome. https://authorsuccess.com/chandler/ check out those free publicity resources. Steve this is awesome thank you so much.
Steve Harrison [00:36:43] Thank you man. Appreciate it.
Links and Resources
- Get a Free Copy of Published
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- Visit Self Publishing School Online
- Book a Call with Our Team
- https://authorsuccess.com/chandler/ where listeners can get three free publicity resources to promote their books
- https://www.facebook.com/SteveHarrisonFan/ – Steve’s Facebook page