Promote Your Business with a Juicy Scandal
By Marisa D'Vari

     William A. Gordon, author of The Ultimate Hollywood Tour Book, sees opportunity when celebrities misbehave. Even though his book was originally conceived as a helpful guide to tourists visiting Hollywood, he uses breaking news of celebrity murder and mayhem as a news hook to get radio producers to have him on their shows to provide expert commentary.
The media loves sensational news.

     Janet Jackson got millions of dollars of free publicity during her stunt during the super bowl. When a big scandal breaks, the media pounces upon it and suddenly the world can’t stop watching the pictures and interviews on the TV news. News reporters scramble to dig up related stories, knowing the appetite of their insatiable readers.

      Savvy authors can train themselves to take advantage of this news frenzy to hitchhike their book onto this media bandwagon.
Here is the simple three-step process of hitchhiking onto breaking news.

Step One:

     Begin each day looking at the headlines in your city or national newspaper. Ask yourself this question. How do prominent people in the news tie in with the core concept of my book? For example, John Boe found that the non-stop publicity about Kobe Bryant could be used as a news peg to promote his book and services as a body language expert.

Step Two:

     Shape this news into a pitch for print editors and radio producers.

     For print, this pitch might take the form of a tip-oriented press release, with an attention-getting, sensational headline followed by a succinct paragraph that covers the who, what, where, why, when, and how of the situation followed by five helpful tips. The advantage of a tip-oriented press release is that editors can simply cut and paste it into their publication when they have space to fill.

     For radio, use the same attention-getting, sensational headline, but follow this with intriguing questions the host can ask you on air, followed by a short paragraph on your credentials and book. Also, remember to add a line about giving books away on the air – radio hosts love that!

Step Three:

     Sign up for Google News Alerts. You will find instructions on the Google home page. For example, if you wrote a book about the psychology of shoplifting, you can program Google News Alerts to let you know any time this subject appears in a press release or article.

     During the Winona Ryder shoplifting incident, this means you would be notified with all breaking news. Armed with this knowledge, you can send a letter to the editor of the publication that published the article with your take on why Ryder committed this crime (naming your book title, of course) and also put the journalist who wrote the article into your media database. Also, introduce yourself to the journalist suggesting that he think of you as a source for related stories.
 

     This article was adapted from Marisa D’Vari’s 200-page softcover book, Media Magic: Grow Rich in Your Niche with Insider Media Secrets (read free samples at http://www.deg.com/now.htm).

    D'Vari offers a free 36-page publicity report at http://www.BuildingBuzz.com and invites you to contribute your publicity success stories for a contest in honor of Shameless Promotion Month.

© 2004 Marisa D'Vari All Rights Reserved