How to Pitch- 5 Mistakes To Avoid
Marian Schembari is a book publicist and freelance writer in New York. She also runs the publishing career blog, marianlibrarian.com.
Instead of honing in on the right person, publicists often just blindly email press releases - here are five mistakes to avoid and ensure you get a response. Google has made it incredibly easy for publicists to find that perfect person to pitch. The internet also makes it easy to find contact information. But instead of using the power of the web to find a select group of appropriate people, journalists sometimes complain that those in PR often contact anyone and everyone with a generic copy of a pitch letter, regardless of relevancy.
Quality over quantity, remember?
Personalize the Pitch
While the perfectly crafted pitch letter or press release serves an invaluable purpose, they should not be used as an email template. Too often publicists click “re-send” to hundreds of journalists without asking themselves whether their product/book/personality is relevant. And journalists know. A few tips to keep in mind:
- "Hello New York Journalist” is not a greeting. New York Journalist will stop reading there. Even if the pitch is perfect and 100% relevant – if it hasn't been addressed an actual person, it's is going in the bin. Take five minutes and find a name.
- Acknowledge something by said journalist. Reference an article or award. No need to be gimmicky or go overboard on the praise, just stick to why the product is worth their time. Ex: if pitching a book on automobiles to the auto blogger for the Times, say something like, “I read your piece on the new Mercedes. Our author, Bob Jones, loved that car and spends a whole chapter in his new book discussing the features.”
- But don’t suck up. Chris Brogan just posted on his blog, “Skip the flattery. PR types: starting with ‘I love your blog’ and then pitching me something I could care less about is a bit of a mismatch.” Agreed.
- Avoid words like “awesome” (yes, people actually use this word in professional letters).
- Stick to the point. If it's necessary to include a press release, do so after the signature. That gives the reader the option to ignore it. Being faced with a bunch of text right from the get-go is nothing but a deterrent. So give a brief summary, hook them, and then give the option to read further.
Final Advice on Writing a Pitch
Yes, this takes a bit more time than the average cut and paste. But not only do people want to reply to a personalized email, but they become more open to suggestions. Willy Franzen of One Day One Job said, "When you e-mail bloggers... personalize, personalize, personalize. I get bombarded with copy and paste e-mails from book PR people and it drives me nuts. All I want is one good pitch!"
