Peaceful

I only have one radio show to do today. I guess I shouldn't be grateful, but I am. It will be nice to have long stretches of time in which to work, instead of thinking all the time about the next show.

It's not exactly stressful being on the shows. You just sit and yap. But it's distracting during the rest of the day.

I have to say, everyone I've worked with has been polite and supportive. I can't complain about the treatment I've gotten. On the other hand, I've gotten a number of bad interviews. I think this is what happens when you get booked on small shows; sometimes they're great, but sometimes you're dealing with people who have small audiences because they're just not good at what they do.

I'm a pretty easy person to talk to, and I'm naturally somewhat funny, so I should be a breeze to work with. But some hosts have no knack for conversation or humor, so they step on the laughs, or they completely miss the jokes, or they utterly fail to perceive what is funny and entertaining about the book. And of course, some of them haven't read a single page of my book OR a summary, so as far as they know, they're interviewing a guy who wrote a spam textbook.

I can tell when a host is in the wrong profession, because they ask bad questions, and I turn them around and talk about things that are entertaining, waiting for the host to break in, and then I stop, and...dead air. While the host fumbles for something new to ask. Hello? Shouldn't you have a plan when you interview someone? Wouldn't a short list of appropriate questions be a good idea? The KQRS people had the good sense to ask for a small amount of info up front, and I supplied it immediately, and the interview was good. Shouldn't that be standard procedure?

I do everything I can to make them look good, while promoting the book as well as possible, but sometimes I have nothing to work with. And it's disappointing, because I'm paying for most of these spots.

Either you're a natural talker, or you're not. I guess that's what it boils down to. Successful radio hosts have a special talent, whether it's obvious to you or not. Listen to Howard Stern and then listen to someone whose show is floundering; Stern will be more entertaining, even when he's talking about trivial business. That's the difference talent makes.

My hope is that as I get more attention, it will be easier to land bigger shows, and that the bigger shows will do better interviews.

I'm also rethinking my willingness to do small shows. They do no good whatsoever; you never see a sales increase after a small show. I think anything other than a popular show in a major market is probably a waste of time and a giant mistake. I want to be a nice person and work with anyone, no matter how small, who offers to interview me. But my time is limited, and I have to see some kind of return on my investment. Smalls shows don't pay off, and the time they require takes you away from work, so you get screwed from two different directions.

The apparent paradox is that the more famous you are, the more willing you should be to do small shows. Because they can't really hurt you, and it's a generous thing to do. If you're just starting out, you can't spend every day farting around with vanity podcasts and kids broadcasting out of their parents' garages. At the beginning of a career, every appearance has to count.

PR people should try to think mathematically when they get their clients on the air. They seem to think any exposure is good, but that's not true. Most of the shows I get are small. One appearance on a big show is better than fifty appearances on small ones. I still can't believe I was almost booked on a show in a remote county containing 32,000 people. I would have reached a thousand of them, tops. I get more PR every time another blogger links me. Why should I pay for that?

The upshot of all this is that I plan to quit paying publicists. It's clear that I can get myself several big, effective exposures a month. It costs me nothing, and it has to be more efficient than twenty shows heard by a thousand or five thousand people each. If I knew a publicist whom I knew to be effective, it would be a different story, but unfortunately, you have to pay a publicist several thousand dollars to find out whether he knows what he's doing. I don't plan to empty my life savings, auditioning publicists. If I hear about a really excellent publicist I'm sure I can count on, I'll change my mind, but so far, it looks like I'm doing much better than the pros.

Six weeks ago, I thought a willingness to pay for PR was what made the difference between successful authors and unsuccessful ones. I figured any reputable firm would give me what I needed. Now I realize you can't get good PR simply by writing a huge check. You have to make damn sure you hire the right person--which is extremely difficult--or you have to go out and get the exposure yourself.

Hard lesson. Thank God I learned it before committing to an outrageously expensive campaign.