Caitlyn Kelleher Interview

“You need to be interesting and unique, but also relevant and accessible,” Caitlyn Kelleher, media and press consultant, said to me when we first discussed publicizing our award-winning anthology; A Christmas Sampler: Sweet, Funny, and Strange Holiday Tales. “You need to realize that your press release is going to be one of hundreds, and you’re going to have to be overwhelmingly interesting not to end up in the trash.”

BWG reached out to Caitlyn, for a little feedback on its' first press release. We didn’t think we’d need much help, we are a group of writers after all, but it didn’t take her long to realize we, like most authors, were relatively clueless when it came to marketing our own work.

As a reporter, newspaper editor, and media and press consultant, Caitlyn offered everything our little writers group lacked, when it came to these questions. Her years in journalism gave her the experience to help us craft a publicity campaign that took A Christmas Sampler from an anthology by local Pennsylvania authors to a group featured in publications up and down the East Coast.

In the interest of sharing Caitlyn's knowledge with the greater writing community, we reached out to her again with a few questions.

Bethlehem Writers Group: What is the one thing you wish all writers would realize when they start publicizing their work?

Caitlyn Kelleher: The hardest reality for most authors to accept is that reporters and editors care very little about your book unless you force them to. I know it’s hard to hear about something you just spent years of your life working on, but there are tons of books published every year--a number that just keeps growing with the self-published industry.

BWG: And how do authors react to that advice?

CK: They don’t like hearing it and with somewhat good reasons. But as an editor, my job is to make my readers care about something they don’t know about or don’t have a lot of time to find out about. The best way to make readers care is to connect the news to them. As the editor of a small weekly newspaper, I would get a couple of hundred e-mails a day. I’ll be honest, I don’t open them all and of those that I open I often don’t read beyond the first paragraph or two.

Even when I read a whole press release, most of the time I could care less what product the press release is selling. As a reporter, I’m looking to put a story in the paper or on the website that will connect my readers with the story behind the book, or the story behind the author. As the editor of a newspaper my job isn’t to promote your book - it is to fill the pages of my paper with content that entertains or informs.

BWG: If you tend not to read a whole press release, how many words do you think we have to grab your attention?

CK: On a good day. I would say you have to hook the person in the first 20 words and then keep them interested in the next 100, that’s why keywords are important. It’s like a Google search. A whole press release should be concise, and is kind of like an elevator pitch to an agent but can be upwards of 300 words.

BWG: How can we make our press releases more attractive?

CK: You need to make yourself connect to the community that the publication is in. The key phrase in journalism right now is ‘hyper-local’. Once you’ve used up the local angle, it’s time to find the niche of the publication you are pitching your piece to. Did you write a memoir about parenting your young autistic child, and are you pitching it to a parenting publication? If yes, then you make sure you used the words: parenting, children and autism rather than memoir, lifetime, and home town - in the first paragraph.

BWG: So, you can’t just have a single press release do all your work for you?

CK: Only if you want half the people reading it it to delete it. A press release is somewhat like a cover letter if you are applying for a job. The base information will stay the same but a good press release system will have a different introduction for every publication it is being sent to because every publication is slightly different.

BWG: When in your publication schedule should you send out releases?

CK: If your book hasn’t been published yet, then I don’t care about it as an editor because too many things can happen and it might never get printed. I am not about to feature a book that won’t get printed unless you are a very very well-established author expecting your tenth best seller.

BWG: So, should press releases coincide with publication with no lead time?

CK: Right. If you are having an event to present the book, to sign the book or otherwise engage the public then three weeks is a good lead time for publicizing it.

BWG: What should every press release be certain to include?

CK: Well, your contact information, to start. And as we discussed earlier the keywords that will make you attractive to the publication you are sending the press release to. If you want a picture included with the article then you should send one in, a great way to advertise yourself and your book is to take a picture of you holding the book.

You also will want to be sure to include when the book was published, where it is sold, and a very brief description of the plot - no more than 100 words - and a brief bio. You want enough info in it so if that is the only thing a reporter has, then she still has enough to write a short article. If she decides to interview you, you want to give her enough to base a solid interview.

BWG: What about e-mailed attachments: good or bad?

CK: Most of the time attachments should follow the same rules as attachments that you would send to anyone else. Do not send ones that are too big or too small. If you send a PDF makes sure the person opening can highlight the text to copy and paste it - as retyping is more likely to lead to mistakes. And don’t send anything that may need to be converted to be opened on older machines - the world of journalism is not known for investing in new technology unless it is seen by the public on television.

BWG: So, no holograms in your office?

CK: Unfortunately nope. In fact, I’ve worked with technology so old that I’ve had to forward .docx attachments from my work account to my personal e-mail so that I could open it in Google Docs then convert it for web editing, copy the text, and then paste the text into Word as a 97-03 document.

BWG: Oh, that's not good.

CK: It’s scary but you get used to it. So my advice is to make sure your attachments are the simplest and most universally compatible versions of a program. Oh and no Publisher documents. No one can open those.

BWG: Barring advanced technology, an attachment doesn’t necessarily mean an automatic deletion?”

CK: Not unless you are sending me a virus.

BWG: Is there any way to predict which outcome a press release will produce?

CK: It’s really hard to know. When you send in a press release you have no ability to control the rest of the news in the community. If there is a major event going on in a town or in a specific industry, no offense but you just aren’t going to compete for space or for the time of a reporter.

BWG: Once we send out our press releases, what's next?

CK: Once you've done your press release, you have to decide what’s next in your desire to prep for the next step - the interviews, the social media blitzes, and self-written or self-submitted articles.

BWG: Okay, how should we prepare for an interview?

CK: You have to keep in mind that you and the reporter are both going to go into the interview with a purpose and most likely it is going to be different purposes. You want to sell your book; the reporter wants to fill space and find something - anything - interesting that is not the plot of your book. The reporter wants to make this feature stand out from the two she wrote last week and the ones she knows she will write in the weeks to come.

So before my clients participate in an interview, I have them practice talking about how they wrote their book. Do they have an interesting reason the plot occurred to them? Why did they pick a specific setting? I encourage them to solicit practice questions from people who haven’t read their book because in all likelihood neither will the reporter. Also, the more diverse the questions, the more likely they are to be prepared for anything the reporter might think up.

Never roll your eyes and say no ‘one would ever ask me that.’ Spend a moment and think of an answer. Cause someone might ask you that.

If you naturally speak fast, then remember to slow down because the reporter is writing what you say. And-- I can’t emphasize this enough--remember the reporter is writing what you say. Don’t say anything you don’t want the reporter or the world at large to know because, and I will repeat myself, the reporter is writing down what you say.

Oh, and for the love of all writing, at the end of the interview don’t ask to read the story before it goes to print.

BWG: No?

CK: Absolutely not. A - a good journalist will always say no, and B - it really makes the reporter mad. If you do not think the interview went well, you can ask the reporter to read you back your direct quotes but even that will only give a small taste of what is in the notebook.

BWG: Your services don’t end there. What other advice do you have for authors?

CK: Press releases and preparing people for interviews are the biggest part of getting publicity. But as you know, there were other ways we got publicity for A Christmas Sampler, and there is a plan for each book.

First, you can write your own articles and those can get published much the same way as if you were a correspondent.

When you are writing an article, remember it should follow the rules of journalism not the rules of fiction. I wrote a handful for you when we were publicizing A Christmas Sampler. I remember trying to convince you that one sentence was a paragraph and no paragraph should be more than 35 words.

BWG: Which is why you'll need our help when you try to write your memoirs.

CK: True. Switching styles of writing is really hard. This is why working with someone who has a background in journalism is indispensable, especially for first-time authors. Journalism has a whole set of rules that originated back in the days when we had to set each letter by hand in the printing press.

BWG: So once we’ve learned to write under new rules, or better yet hired you to write the articles for us, what can we do with these self-written articles?

CK: You can use them on your own website, or submit them to alumni magazines, bookstore or library newsletters, and other outlets that do not have their own reporters. It is more important to write articles that are journalistic in form because you have to attract the reader that does not have a lot of time to spend and is usually skimming looking for brief nuggets of information.

BWG: So we have press releases, interview preparation, and self-written articles. How else can we authors publicize our work?

CK: Many of you will be getting out into the community to sell your product through author readings, book signings or other events. You need to make sure people know about these events or else you will be sitting in a room all by yourself, not a lot of fun.

BWG: We've experienced this. Author events with lots of readers (for example, signing at the Moravian Book Shop during their Christmas rush) are far more exciting than trying to sell a Christmas book on a freakishly Summer-hot day in early December. No one in the northeast US wants to buy a Christmas book when they’re breaking out their shorts and flip-flops for one last fling. So, how can we make sure to publicize such events?

CK: Sending calendar items to local publications is a good idea. Fifty to one hundred words telling who, what, where and when. Your long-form press release can often be sent along as a supplement to this blurb but you want to make sure that a quick cut and paste can get your event into the calendar. Also in some communities there are very active social media websites for events to be posted, if that is where your neighbors go to find out what is going on, that is where you want to be.

BWG: Clearly connecting with the local community is an important part of publicizing both the events and the book itself. We know our local papers and bookstores, but how can we find other outlets to publicize our books?

CK: Actually that is something that an author and I can sit down together to develop a plan for as there are lots of niche publications out there that might want to feature a book on a related subject, or an author that has a connection to their field. Also every author has a past, so we will look at reaching out to publications from where they were born, where they went to college, and a variety of other sources. You can also reach out with a completely different style of press release, and publicity model to book focused publications.

It’s not an easy process, or a quick one as you need to figure out who the contact person is, their information, and think about what is going to make you special to them.

BWG: What about social media?

CK: Social media is a great thing and should be used as much as possible but when using it you have to remember a few things.

One is that most social media only goes out to people who you are connected with - that’s great for letting people know what’s going on in your life but your best friend is probably already going to buy your book. So you need to make a concentrated effort to use social media proactively and as a teaser but not a place to simply copy and paste the summary from the back of the book.

Two, you have to remember that anything on the Internet is public. By publishing and promoting yourself you are making yourself a public figure. Unless you are writing a very specific type of book, you don’t want a Congressman Weiner moment, or to end up on any list of year-in-review scandals. You probably also don’t want to be known for your political views, for being critical of other pop culture, or for anything that might be controversial when you are starting out.

BWG: Do you advise against politically controversial techniques?

CK: Not necessarily. The role of a media consultant is often a combination of what the client and the consultant want it to be. I'm a consultant, not a media representative, so it's not my job to control your image, just publicize it. If you decide you want to be the author with strong political views, I’ll let you. It's my job to work with you to harness your media strategy and develop a media presence, whatever sort of presence you want that to be.

I will either teach an author how to market themselves, or take over the task of marketing for them. I always want to make sure the client has a solid grasp of the plan and works closely with me to develop it. In my view there is no better advocate then oneself. Also, the only person who can answer questions during an interview is you, so you better have a good grasp on what, and how to communicate about your book.

BWG: Do you see the role of media consultant as more of an advisory role, or do you consider yourself as more of a service for hire?

CK: Both. It depends on what the client needs. We did a combination of methods for you when A Christmas Sampler came out. I started your calendar item press releases, and based on where you held events you filled in the details, and e-mailed them off from the list I made for you. That way, if you had a last minute event you could just get the information out and not wait for me.

BWG: We did, and you know what we learned?

CK: Clearly not how to write a press release. No, what did you learn?

BWG: We prefer writing to this whole publicity thing. Good thing we have your number! After all, the time we don’t have to devote to writing press releases we can instead spend on our writing.

CK: And preparing to help me write my memoir.

BWG: Exactly.