Friday, February 03, 2006

Doing interviews while fielding interuptions

The weird thing about doing media interviews (at least those where the Radio Station or Magazine calls your home) is you can be in your old sweats, and a ballcap with no makeup on and food in your teeth, from inhaling your breakfast, and they don't care! As long as you sound peppy, funny and have a great story - they love you. I've been doing phone interviews now for years, from home. But this is the first set of media I've done for the new book Mary McCowski was not a pretty girl, and for my own publishing company. But, it's no different. The listening audience doesn't care who published the book - they only care about hearing tantelizing sound bites about the book - so they will want to buy the book. And that's why you do media...isn't it - to get the word out?

So, this morning I did a LIVE Morning Talk show, AM1310 with Mark Wayne in CT. And was on the phone for 40 minutes with a taped interview for www.briomag.com for the Career Column (to run in the July 2006 Brio and Beyond Issue). But, I think BRIO was more intersted in me being a Flight Attendant than a small business owner. Hey, I'm both. And there in lies the frustration. I'm also a mom who will have her 9 year old home from school soon, and 13 people for dinner tonight and NO STAFF (as they say) to help.

Back to interuptions - all phones have to be off when you're doing an interview from home. No interuptions allowed. So, of course I forgot to turn off my cell phone during the BRIO interview, but it was taped so not so big a deal, and she's going to trascribe from it. But, there was a time, when I was doing a morning interview, and it was summer and this little boy came to our door to play with my daughter. And just as I opened the door for him, our phone rang (I'd forgotten to write down the time of this interview) and after I said "Hello" The voice on the phone said, "Hey this is WWWW (can't use the real letters) and we're ready for our interview live in 50 seconds." I thought a friend was playing a joke on me, and said "You're joking right?" "NO" He said, we'll be live in 30 seconds. So, I just scooted the little four year old out the door and gave my 6 year old the odd sign that Mommy was on a business call and did the interview for 3 minutes until a commercial, and then opened the door and the four year old was still there, and I told him to go back and tell his mommy that Mandy couldn't play right now, cause Marsha was on the Radio. But, she could play in 15 minutes. The message that got delivered to her was "Mandy can't play because the Radio's on". But his mom got the point. I try to alert my neighbors if it's summer and I'm on a media tour - from home.

I don't know how other authors do tours, but media in the summer is with kids at home is fraught with potential problems. So, thank God for the fact that this tour is in February, and Mandy's still in School. And may I just say something else. Nobody pays you to do interviews. OK? It's free time you donate hoping the publicity pays off. That's all I'm saying, I used to think people got paid to go around and promote books, but they don't. At least not until the book really sells well - if it sells well. OK, that's all I'm saying right now.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home