I started by looking up station information in specific states: Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois. New York, South Dakota, Idaho, and Washington. These were all places where Richard Hart lived. I also included California as that's where I live, and media outlets are more likely to do a story on you if you're a local. Once I had my list of stations, I went through the website of each one, searching for the contact person to send a book to. This would usually be programming, or sometimes a producer. I would always look to see if there was a specific show that handled books, and sometimes I even called to ask if the station did any specials on books. When a station looked like they only aired programming from other locations, I didn't bother with them, as I've already sent books to the main NPR and PBS production locations.
Once I had the contact information, I looked to see which seemed better, email or mail. Email is cheaper and easier, and you get an answer without a financial investment, but it's also easier to ignore or not notice when there are hundreds of emails going to some of these locations every day. It's also easier to say no to someone when all you see is an email IF you even get it. It's harder when you see a nice book that came for free which has an interesting topic right there on the cover. So I categorized many of the names on the list. The ones that were the most important, such as Chicago's public station, and the local LA affiliate, I just automatically got the name and address so I could mail a book. Some of the smaller ones, and some which seem to prefer doing things electronically got an email with links to the Bandwagon website.
The books that I mailed mostly went with media kits. Even though I made the media kits to go to stations that weren't getting books, the most important locations got them in addition to the books for two reasons: First, because they're PBS/NPR, the most likely places to feature books and therefore worth the extra effort. Second, because at a lot of these places there will be book critics considering doing book reviews, and news departments which might do stories on Richard Hart or the Capone family.
The most important package to go out today was one to The Daily Show. I managed to get the name of the woman in charge of booking guests, so I packaged up a media kit, a letter, and a book. This one being a bit more important, I made sure to get a hard cover version of it made since this was so important, and typically you see John Stewart handling the hard cover rather than the paper back.
All of these places could have learned about it through the press release I sent out, but being PBS/NPR locations that regularly talk about books, I wanted to make sure I got in their faces. So far the emails haven't had much of a response. Let's hope the mailings have better luck.
I did a number of other things this week that aren't coming to mind right now. The trouble with me reporting all this is that I work almost nonstop from morning through late into the night. Many of the things I do just get done and they're not even done being wiped from my plate when I'm on to the next thing. I almost need someone with a camera over my shoulder to show what I do, as I have no time to write them down, or to hold a camera and show people.
Although I did start one channel. After seeing a whole bunch of bloggers and Youtubers refusing to review or even look at self-published works, (even though they are self-published,) I became infuriated, and wanted to do something about it. I also have been aware that i need to stop making excuses and start losing weight. (My girlfriend doesn't let me forget.) So I decided to combine the two and I am doing a monthly Youtube program where I pick one independently published work and I read it while I'm out on walks. At the beginning of the month, I pick the book and weigh myself, and at the end I review the book and weigh myself again. Here is the first full episode.
