The Secret Formula for Generating Crazy Amounts of PR, from the Founder of TerraCycle

Tom Szaky’s most recent Eco Capitalist column at Inc.com is certainly worth a read. However, here’s the thing: If you give the story just a quick glance, it won’t necessarily seem all that earth-shattering. But if you actually read it closely – and I say this with the assumption that you already understand the basics of PR — you’ll very likely recognize just how valuable and all-encompassing these tips are. After all, entire books have been based around the same suggestions Szaky is outlining here. (And again, if you’re a PR newbie, you’d be wise to read a few first. Scroll down for a brief list of my favorites.) But if you’re a self-employed person who has pitched stories to journalists in the past, here’s what I’d recommend doing: Print a hardcopy of Szaky’s column, and then tape on the wall next to your desk. As long as you’re just using it as a basic reminder, it’s really all you need to know in order to generate story after story for yourself and your business.  

And by the way, as a journalist myself, and as someone who previously worked at a daily newspaper that quite often printed press releases verbatim, I can tell you from actual experience that tip number two is golden. (”Many journalists are overworked, and if you can give them a pre-packaged story, you’re golden.) However, I can also tell you that anyone without a writing or journalism background is going to have a tough time understanding exactly what that means, so allow me to give a simple suggestion:

Let’s say your art-rock band has just released a new album. Do not write a press release that attempts to convince anyone how hard you rock, or how unusual your sound is. That’s boring. What you need is a story, and it doesn’t necessarily need to have anything to do with your music. What you’re looking for instead is anything unexpected or surprising about your band, or about any of its members. For instance, do you remember all those stories that surfaced about Pavement, because they had supposedly brought on a new drummer who was an old homeless guy? I have no idea if that was actually true, but what a great gimmick! It makes for a fun story, both for the person writing it as well as for the person reading it.

Your own gimmick, of course, doesn’t have to be anything so extreme as a homeless drummer. But keep in mind that your band’s bio should be interesting enough that even people who don’t like your music — hell, even people who don’t like music at all — will still be captivated enough to read about you. This rule applies to just about any creative business, by the way. So get your story together, and let me know what happens.

Great Books for DIY Publicists

• Startup Guide to Guerrilla Marketing by Jay Conrad Levinson
• The Guerrilla Entrepreneur by Jay Conrad Levinson
• Can We Do That?! by Peter Shankman
• PR on a Budget by Leonard Saffir
• PR Idea Book: 50 Proven Tools that Really Work by Jeff Winke
• Full Frontal PR by Richard Laemer

The Daily Bedpost weighs in on Tango’s Marriage Without Monogamy column, again

Once again, the incredibly smart Sex & Relationship journalists known as Em & Lo have weighed in on the relationship I’ve been recently chronicling for TangoMag.com. Apparently, a good friend of Em & Lo’s accused them of having an anti-open relationship bias after he read their original post about Carrie and me. The friend’s comment seems to have hit the two of them hard, and I know exactly how they feel. During my stint as the Pittsburgh City Paper’s music editor, I was almost constantly taking shit from readers who felt I was a horrible journalist because I didn’t happen to share their exact taste in obscure noise-rock, or because I wasn’t covering enough local music, or because I was covering too much local music. 

The first time this happened, I actually cried. Sounds silly, I know. But people I’d never even met — and a few people I had met – were dissecting my worth on an online message board, of all things. I spent two or three days straight wondering if maybe they were right. Maybe I was a horrible journalist and a terrible writer. For a while, I literally couldn’t think about anything else for more than a few minutes at a time. But eventually I started to realize that these people were whining and moaning about my work for reasons that had almost nothing whatsoever to do with my work. And these days, when I write an article or an essay for a website and readers fill the comments section with nasty little quips, I’m practically thrilled. Why? Because it’s proof positive that I’ve touched a nerve — and that someone out there is reading my work.

However! I’m not sure I’ve ever had my work questioned by a close friend, as in Em & Lo’s situation. That can’t feel good. But try to keep your chins up, ladies — you’re among the very best sex journalists in the business – no question about it. To learn more about Em & Lo, visit EmAndLo.com.