If you are an expert who has written a book or you are an “enterprising author,” one of the most important things you can do is secure media interviews. When you’re on radio, television, podcast shows, or in print, your credibility skyrockets.

Interviews are a great way to reach potential readers and ultimately more clients.

It is important to stay extremely organized in the process. Not only do you want to keep a close eye on who you’ve contacted, but you also want to make sure you don’t book duplicate interviews.

Before embarking on the process of finding interview opportunities, think in terms of how you can make the most of your efforts. For example, you can link your presentations to the media on specific occasions, such as holidays.

A quick Google search will bring up a lot of great information about the upcoming vacation.

Stay organized

I found some great tools that allow me to stay organized and plan my campaigns.

The first is a simple tracking form that you can easily create in Word or Excel. Below is a very basic form. You can make it as simple or complex as you like, but make sure you don’t waste all your time in authoring mode.

The other is an annual wall calendar at a glance. In 2016 I bought a paper calendar. I really like being able to take a look at the whole year at once. Mind you, this is just to give me a quick look at what’s to come and the calendar is a good planning tool.

Although it is very inexpensive, the biggest drawback is durability. As long as I don’t make mistakes in what I put on the calendar, resulting in crossing out information just to scribble on something else, this calendar can work.

For 2017 I decided to go with a laminated erasable calendar. Although it is more expensive, I know it will be worth it. I don’t have to worry about getting every day correct from the first time I write something.

I got both calendars from Amazon. Both were delivered within 48 hours of ordering and with my main membership I didn’t have to pay for shipping.

Stay on top of the news

One of the easiest ways to find out what’s going on is to run a Google alert. Google Alerts is a content change detection and notification service offered by the search engine company Google. The service sends emails to the user when it finds new results, such as web pages, newspaper articles, blogs or scientific research, that match the user’s search terms.

There are many alternatives to Google Alert and some of the most popular are Mention, Social Mention, and Talk Walker Alerts.

The point is, you want to be aware of what is happening in your industry.

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