Using Pr To Promote Your Book
In May of 2009 Michelle Tennant Nicholson of Wasabi Publicity
, Inc., sat down to speak with couples/family therapist Dr. Jim Bierman on how to promote the ideas in his book, Of Sound Mind to Marry, through PR with tools such as www.PitchRate.com.
Heres the transcript:
Michelle:Welcome everyone, this is The Wasabi Club and it is 1:00 Eastern on Wednesday May 27th, 2009. My name is Michelle Tennant and this is The Wasabi Club.
We meet here once a month and have been doing this once a month for many years now. What we do is we talk about PR insider secrets. Really what are we, as publicists doing? So sometimes we have publicists on The Wasabi Club, we have people looking to do PR, maybe they're small business owners, or people just generally interested into what is PR and how do you get on things like Oprah and the The Today Show and CBS Early Show and all those great newspapers and magazine.
So today what we're going to be doing is we're going to be having a conversation between me, Michelle Tennant, and I've been doing PR for about 20 years. If you'd like to read about me, you can go to Storytellertothemedia.com while we're talking. I actually do global PR and place people on TV shows and radio shows and so forth. So what we're doing today is I'm talking to do you go by Dr. Bierman, Jim?
Jim:Jim is fine, but yeah, I'm Dr. Jim Bierman.
Michelle:Okay, 'cause we want to make sure, 'cause we going to talk about the importance of you having a PhD. So we're going to go ahead and I'm going to introduce you as Dr. Jim Bierman and I'm going to be actually coaching Dr. Bierman in PR today. A lot of times people will walk up to me and kind of pick my brain, and I say, well you know, we actually charge thousands of dollars for that, but in this type of context what we can do is tape record it, and then actually have it benefit other people out there as well who may be small business owners or experts and so forth, looking to do PR but maybe they don't have two, five, ten thousand dollars a month to spend on a publicist, but they can actually then generate PR for themselves.
So that's what we're going to do, I'm going to introduce a little more about Dr. Bierman in just a minute, but let's do some housekeeping. If you're actually on the call with us, then you might want to mute yourself. If you want to if you're listening to this in the future on an MP3 recording or so forth and you actually have questions for either me or Dr. Bierman, what you can do is actually e-mail me and then at the end of the call I'll talk a little bit about how to reach Dr. Bierman as well, 'cause maybe you even want his services.
For the time being, write down Michelle@publicityresults.com, and that's two "L"s in Michelle, and there's an "S" on "results", and we also have complete phone numbers and contact information and all the other websites that we're going to mention in this call can be linked from Storytellertothemedia.com, which is the easiest one to remember. I probably have 30 different URLs to share.
I think right now what we're going to do is just have kind of an intimate conversation between Dr. Bierman and myself. And then if there are other people on the call and they actually want to ask a question just jump right in. But it's going to be a little special, 'cause in the past with the Wasabi Club we've kind of had more of a panel discussion. But really what we want to do is give people they're going to be flies on the wall, listening to our conversation, okay, Jim? So that we can really get into the nitty-gritty of what you're doing with your book and with your other ventures. And we'll talk about that in just a minute.
So let me talk a little bit about who Dr. Bierman is. He's a licensed clinical psychologist and he has 14 years of clinical experience. He actually practices out of Palm Springs, California, but he also has some other ties to LA, Seattle, London and rural northern California, where he treated individual adults, couples, families and children. So who you are, Jim, from what I can see from your bio is a certified parent evaluator. What exactly does that mean? You're qualified to evaluate parents in high conflict child custody cases, and so you make recommendation to the court for residential placements for children. So talk a little bit about what that means. Do you kind of just go into the court system and then just give your professional opinion, like we see on Law and Order or what?
Jim:In a way, yes, that's right. I'm appointed by the court in these high conflict child custody cases to render an opinion about placement of the child. So this is always, like I said, very high conflict, we do these very expensive, in-depth evaluations that turn out to be about 40, 45 pages long, backing up the recommendation that we make. At the end of it there's at least one person, one of the parents guaranteed to be angry with you, and it's hard, sometimes, to keep track of the most important issue, which is the best interest of the child.
So in this venue, I'm recognized as the expert of the court, or a divorce expert. And I'm struck by how little new information we're able to learn in this late evaluation that we couldn't have learned in premarital counseling, when we really could have been planning for success, instead of trying to prepare for the best possible of bad options.
Michelle:So you actually there's kind of a through line to who you are as you know, one of the things that I really take on as a publicist is this storytelling aspect of actually helping people create media documents and media materials that help tell the story about who you are to the media, and then provide them, "Okay, well here's different things so that you can actually tell a compelling segment or story or article to your listeners, viewers, readers about this particular, maybe this topic, this societal problem that we have." So you've got a through-line going you've got before marriage, through that kind of like, you know, how to actually date, probably, and get to know are you compatible for future parents, and then the through line of actually being in a marriage and then raising a family, all the way through the sticky part of, "Okay, now what do you do if it doesn't work?"
Jim:Yes, and I should have talked to your before I wrote my book. I think you would have advised me to target a different population. Personally and professionally, I'm very interested in early intervention. I believe that if we can make an early intervention, we can have the maximum impact, and benefit the whole family. In terms of PR and selling books, I probably targeted the least likely population to go out and buy a book. Engaged couples are interested in picking out dresses, and wedding cake flavors they're not interested in talking about premarital counseling and the fact that they can improve their chances of marital success by 30% for this nine-hour investment.
Perhaps I should have written the book for in-laws, who might want to say something to the couple and coach them a little bit. But just because of their role and their relationship, they're not able to say it for themselves. So they might be able to use my book to say, "Here's some thoughts to help you plan your marriage as thoroughly as you want to plan your wedding."
Michelle:Interesting. And you're right. I think that it's a really good point for people who are out there writing a book where is your audience? And also, then, it's not a lot of people say your book is not necessarily the product that's the moneymaker. The book I and of itself is actually just a vehicle for PR. So my other question is what's actually putting food on your table? Is it your therapy sessions, is it products that you're selling, or what's actually what's your bread and butter right now, so that we can that's really where we're going to want to look at your audience as well.
Jim:It's definitely in my private practice, in counseling individuals and couples. I haven't seen a profit. I don't know if I will see a profit from the book. It's been my motivation from the beginning to get the word out and to try and spread this message that I believe in. It would be nice if I could do that more successfully, and that would be reflected in more book sales.
Michelle:Well perfect. No these are integral questions, I think, that we want to ask of any expert or small business, it's not only well where are you currently successfully selling your products and services, but then where do you want to be selling your products and services. So in the future just kind of get your little crystal ball out, and then in five to ten years are you still doing private practice, or are you making the majority of your money elsewhere?
Jim:If there was an opportunity to do more workshops for couples, to do more group counseling sessions, which would be cheaper and more convenient for a lot of couples, then I would love to be doing that. I'm certainly connected to some good people who have strong organizations behind them. At the moment I'm really focusing on working with individuals and couples one by one, and by having conversations like this one with you.
Michelle:Yes. I mean I think that it's funny, because there's all type of conversations you can have in the world, but one of the things that a publicist looks at is, you know, where have you been, so where's your credibil- -- 'cause I'm looking for credibility, which you have because of your private practice, because of your educational degrees. And by the way, if you want to actually check out Jim while we're talking, if you're in front of your computer, his website is Ofsoundmindtomarry.com.
I really think that a good publicist also asks the question of not only where have you been and your credibility, but where are you headed. So it's possible that I may have actually advised you on a different audience when you wrote the book, but there you've got the book. So you can always write another book, and there's all different ways to publish and you can self-publish and really keep things cost-efficient if you want to.
But let's just go through so you see growing your private practice still primarily in Palm Springs, Jim?
Jim:That is where my office is. I'm also available to do online counseling through a website called Liveperson.com. That's incredibly successful, really. It's convenient for people in rural areas, distant areas, perhaps areas where they dont want it known that they're seeking counseling, and can be quite affordable that way. Also on my website there's a number of links to questionnaires, little measures of relationship success that people can use and get a snapshot of their relationship. By the way, I don't make any money off of those that's just a service for people to help themselves.
I'm interested in being as effective as possible, and these are the opportunities that I see for myself that I can pursue. So I am. It's a real opportunity for me to talk to you, Michelle, because I'm sure there's things that I haven't considered that I could be pursuing.
Michelle:Well let's do that, because I do see a few things, and I'm checking out as you speak this Liveperson.com. So pretty much you can counsel anyone. Here's the thing that's really valuable about the book that you wrote. Let's talk about audience. I think that that's really an important conversation to have in any type of PR conversation. Who is your audience?
Well you chose strategically to go after couples who are getting married. Let's talk about the pros and cons of that, okay? Here's what's really great about that is that there is always a lot of wedding media. The reason why there's a lot of wedding media is because there's a lot of people who want to advertise to people who want to get married, you see?
So there's going to be a lot of wedding media, they're going to need content, they're going to need experts, they're going to blah-blah-blah. So you've got a niche that's very powerful in that you are an expert who would be very desirable to any media who's covering wedding topics. Now I know for a fact that The Today Show, every year they do a special wedding series. It may already be done, or if not, it's in the works now. But they always do up and coming stuff. Now they may or may not have you on as a segment, but I would highly urge you to pitch them on a regular basis about tips. You have three to five tips that you could disclose in a four-minute segment with them on, "Hey, are you going to make it through the long haul? Are you going to you know, kids," we really have to think of some creative headliners and segment what we would call them. But I could see you actually on these top shows when they're doing their wedding segments, kind of looking ahead, like, are you going to be good parents, or is it going to end in a breakup? And then you're actually talking about the important questions to ask now, before you get married, which you want to keep it lighter, because it is a happy time, it's a happy topic, but actually what is interesting it's too bad 'cause I've already put the interview together. I was working with a freelancer who's working with a syndicated column on the topic of what do you do when the family's feuding and you're getting to do a wedding? You'd be a perfect expert to talk about that.
Now we connected her with a wedding planner and a family counselor. But you see how you straddle both? You have an interesting niche there. So on one hand that's very powerful about your book, and I would urge you in the future to always target wedding media of all kind: TV, freelancers, wedding magazines and the like.
Now we know of you I actually met you through pitch-rate.com, and I understand that you've actually used pitch-rate are you currently using it right now?
Jim:Yes I am. I check their bulletins daily. They send me an e-mail every day with magazine radio hosts who are looking for experts or articles on various topics. You can choose what topic you can respond to and make your pitch. That's how I connected with Valdar Beebe, of The Valdar Beebe Show. And now I'm one of her life experts, doing a six-show appearance on one of her series that's coming up in August.
Michelle:Wow! She's got a nice reach. I know Valdar Beebe's show and that's huge. And so you're going to do six shows with her?
Jim:Yeah. I'm real happy about it. Valdar's a wonderful woman to speak with. She has a lot of enthusiasm and a real talent for honing in on what people need to hear for themselves. Yeah.
Michelle:So that's really great. So for those of you who don't know what pitch-rate is, pitch-rate is a free service, and it's simply pitch, like you're pitching a baseball, and rate, like I'm going to rate you like the movies get rated kind of thing, like a thumbs-up and thumbs-down. It's the same type of thing where the media go on, they're looking for certain experts, and then we, as experts, I'm in PR, Jim's in therapy and marriage issues, then Boom, we say, "Hey, I can talk about X, Y, Z," and then they call us for the interview. And then after the interview they rate us, whether we're a good interview or a bad interview.
So somebody was talking about pitch-rate recently and called it sort of like the Angie's List, where you can actually say whether people are good or not. But I'm really enthused, 'cause that's how I found you too. We wanted to actually highlight and feature somebody in The Wasabi Club where I can actually coach them in PR, for the benefit of other people. And the guys over at pitch-rate suggested you, so great.
Great, now you get a little bit of free PR counseling too, on top of it to boot.
Jim:I'm very grateful.
Michelle:You're welcome.
Well here's what I see. So you've got this book, definitely do the media scene. The other thing is is that another huge almost every magazine out there is going to deal with relationship topics. Generally the media gets moved on three areas: they either want to know about how to improve your health or nurture your health, how to make more money change your career, have a satisfying job, all that kind of stuff, or they want to know about love. And you can say, in a crude way, that sex sells, but let's just say that it's really about love and intimacy, it's really about relating with your family, with your spouse, communicating effectively with your children, your in-laws and so forth. It really is about love.
So I like to think about all my PR campaigns, like is this really about health, is this really about wealth, or is this really about love? And so you are really about love, right? And your love with your spouse, love with our children, love with your family. So that's one of the ways you talk about, in the information that you sent me is what you're really passionate about, and I think that that's really important to put further up top in your communications.
One of the things that you say is, "I hope to give partners and young parents the best first chance at growing a happy family and creating meaningful lives for themselves." Great, and you're informed your work, your expertise is informed many years of working with couples and family, and your PhD from your California Graduate Institute in LA and your post-doctoral training at the University of Washington School of Medicine, Parent Evaluation and Training Program. Well that's really what does that mean? It's a mouthful.
Jim:It sure is. That's where I was trained to do the child custody evaluations that you mentioned at the beginning of the show.
Michelle:Okay now we're going to get to that in just a minute, too. So the soft topics that you're really that you have certain expertise to discuss, you know, wedding, love, any type of family communication or child communication issue you can speak to.
Now let's talk about, though, your really coveted you know most people say, "I want to be on Oprah," or "I want to be on CNN," or "I want to be on Larry King," those kinds of things, right? So let's talk about that, 'cause you also have a really unique aspect to your expertise with this court system in this particular is this a do a lot of people have this this medicine parent evaluation training they don't, that's unique for you?
Jim:Yes. It's a very small segment of psychologists who pursue this credential. It's a very high conflict and litigious it's a high risk of litigation. So most people say, "No, why do I want the headache?" But again, it's about being effective. And when you're advising the court, the court's about to make a very long-lasting decision, and it's good for me to be in a position t
by: Michelle Tennant
The Siberian Husky Dog Serving Raclette Cold Sore Freedom In 3 Days Pdf Do You Really Need A Replacement Roof Fall Foliage How To Last Longer Now How To Build A Chicken Coop Easy Custom Harley Embroidered Patches Make Riding More Fun If You Are An Overeater Let me introduce to you Is it a Bedbug Bite? Conan O'Brien Is Back, Quirkier than Ever How To Make The Most With Pr Outreach On Pitchrate.com