At M Communications and M Com Publishing, we do a bunch of book PR and I stumbled across a pretty funny PR email newsletter this A.M. This was funny for two reasons. First, it always cracks me up when people add me to their mailing list and send me the PR 101 newsletter. Second, the fact they had to broadcast this whopper of a PR mistake to the masses, makes we wonder if there are a bunch of publicists out there that actually do this. Anyway, the title of the newsletter was, Does your publicist do this? and then proceeded to describe how a publicist should never make the following mistake. You should never let your publicist email your book synopsis to a reporter and say, “Attached is a synopsis. Please email me any questions.” Wow. I am not really sure where to get started with this one. Apparently this publicist has never heard of a “press release.” Also, you have seconds to grab a producer’s/reporter’s attention. You cannot count on them to read a synopsis, that probably doesn’t have a hook and lacks detail, and expect them to get back to you. My point? Ask your publicist what they are sending out and how they are pitching. If you ask them to draft a press release, and they respond with “huh?”, run away screaming as fast as you can.
