Thank you for joining us for another installment in our our ongoing Journalism Tips series. We started this column as a way to help aspiring writers get their start in music, but over the couple months we have been evolving into a place writers come to have their questions about life in the business answered. Today we are continuing that effort with a response to a question posed by multiple readers in regard to how writers can better themselves professionally. If you have any questions about developing as a writer/blogger in music, please do not hesitate email james@haulix.com and share your thoughts. We can also be found on Twitter and Facebook.
Over the past several months we have focused a lot of our efforts on ways to make life easier for journalists. From advice columns, to lists highlight how artists make writers feel crazy, we have done everything we could to help illuminate ways we can all simplify our efforts while simultaneously pushing our industry forward. Today we hope to continue those efforts in a whole new way by flipping the script and looking at the things writers do that drive the rest of the industry crazy.
In the coming weeks we will be looking at a number of ways journalists behave badly in the professional world. We know you all mean well, and if you had it your way you would quit whatever day job you have to write all the time, but that does not mean you always know the best way to handle this industry. In fact, more often than not it seems writers try to learn as they go, which can be exciting for them and incredibly frustrating for everyone else, especially those in publicity. With that in mind, we’ve decided to kick off this mini-series with a look at three things writers do that make pr teams want to tear their hair out and run screaming through the city streets:
Never reply to emails
The further engrained a writer becomes in music the more overrun their inbox becomes each and every day with press releases, pitches, and the like. At times, this avalanche of potential coverage can be overwhelming, and it’s not uncommon for writers to delete these messages in bulk. If you want to build strong working relationships with publicist, however, you need to master better communication skills. Press releases are sent to both inform and open the door for future coverage opportunities. Don’t just read and delete emails, respond and ask questions, talk to the people representing the artists you want to work with and devise original content ideas.
Request coverage for the same album/event again and again and again (and again and again)
Take a moment and think about how busy you claim to be running your own music blog. Think about all the time you spend working on a single post, and then all the time you put into upkeep, promotion, research, and all the other aspects of writing that goes into curating a solid music blog. Got it? Okay, now take that level of busyness and multiply it by 100 (or more). This is how busy the typical publicist is on any given day. Where you only have one site to worry about, they have literally thousands of sites to manage, each with their own list of wants/needs, and that does not even take into account the projects they are trying to land coverage for that bloggers are not crazy about.
If a publicist does not respond to you within a few hours, or even a day or two, do no panic. Unless you’re the top critic at one of the world’s top outlets the chances are probably fairly good that your needs are not at the top of an PR team’s to-do list. You also should not send the same request again, at least not for a week or more. Publicists may not reply to ever message they receive as soon as it hits their inbox, but that does not mean they have overlooked your request. Be patient. Take deep breaths and busy yourself with another set of assignments until a proper response can be created and delivered to you. The world will keep spinning even if you do not make it to that event you oh-so-badly wanted to cover. I promise.
Request and complete interviews that never run, or at least not in a timely fashion
Every writer that wants to cover an album or show has at one point or another offered to complete an interview in order to gain the access they desired. This is all well and fine, as long as writers make the effort to actually use the content they have claimed they wanted to create. The best intentions mean very little if there is no follow through, and that is especially true in the world of music journalism. If you complete an interview it should be published in a timely manner. This usually means within two weeks of the initial recording, if not sooner. The information exchanged during interviews is often time sensitive, and leaving great discussions to fill space on your audio recorder’s hard drive does nothing to help anyone’s career. If you accept a coverage opportunity, you absolutely should do whatever it takes to create the content you set out to make in the first place. This may require some sacrifice on your part, be it staying up late or skipping another big event, but in the long run following through on your commitments will forge stronger relationships within the industry than any amount of good intentions could ever hope to create.
