Successful Book Event with Career Intuitive Sue Frederick

I am watching a fascinating phenomenon occuring within this country right now. The catalyst is one of my authors, Sue Frederick. Sue is a career intuitive who has written a book called I See Your Dream Job: A Career Intuitive Shows You How to Discover What You Were Put on Earth to Do (St. Martin's Press; 2009). This book is taking off in ways I never imagined and Sue is having to hang on for a wide ride. More on that in a moment...

I liked Sue from the moment we first spoke on the phone. She is one of the most gracious and warm human beings I have ever had the pleasure to know. Deciding to work with her was an easy decision. Sometimes you just know when something is right, you know?

During this time of economic difficulty and job layoffs, Sue's message is powerful: This is your opportunity to reassess. Were you really happy doing what you were doing? When you're in a job and comfortable, it's very difficult to take a bold jump and leave. When you're forced to leave, before locking yourself into another similar position, stop and take a good, hard look: Is this what you are meant to do? Then talking with Sue gives you new, added insight. What is your true calling? (She gave me a reading and it gave me goosebumps for days.)

I See Your Dream Job is a much-needed guide to finding one's true calling and how to realize it, which uses the ancient system of numerology. It's What Color is Your Parachute for those who yearn for a meaningful career in today's world.

What is amazing to me is that every event she does -- a talk, a booksigning, a lecture -- is always filled to capacity and beyond. She was recently in New Orleans and had over 200 people at her Barnes & Noble bookstore event. Over 200!

It's one thing if you're a famous athlete or an infamous celebrity, it's something else when you're not particularly well known with the general public. Along with her publisher, we did the usual things like setting up media interviews on radio, TV and in print, in addition to arranging a talk at Loyola University. We notified everyone we knew in the area and used social media to spread the word and together it all worked. Over 200 people were at the event at Barns & Noble and they bought books.

Earlier in this post I mentioned a phenomenon going on in this country. Ever since the financial crises in the fall of 2008, Wall Street executives and others from around the country have been calling her for readings. We're talking top executives of very old, established, conservative industries--financial institutions, law firms, the insurance industry among them--calling Sue for help. She also hears from the average working man and woman, along with moms and dads, grandmothers and grandfathers in all demographic groups. And has she ever helped! (More on that coming up.) She has a story coming out in People magazine soon which I will post a link to here. Many individuals who have been helped by Sue will be covered in ths story.

So there you have it. Oh, and every single radio show I have booked her on has come back to me for a second interview. Every single one. I have never seen this before.

The beauty of this is that you just never know what you're sitting on when it comes to your book. You might have the next big topic that takes off and creates another phenomenon. Don't cut yourself short.

If you're looking for a publicist to help you with your book, I'd love to hear from you. Feel free to email me at joanne (at) joannemccall (dot) com. If you want to learn how to promote your own book, I invite you to explore an audio program I produced which covers a great deal of what you need to know and do for the success of your book. http://bit.ly/Ithj.

Happy marketing and promoting!

Warmly,

Joanne

TIPS FOR BEING A GREAT RADIO GUEST!

I've been a radio lover forever. I love books too, which explains the two careers I have chosen in life. As a publicist, I work with authors at many different levels of media experience. Some don't need any coaching at all because they're they have experience and they understand the importance of knowing their key messages and how to speak in sound bites.

For those who aren't savvy--yet--I have some pointers for doing radio interviews. Some of these tips overlap into television and print interviews, but all of them apply to radio--terrestrial or digital. Here we go:

1. Always be polite to the producer and the host. This may seem obvious, but you'd be amazed what some people say--especially when they're stressed. Which leads me to point #2:

2. Live radio often covers breaking news so if you're scheduled for a live interview, know that the possibility of getting bumped exists. This applies to in-studio and over the phone interviews. Breaking news is breaking news, and unless your topic relates to the breaking story you are out of there. Accept it and be nice about it.

3. Never cancel an interview unless you're really, really sick, your flight is in a holding pattern over Denver, or you're dead.

4. If you're doing a series of interviews such a satellite radio tour, write all your key messages on index cards and as you make each point and tell each story, flip the card over. When doing back-to-back interviews, you will be amazed at how much this helps you.

5. If you're doing a phone interview, don't judge your performance by the response you get from the host. You may be doing great but suddenly all the computers in the control room crash. I guarantee you it is wild in there as people scramble to put things right, but they usually won't tell you that over the airwaves. They may be depending on you to keep talking and keep the interview going while they fix things. The fact that they're not interacting much with you has nothing to do with your performance. Remember: It isn't always about you.

6. If it's an early morning interview, get up extra early so that you can warm up your voice by drinking warm fluids and singing. Do something to make sure your voice doesn't crack.

7. Radio is very auditory. The listeners only have your voice to go by, so if you have a speech impediment consider seeing a therapist, and if you tend to speak in a monotone voice, practice varying the pitch and volume. One great way to do that is to read children's books and act out the character voices.

8. Make sure you are in a quiet place where you will not be disturbed. Your dog may be quiet now, but if the UPS guy comes during your interview, it going to be disruptive. It will throw you off not to mention the show host and listeners.

9. Disable call waiting if you have it. That clicking is annoying.

10. Keep your land line! I know it's popular to get rid of the land line and only use a cell phone, but for radio interviews, it needs to be a land line. Not a cell, not a mobile. The sound quality matters!

Be sure and listen to other people doing interviews and pay attention to what you find they do well, and what needs some work. Then make sure you do the good things, and stay away from the bad.