How to Get Your Book Featured in Local Media (Without a Publicist)

Ricci (00:01.561)

Hello everyone and welcome to the Written Word Pod. Ferol is out this week. So I’m solo on the host side, I’ve got a fantastic guest joining me today. Today’s episode is one I think is going to be really practical.

Today’s episode is one I think is going to be really practical and actionable for a lot of you. We’re talking about local press coverage. We’ll be talking about how to get meaningful coverage and the kind of local magazines and press that people in your community actually read. To help us do that, I’ve brought in someone who sits on the other side of that equation, someone who decides what actually gets covered. Rory Gillis is the owner of Triangle Media Partners, a media company based in the Raleigh-Durham metro area in North Carolina.

Her company publishes over half a dozen magazines covering everything from city lifestyle to weddings to community news. Her flagship magazines include Chapel Hill Magazine, Dura Magazine, Heart of NC Weddings and The Triangle Weekender, plus a full digital agency newsletters and social platforms. Rory and her team regularly showcase local authors, which is exactly why Rory is the perfect person to teach us how this all works. Rory, welcome to the show.

Rory Gillis (01:21.006)

Thank you for having me. I’m excited to talk about this today.

Ricci (01:26.251)

It’s so delightful to have you here. For the audience, I’ve known Rory for quite a few years now because she is local and I live in Chapel Hill and she’s in Durham and we get to chat a whole bunch. I also love her publications. The Chapel Hill Magazine always sits on our coffee table. And so when we were thinking about what would be great topics to chat about, Rory popped into my head because she knows all about what it takes for authors to get covered.

So Rory, let’s start by talking about how do you think about the stories to cover for your audience? How do you decide when or if an author should be included in one of your publications?

Rory Gillis (02:08.065)

Yeah, so our editorial team, have about seven editors on our team. And so it really is, they’re getting pitched every single day through email mostly, and just community relationships. So a lot of those pitches are coming in and then they’re putting them on their editorial calendars and mixing them up. We have an ongoing department right now for local authors. Hillsboro, North Carolina has just this really deep

author community and so it’s kind of a part of our ethos. So we are putting out content every single month. So it’s kind of like what’s being pitched to us, what do we know about, and then we kind of collect them and sometimes it can be thematic based off of our editorial calendar.

Ricci (02:55.159)

Got it. So when you say you’re being pitched, can you, what does that mean exactly?

Rory Gillis (03:00.354)

Yeah, so I will say a lot of what I want to talk about today is like that the media landscape has changed a lot. And so our editors are incredibly busy and we’re asking them to do so much. So they’re they’re producing a magazine every other month for most of them. They’re going to community events. They’re posting on social. They’re building email. We ask so much from our editors. And so a lot of their stories come from either being out in the community and meeting people.

or they’re actively being pitched by email, mostly. And then a lot of authors send in their books through snail mail, or they’ll even drop it off at our offices and try to meet the editors with kind of some background information on their book, kind of why us. So again, like for us, know, Chapel Hill Magazine, they only cover things that are happening in Chapel Hill and in Orange County.

And so it’s like, okay, I live in Chapel Hill. I’ve been here for so many years. So there’s kind of that piece of the YS and information on the book so that they have that information for the magazine. And I was also going to say, you know, thinking about really making it easy for these editors so that they can kind of publish without asking a of questions. I know that sounds horrible, but like, you know, do we have a high resolution?

picture of the book? Do we have a high resolution picture of the author? And then do we have that why this book and this publication and also what’s interesting about this book? Kind of that synopsis.

Ricci (04:37.57)

So what’s actually heartening to me is that it sounds like when authors are writing in or sending in their books, your team actually is reading those emails. They are, you know, perusing those pictures or that outreach to figure out if it’s a good fit for one of the publications. Am I hearing that right?

Rory Gillis (04:56.938)

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And so I want to say that they’re necessarily reading the books, but a lot of times they kind of, they get the books, they kind of file them away, and they also try to make them thematic. So it might be like, hey, we got these book releases maybe even six months ago, but we’re gonna like bank them for summer reads or something like that. Or maybe it’s, we’re having our women’s issue.

and we’re gonna just feature books written by females. So something like that. And the other thing to think about is that editors are writing, at least for our publications, and I know for larger publications, they’re doing it way further in advance, but we’re actually looking about three to four months in advance of publishing. if you think about, you know, a May issue, we’re actually planning that editorial in January.

So really kind of thinking about that editorial calendar, what’s coming up, and kind of what the places are for your books to plug into that publication.

Ricci (06:04.449)

Yeah, and I hear this a lot from local journalists as well, is that this thematic element is really important. Like how does a story fit into the theme of the month or to the trend of what everyone’s talking about? And so it sounds like the similarity, you have themes for your different publications and you are also planning ahead of time. So authors shouldn’t be discouraged if they don’t get coverage right away because

Rory Gillis (06:12.28)

Mm-hmm.

Rory Gillis (06:19.096)

Yeah.

Ricci (06:34.111)

You guys are kind of keeping like a backlist of possible authors and stories for future themes or future additions.

Rory Gillis (06:41.72)

Yeah, and the way to find those themes, again, those editors are really busy. They’re being stretched really thin. As an author, the editors don’t owe the authors anything, right? And it’s on their timeline. So the authors don’t really have a lot of control over that. But one thing that you can do is look on the advertising section of the media website. A lot of times they’ll have, even if it’s TV,

they’ll have the different segments that you can pitch for. They’ll have the themes of the publications. And the easier you make the editor’s job, the more success you’re gonna have. So like, hey, I’m a female author, they have a women’s focus issue. Because you might even be pitching yourself as one of the women being featured, not just your book. So that’s definitely an area that you can kind of reverse engineer.

the process, what is the editor looking for for that issue and making sure that you’re pitching far enough in advance.

Ricci (07:42.993)

a great tip. for, you know, if someone is listening and they’re out in a different state, they would go to the website of the publication they’re looking at and you’re saying this would potentially be under the advertising section or upcoming issues or even looking at historical issues and saying, hey, look, every May they do a woman’s issue, every fall they do whatever issue. And then when you’re pitching, should you actually make that connection?

for the editor and say, hey, I think I’d be a great fit for your women’s issue. think I’d be, my book’s about XYZ and I think that would fit the theme of your September issue.

Rory Gillis (08:20.758)

Yeah, absolutely. think and the other thing I would say to authors is that polite persistence is going to absolutely pay off when it comes to these editors. Because again, I mean, we have somebody that will pitch something and then two years later, we might cover it. So it’s okay to come back to these editors and and a lot of times they don’t respond. They’re in the middle of deadlines.

Ricci (08:36.863)

Wow.

Rory Gillis (08:46.366)

And I think it’s okay to get it in front of them a few times. And also editors and folks, they turn over not so much at our publications. We’ve had a lot of people here for a long time. finding the editors, the head editors, but also the assistant editors, a lot of the time, the head editors are actually making the edit, they’re making the editorial plan for that issue.

But the people that are actually writing it are the assistant editors or editorial assistants. They’re writing most of the department content. And a lot of times even the interns are covering that information. So it is good if you are making that pitch is to make it to the top editors, but look down the list of editors, make sure you get those names right. Make sure you get those emails right. Make sure you get the publication name right and send it out to everyone.

on that list to pitch the idea because for here we source stories from our sales department, from our editorial team, from the art department, everybody is kind of coming together to think about that issue.

Ricci (09:53.312)

Okay, great. So a lot of the time authors will think that the time to reach out and try and get coverage is when they launch their book or they have a new release coming out. But given some of the timeline stuff that we’ve talked about, it sounds like a book launch isn’t the only newsworthy thing that’s out there. So can you give us some examples? Say somebody’s book came out a year or two ago. What would the story be? Like what’s the hook? What should they be pitching?

Rory Gillis (10:23.33)

Well, mean, think it really depends. you know, we have a lot of city regional magazines. So, you know, again, the why us like we live here, but thinking about kind of like those timely things, the things that are on the editorial calendar is really important. But I think it’s also kind of, hey, it’s summers coming up and I have a great summer beach read or hey, I’ve got something that might fit into another piece of content, which is great.

The other thing that we do see authors sometimes pitch is that we’re always looking for great writers. so authors don’t normally think of themselves as columnists. and you could get a byline with your name and, you know, a little bit of information about your book in a way like that. Hey, I have a point of view, right? On something that’s happening locally.

and you can kind of get in that thought leadership, but also a little bit of information on your book. So that might be something you could pitch as well. And I think if the publication hasn’t covered your book, and even if it has been a couple of years, I think it’s okay to continue to pitch that book. I would say it’s okay to pitch it probably up to three times.

just because it might just not be a good time. Or for us, like we kind of shut down our local authors theme for a year or two and then we just brought it back and we’re doing it every single issue. So now it’s like we need an enormous amount of books to fill six issues with like three or four picks. So again, continue to pitch, it’s okay. I think a lot of times people get discouraged if they don’t hear back or they don’t get that pitch the first time, but I…

I really believe that people are busy. They don’t need it now, it’s not relevant. So they just kind of forget about it sometimes. So stay on people’s radars. And also I think if you have that polite persistence and you try to build some kind of relationship, people are like, they’re not going away. Like this must be important. And I do believe a lot of local media, we’re here to celebrate the community and the people in it.

Rory Gillis (12:39.423)

and we want to help people. So I think too, if like something kind of keeps coming up, we’re like, okay, maybe we should cover that.

Ricci (12:46.94)

Yeah. Well, what I’m hearing you say is don’t take it personally and be persistent because everyone is busy. And even though it’s the most important thing to you when you send out that pitch and then you’re sitting, you know, at home waiting for the phone to ring or that email to come in, it’s just one of, you know, a hundred things that that editor is looking at. So if you don’t hear back, try again, try different angles, continue to reach out. I love the byline example. I would not have thought of that at all.

But it makes perfect sense because authors are writers and all these publications are full of words. So, and I’m sure you’re looking for a lot of, yeah, different opinions. And that is a really great way for authors to get their name out there. And like you said, in their byline, they can say, Hey, know, Ricky, you know, Ricky Wallman.

Rory Gillis (13:21.154)

Yeah.

Ricci (13:38.233)

author of XYZ, Rory Gillis, author of XYZ, and so people who maybe appreciate the thought piece will then go and seek out the book.

Rory Gillis (13:48.046)

Yeah, absolutely. And I think that the great thing about that too is that you’re building relationships with the editors. And so then you have something where, especially if you’re a repeat author, you’re developing a relationship where they’re going to want to potentially write about you as well or feature your book.

Ricci (14:08.081)

Right, because now you’re an extension of the team, right? You’re almost part of the team versus being just a featured product or guest or book. What about like local bookstores and events? Is there any particular way that you think about those or that authors should be interfacing with those as a way to then get into the local publications?

Rory Gillis (14:11.619)

Right.

Rory Gillis (14:17.248)

Right.

Rory Gillis (14:32.718)

All right, Ricky, let me see if I can answer this one and we might have to cut the answer. Yeah. I think as far as, yeah.

Ricci (14:37.647)

Yeah, otherwise we’ll scrap it. Yeah, that’s fine. Maybe the events, events piece, I can re-ask the question about events and take out indie bookstores if you want.

Rory Gillis (14:48.106)

Yeah, well, let me try. Let me try to let me try. I think from a indie bookstore perspective or events, we’re seeing some really interesting events happen. Like we run a few events. Most local publications have some kind of event that you can get involved in. One of the opportunities potentially is even offering to put your book in the swag bags if it’s

if it’s relevant to the event, I think that that’s a big opportunity with, you know, local chambers or with indie bookstores. And even like our local boutique hotel, the Carolina Inn is doing a book series bringing in local people and local authors that are writing, you know, rom-com books. And they’re having events about those type of things and bringing out great crowds for it.

So I think it just like develop, I think relationship is really important and it’s a way that you can connect in your local community. That is like these are all people, they’re all, know, trying to make a buck and trying to connect somehow. But just building those relationships and you know, but I do think that there is a cost that comes with it that I think a lot of people.

are not quite ready for they’re like, how do I do this without spending any money or any time and just remember exposure costs money or it costs time. your, you know, it’s your, it’s your either your energy or your money. So trying to think about that is like, how am I getting in front of these people? When you think about, you know, partnering for an event.

and maybe you’re having an upfront cost of the book or you’re having an upfront cost of your time, you know, think about the amount of people that you’re getting in front of. And of course, like Ricky, people pay you to get in front of avid readers. That’s what you’re doing too, is like you’re paying in some form to get in front of those people.

Rory Gillis (16:54.222)

And really think about where you’re spending that energy and time as far as your bang for your buck. Like if you get a feature article within our publications, you could be getting 80,000 people looking at the magazine. If we post it on social, you get another 20,000 people seeing that. If we put it in our newsletter, then there’s another 20,000 seeing it. So it can actually multiply pretty significantly.

And just kind of think about that too as you’re building relationships and what their resources are, what their audiences are like, not just in the bookstore but on social, on website and things like that.

Ricci (17:30.608)

Yeah. And there’s this halo effect, right? So just one feature can then poly into other assets on that publication, but it also, you’d never know who’s reading the publication. So someone sitting at home could be reading it and then they are the owner of an indie bookstore or they are somebody who’s trying to do an event and you and your story and the event might fit in. thinking about it more holistically, like this is just the beginning and what are the doors? Can it open? I think is a really great point.

I also love this point about nothing is free, right? So you are exchanging time, money or energy in order to get your book out there and trying to be discerning about, you know, what you want to trade and, and what’s energizing to you. We tell authors this all the time, specifically when it comes to social media, cause a lot of authors are like, I need to be on social media, but you know, some author is loving being in front of camera. you know, Tik Tok and Instagram is great for them.

Rory Gillis (18:03.273)

Yeah.

Ricci (18:28.281)

Other authors hate it. So we’re like, okay, well then maybe, you know, sub stack or something that’s more written form. So you have to kind of find your niche because if you’re constantly struggling, against something that you don’t enjoy doing, it’s always going to be hard to do that thing. So try figure out, it fun for me to go out to local events and talk to the organizer and see if there’s a way for me to do local events with them in the future? you know, is it more fun for me to be a barline writer and reach out to local publications and do it that way?

You got to figure out what actually resonates with you as an author, because that will increase your chances of success for sure.

Rory Gillis (19:06.882)

Yeah, well said. think building that community, think is really important in your local area, especially as authors, I’m sure. You know, it’s a very lonely job and thing to do and kind of building.

that community is so important, whether it’s through publications or events or other local authors that you could get together and have local author events or something like that. It’s just, try to be creative and go where your energy flows. Okay, not dying yet. Here we go.

Ricci (19:39.876)

Yeah, love that.

Okay, almost done. Okay, so as we start to wrap up, let me ask you this Rory, are there any no-nos? Are there any things that authors really should not do? Because I’m hearing polite persistence, which I think is great, but are there any red flags for you guys or anything that really would turn you off and not want to feature an author in how they approach you or any other examples you might have for us?

Rory Gillis (19:58.733)

Mm-hmm.

Rory Gillis (20:10.51)

So I went to my editors and I asked them, I’m like, okay, what do you hate the most? Okay, one thing is like not getting the editor’s names right. They just said like, please make sure that they’re not talking to the wrong person, okay? Making sure you get the name of the publication right.

Use your subject line wisely. think they’re so for my editors, I really ask them to be very communicative with the community because they’re going to run into that person right again. it’s you know, like having having a relationship and then not getting a response over and over again, that’s really tough. So I think that their jobs is to kind of speak back to people. But a lot of times they won’t speak back for a week, two weeks.

Maybe it’s a month when they actually need the content, but make sure that subject line is relevant so that they can search their inboxes for it. The other thing is not thinking ahead. I think it’s like if somebody comes to them, it’s the April issue and they’re coming March 3rd and going, hey, I wanna get in this April issue. They’re under deadline and they go out to press about two and a half weeks before the issue actually comes out. So they’re really busy.

Go time at that point and they’re not putting anything in that last minute. So that’s definitely like a no-no. And then I also think is like spend a little bit of time researching and just looking at the magazines. Make sure that you’re familiar with them because it will make your pitch so much better. And there’s just so much, there’s so much of an upside of just putting that little bit of effort in to kind of knowing what you’re pitching for and what the tone should be.

And you all are authors. So like you know how to do that work, right? So I think that those are the most important things for them and then also again that polite persistence of just like coming back again Not being sensitive about not hearing a response But also, you know looking down that mass head on a regular basis because people do change and those email addresses You know go out into the ether. So just kind of looking through a few different people and sending them

Rory Gillis (22:33.292)

Information would be good.

Ricci (22:36.531)

So be thoughtful and do your research and pay attention to detail. You know, it’s really hard to get someone on your site if you misspell their name in the email that you’re sending to them.

Rory Gillis (22:39.202)

Mm-hmm.

Rory Gillis (22:45.66)

I know that’s, I know they were like, that was their first thing that they shared with me. So it’s the little things.

Ricci (22:52.6)

Great. Okay, last question of the day. Do you have any examples of anything like really creative, innovative that authors have done to catch your attention or that really moved the needle for you?

Rory Gillis (22:56.098)

Yeah.

Rory Gillis (23:06.126)

Okay, did have no it’s So one of we had an author that came in I knew him through the community And he actually I met him. He was like, you know, I’ve written this children’s book I was like, great, but he knew I had children and he came in and he signed them

Ricci (23:09.656)

You can also make something up.

Rory Gillis (23:32.886)

And he asked me in the meeting what my children’s name were, and he actually brought the book and signed it into my children. And then while he was here, he also left one for the editor, and we ended up featuring his book. So that was just like really a thoughtful thing. We’ve had, I think that’s probably the best, that’s the best example that I have.

Ricci (23:58.658)

Yeah, yeah, that’s that’s Okay. Yeah, I think that’s great. Okay, so I’ll just respond to that. I love that. That’s such a lovely thing to do and meaningful and obviously got your attention, right? Because you got to take that book home to your kids that night, which is so cool. Well, Rory, thank you so much for joining us today. Let’s do a little recap for everybody on what we talked about. So if you’re an author and you’re trying to get local press coverage,

Rory Gillis (24:16.078)

Yeah.

Rory Gillis (24:21.358)

Sure.

Ricci (24:28.031)

What I, we, if you’re an author and try to get local press coverage, the first thing sounds like is pay attention to the themes and what might be relevant for a publication or for a local journalist at any given time that would resonate with the stories that they’re trying to cover, the themes that are, the themes that are buzzing at that particular time.

Rory Gillis (24:51.394)

Yeah, well here I’ll share like a quick, I did do a quick scope of like what action items. So here I’ll read them out to you. yeah. So I think that the action items for your authors are figure out the scope of the media options, either in your area or either in your niche and build an email list and names of the editors and the publications. I would just do a quick spreadsheet on that.

Ricci (24:59.731)

perfect. Okay, so I’ll let you take that one.

Rory Gillis (25:20.206)

You can look on LinkedIn a little bit. You can look at the publications. You can look at their social media. And then write all of that out. And then I would look for the media kits for any of those media partners so that you can look at the themes and put that into your Excel document of what’s coming up and make sure that you’re looking at least three months out on that media kit because you’re probably not going to get anything any sooner than that.

unless you’re looking at newspaper, like a local community paper or something like that. And then I would gather a high resolution headshot, a high resolution cover of your book, put together your synopsis of your book, the why you for that publication or for that media, and put that onto a beautiful package, email it. If you are able, I would also drop it off personally with the same information.

put together in that package and you would just do like a one, two punch on that. And then if you don’t get feedback, would, you know, even our sales department, we say like one time is not enough. I would definitely say at least try to elicit maybe a response with maybe three outreaches. And if you have that Excel document with the different things that are coming up, you have those ready.

And then the other thing is just to be, you know, I mean, not all of us are friendly and outgoing and feel comfortable going out and doing the thing. But if you are, like use that, that’s a superpower and build those relationships.

Ricci (26:59.575)

Well, thank you Rory. don’t think I could have summed it up any better than that. I so appreciate you joining us here today. I think this is going to be one of our most popular episodes. It’s just such valuable information to know what goes going on on the other side of that publication. Because we just don’t know, right? And I think people do fear that they’re being annoying by reaching out a lot or don’t feel like they even can. And so you

Rory Gillis (27:03.31)

You

Ricci (27:28.512)

kind of telling us how it all works and making us realize that the editors and the writers and the people producing these wonderful magazines and local press, they’re just people like you and I and I’ve got to give them some grace and give them a few opportunities for when your book and your story might fit into what they’re looking for.

Rory Gillis (27:46.99)

Absolutely. Great summation. Thank you for having me, Ricky.

Ricci (27:48.757)

All right, wonderful.

You’re so welcome. Thank you for joining us and authors. That wraps up this week’s written word pod. Let us know what you think as usual in the comments or drop us a line and we will see you same time in a couple of weeks. See you later.