Free publicity

Just over a week ago I had one of the greatest gifts any writer can ask for.  A reporter from the local Portsmouth newspaper The News contacted Carol Westron in search of a news story.  The end result was that Pentangle Press got interviewed and photographed for the paper.

The three of us met at my house, and we had the services of a reporter and a photographer from the paper.  The photographer took dozens of photographs of us and was there an hour, the reporter spent two hours quizzing us.

It was a tough session, but how often does an unknown writer get the chance to talk about writing and their books for two hours?  Not often.

This kind of priceless free publicity can then be out onto social media and its reach is much greater.  What started out as an article in the local paper goes out on Facebook and Twitter and gets picked up by others.  I've already been contacted by a columnist for a national writing magazine as a result of a blog post I wrote, and we never know when other people will notice us making waves and contact us.

And people on Facebook are circulating the article to the members of the writers' circle too.  Publicity spreads like ripples in a pond, and in this case someone else threw the initial stone in.

It's rare to get this kind of free publicity, and I was very pleased to get it.  And the papers arrived with us at the Dunford weekend in Bournemouth just in time for us to brag to people there.  All in all, a satisfying result.

We're often told that reporters aren't our friends, but local reporters in search of a story are more likely to be sympathetic to us.  Maybe next January when they have a slow news month you should consider contacting your local reporter with a story and get yourself some free publicity.