At some point in your career development, you may decide that it is time to add a publicist to your career team. Just as it was important to evaluate your needs and readiness to work with a booking agent, it is equally important to assess your needs and readiness to begin working with a publicist. First, let's understand exactly what a publicist's job involves.

A publicist's job is to make contact with the various media outlets, (print media, radio, television and now internet) and attempt to get information about their clients included in or on the appropriate media outlet. Publicist's who have been working in the business for some time usually have developed a large list of media contacts with whom they regularly pitch new stories about their current clients. The more prestigious the publicist's client list and contact list, usually the more expensive are their fees. We'll discuss fees shortly. First, let's break down the responsibilities of the publicist, the expectations of the clients and the types of publicists available to you and why you might choose one over another.

A Publicist's Responsibilities are to:

1. Develop relationships with the media
2. Develop relationships with clients who need media promotion
3. Determine the type of media campaign required for each specific client and project
4. Determine the length of the media campaign
5. Send timely and appropriate press information to the media
6. Follow-up on that press information with immediate and persistent contact to insure the information will be used
7. Make appointments for their clients with interested media for interviews and promotional opportunities
8. Assist the media with timely arrangements in contacting their clients
9. Collect all media stories, interviews, tapes for use in future press packets
10. Help create new promotional strategies to increase client's visibility and raise their market value

The above list gives you a general idea of what most publicists will do for their clients. When deciding to employ a publicist, it is important to first determine what your promotion and publicity needs are. In order to do that, you need to evaluate where you are in your career development. There is no question that any group building a career needs promotion and publicity. The reality is that you may be ready for certain media outlets and not others. Some media may be ready to tell your story and others may not think there is a enough of a story, yet! By being realistic at this stage of the game, you can save yourself many thousands of dollars by not hiring the wrong publicist at the wrong moment in your career. Ask yourself the following questions in order to determine how ready you are to work with a publicist.

1. Do you play in your hometown or local area often?
2. Are you selling out venues of 50-150 seats in your local area?
3. Are you selling out venues of 150-300 seats in your local area?
4. Are you selling out venues of 300-500 seats in your local area?
5. Are you selling out venues of 500 plus seats in your local area?
6. Do you intend to tour in your local region only?
7. Do you currently get any coverage in your local paper, on local radio?
8. Have you been interviewed by the local paper?
9. If you live in a large city, like New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Chicagoor Los Angeles, have you had an article written about you that mainly dealt with your local performances?

If you have answered "yes" to most of the above questions, especially number 6, then your publicity needs are of a consistent nature, meaning that you require weekly updates to the local media about your performances. You need someone working on your behalf that builds an ongoing relationship with the local media.

Their tasks:

1. Help get regular calendar listings
2. Place photos
3. Pitch potential newsy stories written at appropriate times to promote some noteworthy career development.

Ongoing consistency is the key in this case. Your reputation within your local area needs to be constantly updated and kept current. Dates need to be listed in appropriate calendars and local fans need to know each time another performance is scheduled.

This type of publicity requires persistence and would be best served by someone local working directly for your cause. Perhaps one of your band-members are interested in taking on this task. I have hired a part-time person for 2-3 hours for 2-3 days a week with great success. They sent out packets and then were available to followed up in a timely manner. Their rapport with the local media ensured inclusion of photos, calendar listings and often interviews when the story was interesting. This person was paid on an hourly basis. Because they worked in my office, I was able to oversee all the correspondence and make sure contact was being made with necessary media in a timely manner.

Another possible way to accomplish the same coverage would be to hire a local or regional publicist. This person, should they agree to take you on as a client, would have their own office along with many other clients. They would have established media contacts--most likely the same contacts your in-house publicist would eventually develop. You would have to negotiate a fee for their services. This could possibly be hourly, but most likely would be a set fee per week depending on the amount of work you require of them. Fees will range widely from $50. per week up to possibly $500. per week.

Before selecting a local or regional publicist, figure out exactly what you will be asking them to do on your behalf. You might also interview a few in your area and get their fee structure after presenting them with your press packet and discussing your current status along with your goals. Ask them to present a proposal of how they would intend on working with you to accomplish your media goals. Get an idea of how they work, who their current clients are and how extensive is their media contact list.

If your goal it to build and expand your reputation within your local region, working with this type of publicist may be helpful. They may offer you new perspectives on how to promote yourself, thus increasing your media coverage. This alone may be worth the investment.

One note of concern--whenever working with a publicist, you will be billed for the upcoming month's work whether or not you receive coverage. You are paying for the work which gets the information to the media. Some publicists have clout and can almost always get coverage, others may not. If you go to the expense of hiring a professional regional publicist, do some research first to determine how advantageous it will be for you to be associated with one over another. You might check with some local writers and ask them how they like working with the person you are considering. Favorable reports from the media contacts themselves should be a major factor in helping to determine with whom to work.

Website Back	Jeri Goldstein
	Jeri Goldstein was the agent and manager for some of the top touring acoustic artists on the circuit including Robin & Linda Williams and Garrison Keillor & The Hopeful Gospel Quartet. Goldstein has booked national and international tours for artists performing in country, folk, gospel, bluegrass, contemporary, classical and children’s music. She has also booked tours for theater and dance. After 20 years of working as an agent and manager, Goldstein authored the award-winning book, "How To Be Your Own Booking Agent: A Performing Artist's Guide To A Successful Touring Career." In 2001, Goldstein partnered with The Southern Arts Federation and Carnegie Mellon Arts Management Program, to produce an E-SeminArts, three-hour workshop CD-ROM, Marketing Your Act. Articles for the self-managed artists have been published on Getsigned.Com; in Indie Magazine; Music Biz Magazine; GiG Magazine as well as many other sites throughout the Internet.
	List all articles by Jeri Goldstein

Trackback(0)

Comments (0)

Write comment