When you are pitching to get onto a national TV program, first approach the show your book sales will benefit from the most. In Australia, if your story behind the book is right for A Current Affair or Today Tonight, those shows tend to sell the most books.
When you have your pitch fully developed and are ready to go on the show, contact those programs first. They will probably ask whether you have been approached by any other national TV programs because they usually want the first interview.
A TV producer’s job is to get and keep the attention of their viewing audience. They worry their viewers will switch off if they just saw you on another program.
There are usually ways around this… You can hope for interest from your key target media first in each of the TV time slots – breakfast, mornings or evenings. Then you can let some time lapse after you appear on one show before pitching to a program competing in the same time slot.
The best general strategy is to be honest with TV producers when they ask if you will be on another program, as they will find out anyway. It is best if they hear this from you, otherwise you could risk them dropping your story completely and damaging future relationships with these very important media contacts.
Yours in book publicity
Chelsea McLean
