(Revisiting an old — and favorite — post as summer closes out and I find myself wishing I’d caught a stop on Louis C.K.’s recent tour. . .  ~Callie) In a recent New York Time interview with Louis C.K., Dave Itzkoff commented, “You have the platform. You have the level of recognition.” Louis C.K. replied with a question: “So why do I have the platform and the recognition?” Itzkoff answered, “At this point you’ve put in the time.” Pause after you read Louis C.K.’s follow-up: There you go. There’s no way around that. There’s people that say: “It’s not fair. You…

In The Science of Hitting, Ted Williams wrote about the importance of keeping his players alert. The dugout, for example, has always been a place in baseball where guys tended to doze. The very fact they’re not playing works against them, so I try to keep them in the game. “What the hell pitch was that? What’s the count?”

“Hello,” worked for Jerry Maguire, helping him win back his girl. For pitching, if someone says, “You had me at hello,” it means you’ve won a place in the trashcan instead of in that person’s heart. The pitch below is an example of a recent “Hello/Hi” pitch sent to Steve. It’s followed by a mark-up pointing out areas to avoid if you find yourself making similar pitches one of these days. Hi, My name is Xxx Xxx and I am the social media manager of Xxx Competition. Established in 2012, we are one of the fastest growing Xxx competitions and…

There’s a scene in Fredrik Backman’s book My Grandmother Asked Me To Tell You She’s Sorry when Elsa, the main character, recalls a piece of advice from her grandmother: Granny always said: “Don’t kick the shit, it’ll go all over the place!” Why should this advice matter to you? While Granny never out and out says it in the book, the unsaid yin to the yang of her advice would likely be: Hug the sh*t. Sh*t in this context is anything that gets in the way of what we want to do, anything unexpected that pops up and has us exclaiming…

In addition to ripping off chunks off Shawn’s work last week, I’ve stolen his spot this week to answer a question from Michael Beverly (See Michael’s full question in last Friday’s comments section.) Do I think an author bio is necessary for a fiction author? Necessary? No. A good idea? Yes. When I started writing tip-sheet (one-pagers about a book) copy for sales conferences, I learned how much bios play into sales. The sales reps used these tip sheets to help sell the new season to book buyers. Without having read the books, the reps would make decisions on which…

I’m stealing Shawn’s May 27th post — lock, stock and barrel — for this week’s “What It Takes” post. Last week, Shawn advised readers to “Always Be Closing” when it comes to back cover copy. Take what he wrote and apply it to promotional copy, whether for pitch letters, e-mails, web site content, or whatever else you’re cookin’. That book you’re happy with? Don’t kid yourself into thinking the heavy lifting is over. Outreach copy is up next. It might not be as long, but it can sandbag your book. This is a fundamental mistake (yes, Shawn, I’m stealing…) publicists…

In The Science of Hitting, by Ted Williams and John Underwood, there’s a a section titled “Smarter is Better,” which starts out by talking about Frank Howard, then of the Senators. “He hit a lot of home runs, he’s the strongest man I’ve ever seen in baseball, but he wasn’t getting on base nearly as often as he should. He struck out a lot, he swung at bad pitches, he swung big all the time.” When Williams finally had an opportunity to work with Howard, they focused on NOT swinging big all the time. “Halfway through the 1969 season he…

Last month a nonfiction author-in-progress told me she has over 20,000 Twitter followers, which she interpreted as a sales forecast. While she knows 20,000+ followers might not equal 20,000+ book sales, to her, 20,000+ followers do equal thousands of book sales. I gave her my spiel about being careful to avoid equating social media numbers with sales, that followers often “like” and “tweet,” but don’t always take action. She replied that she might be the exception, as many of her Twitter followers are journalists who follow her work. In the sage words of Bart Simpson, “au contraire mon frère.” Those many…

If you want to master communicating and building relationships with the gatekeepers, tastemakers, potential customers, etc within your industry, the first step is to leave your industry. About ten years ago, I ran across Michael J. Critelli’s Harvard Business Review article “Back Where We Belong.” I kept a copy of the article, surprised that a Pitney Bowes executive had mentioned the book The Sling and The Stone. I was repping the title and it was not a business book, nor one I had considered pitching to a business audience. However… Critelli’s attention to the defense world as a part of…

There’s an important piece I should have hit when I started this series of articles about pitching: Why you have to pitch — or market — yourself. A scientist I spoke with this week said her peers go out of their way to avoid media exposure. To them, scientists who do a lot of press aren’t taken seriously. That perspective is why important work dies in academia and why certain sectors are plagued by consistent wheel-recreation. The messaging gets lost or forgotten. Unfortunately, the scientists aren’t the only ones doing it. If you want to make an impact, doing the work…