Getting media exposure means putting yourself out there. It might be chatting live on the air with a radio talk show host, taping an appearance for TV, coming up with posts for social media, or being interviewed by a print journalist.

The first couple times can make you apprehensive, but trust me, that disappears quickly. You realize the interviewers tend to ask the same questions, so there are few surprises. You figure out your best sound bites and the responses that get a nice chuckle, and you polish those up.

But, there are still those first couple of interviews to get through.  To address this problem with my clients, I have them coached by my staff beforehand.  As many of us have had careers in the media we know what to expect and, more important, what the interviewer expects.

When it comes to coaching clients for print interviews, that job goes to our Creative Director and Writer, Penny Carnathan, who has worked as an editor and reporter at major daily newspapers for more than 30 years.

Having logged thousands of interviews, Penny knows what makes a great one great.  And, by the same token, what makes an interview a flop.  I asked her to share her five best tips for not bombing your first time out – and for making sure at least some of what you say gets published.

Here’s what she gave me.

• Do NOT try to pitch, sell or promote your book, product or business: Yes, it may be the reason you’re granting interviews, but if you want to sell something, you should buy an ad. The journalists are looking for you, as someone with a particular expertise, to provide content for their readers. That may be adding another voice to a story with multiple viewpoints.  Or it may even be sharing your  story – how you reinvented yourself after being laid off, or how you managed to write a novel while raising 13 kids. Either way, the goal of the journalist is to write an article that’s useful, informative and/or entertaining. Your goal is to get media exposure: your name and the source of your expertise in front of thousands, perhaps millions, of eyes.

• Try to speak clearly and at a moderate pace: Whether the reporter is taking notes with a pen or a computer, it will be difficult for him or her to keep up if you get excited and start talking very quickly. Not only might he miss some of the brilliant things you have to say, he may (gulp!) make an error that becomes a misquote in the story. Speak at a conversational speed, and if you really want to be a big help, offer to spell any less-than-obvious names you toss out. A good reporter will double-check the spelling, but you’ll save her time by giving her a starting point.

• You don’t have to answer immediately, and you don’t have to answer every question: Most of us would be hard put to respond off the top of our heads to, “What was the most pivotal moment of your life?” If you can’t, don’t. Ask the reporter to give you some time to think about it. By the same token, if you don’t feel qualified to answer a question, it’s far better to be honest about that than to take a stab at a response that makes you sound, um, unqualified. Remember, you’re in control. No one will think less of you if you politely decline a question for which you have no answer!

• Take your own notes before the interview: You likely have a good idea of what the reporter is writing about – and if you don’t it’s perfectly acceptable to ask what the gist of the story is. That gives you time to prepare relevant comments. If they’re looking for tips, list a few on paper in case you draw a blank. That will also help you plan ahead so you can speak concisely and get to the point quickly. Personal anecdotes always add color and interest to a story. Think about whether you’ve got a good short one (short is appreciated!) that will illustrate your point.

• Be prepared to email a high-resolution photo of yourself: Print publications cannot use the low-resolution photos that look so sharp online; the files are too small to reproduce at any decent size on paper. Most require an image that’s 300 dpi (dots per inch). Keep one of yourself at the ready to send via email, if the reporter asks, as soon as the interview is over. Not having it – or not knowing what a high-resolution photo is – could mean a missed opportunity to get your name, book title and face in front of a big audience.

Sound easy? You’re right, it is. So relax and enjoy your interview. Before you know it, a Google search of your name will produce dozens of publications quoting you and mentioning your book, product or business.  That may lead to even more requests, all of which builds your profile and your audience.

• Massive layoffs have changed the way newspapers do business; they’re now even more short-handed and time-crunched than ever.
• Newspapers need quick-turnaround content to help fill pages.
• How to position and pitch yourself to editors, so you can be featured in the news.

Back in October, I was a beneficiary of the sadness sweeping newspapers across the country — more than 20,000 layoffs since 2008 (and that’s a conservative estimate).

Here in Tampa-St. Petersburg, one of our two major dailies, The Tampa Tribune, laid off about 30 veteran reporters and editors in June, in a desperate effort to balance its books. It didn’t work. The paper laid off 165 more employees just last week.

Their loss was my gain. Penny Carnathan, an award-winning reporter and features editor, is now our Creative Director/Writer. She brings to News and Experts not only her talents, but her insights on how newsrooms have changed in recent years. Just four months ago, she was the person on the other side fielding our press releases and story pitches. As the editor in charge of the Tribune’s Sunday features section, which included a books page and its food section, she decided which releases to pursue and which to ignore.

Penny says the many layoffs changed the way she and other editors do business — the Trib’s 2011 cuts were two of so many, she lost count. I say that means we have to change too.

I asked Penny to share in her own words what the changes mean and how we can leverage them. Here’s what she said:

With fewer reporters and lots of empty pages to fill, editors are doing more planning ahead to ensure they have content, for both their features and their “breaking news” pages. They no longer have the flexibility or manpower to jump on “dailies” that don’t involve a police officer being shot or a house burning down. Tempting as it might be, they likely can’t follow up on an “urgent” notice about today’s Make-a-Wish holiday shopping spree.

• Plan Ahead. If you want your event covered, let the newspaper know about it two to three weeks ahead of time.

• Help Out the Reporter. Provide local interview sources – local is a priority for local papers – so the reporter doesn’t have to spend time tracking down “real people” for the story. For instance, to pitch a story on a Special Olympics event, you would ideally line up a local athlete and parent who are ready and willing to be accessible to a reporter. Better yet, line up an athlete with a touching story. If you’re an author, get creative. Think about the businesses who can benefit from your strategies and get one on board.

• Make It for a Good Cause. If you’re hosting a special event, including book signings, find a way to make it charitable or a service to some greater good. Newspaper editors are more inclined to cover events if they benefit others. Again, take the reporter legwork out of the process by finding a beneficiary who can talk about what the event means to him or her.

• Pictures in a Snap.  Offering good quality, high-resolution images gives you another leg up; photojournalists are being laid off too.

Understanding the time and staffing crunches newspaper staffs face make you a respected and appreciated source of content.

One last note, Penny says it’s worth the time you take to research who does what at the publication you’re targeting. Newsrooms are reorganizing and that means they can be a bit chaotic. Stay on the phone until you find the person who knows for sure who should receive your information (often more than one person). The payoff is well worth all that time repeating your story over and over again.

And now, the season begins.

In the office, everyone is hanging around the coffee machine longer and enjoying holiday deserts.  Outside the office, people are caught up in the holiday parties, shopping, food, family gatherings, and enough reruns of holiday programs that they are replaying the Grinch song in their head. They spend a little more time online surfing eBay for gifts and writing emails to associates hoping to put any real work off until January 2.

That’s a major mistake for anyone engaged in or thinking of engaging in a media campaign. The holidays are exactly the time to pop the clutch and put your campaign into overdrive.

The reason is obvious. Although many assume that nothing of any consequence really happens over the holidays, what it really means is that fewer people are competing for those guest interviews on radio and TV and in print. This opens up an opportunity for you to jump in and compete for that media, with fewer of your competitors in that mix. Let’s face it, the media still needs people to interview to generate content.  So, if your competition is not in the game over the holidays, this is the perfect time for you to step in and get the coverage.

Because, even though many companies tend to run silent during the holidays, the media doesn’t. In fact, as we sit there on Christmas morning wondering what store is still open when you’ve run out of aspirin, the media is one industry that doesn’t ever shut down.

During the holidays, turn on the TV.  While CBS might be running reruns of Two and a Half Men, of course, the evening news isn’t running a repeat. And, what about CNN? They still report the day’s news just like any other day.

Same thing holds true for the print media – on Christmas morning and the day after Christmas, your newspaper is still delivered to your front door. And you can bet Yahoo! isn’t recycling content from November.  No, they’re aggregating news from all over the world that was written on Christmas day.

The media works every day of the year – Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s, Halloween, Yom Kippur, Purim, Kwanza and yes, even Arbor Day. They need fresh content every single day of the week. Their crews may change and shift, their lead people take vacations while second stringers fill in for them. But every day, they broadcast, print, publish and distribute the news. Every day. And their need for content, combined with your competitors’ need to relax, can result in excellent press coverage for you.

You can deck the halls and sing the songs and eat the food that will no doubt be the inspiration for at least one or two New Year’s resolutions. In the meantime, though, consider celebrating the holidays by making them productive. Get yourself in front of the media while your competitors are guzzling eggnog. After all, isn’t success the best holiday gift you could give yourself?

Years ago, if PR firms got a news placement for their client online, it was like a little bonus — a cherry to put on top of the sundae. Today, it is the very life-blood of PR, with online news coverage making up the majority of how people get informed today.

According to a 2010 study by the independent Pew Research Center for People and the Press, the Internet is a regular news source for a majority of Americans – 57 percent regularly get news from at least one Internet or digital source. Search engines, Facebook apps, iPhone and iPad apps, and other feeds that fuel the online and smartphone hunger for news.

The report also stated that the use of search engines to find news has also increased substantially. A third of the public employs search engines, such as Google, Yahoo or Bing, three or more days a week to search for news on a particular subject of interest.

What’s more is the way news is covered on the Internet. News aggregators like Yahoo, AOL and MSN always ensure that readers can identify resources, to find out more about any given topic covered in the news. They provide links to related stories, other news sites and to the Web sites of the sources they use in their stories. That means if you or your company’s spokesperson is quoted in a story, your Web site will likely be displayed as an additional resource.

I’ll say it plainly – you can’t buy that. There is no advertising solution that equates to the third-party verification of a legitimate media outlet quoting you and then providing a link to your Web site as an added resource. The story engages the readers with your message or your words and then places them one click away from your virtual storefront. Even in the case where your Web site may not be displayed, your audience is a Google search away from finding you, after reading about you.  And, you don’t have to worry about them misspelling your name, because they can copy and paste it right from the story.

Further, that story will stay available and searchable on the Internet for months, if not years. In the old days of the print newspaper story, readers would have to clip the article from the newspaper, in order for it to have any staying power. Today, it’s point and click, and if they want to find you again, they can.

But, that’s not to say that regular newspapers are worthless anymore either. According to Pew, most traditional newspaper and magazine hard clips are re-purposed on the Internet 8 to 10 times on different news sites, after they appear in print. Traditional print media, in fact, still makes up a large percentage of news coverage today. The only difference is that most of their audience reads that coverage online.

If you’re not entrenched in the media the same way a Public Relations company might be, it can be difficult to recognize the changes that have taken place, thanks to the internet.  It’s not a fad. It’s not a trend. The Internet is a fact of life and it has truly become the way most people get their news today, and readers could be clicking on your coverage for months and years to come.

Boy, have things changed. Today 44 percent of ALL books sold in North America are sold online at Amazon.com. What’s more, e-books now account for nearly 30 percent of all of Amazon’s sales.

I want to underscore the importance of this information, because one of the most difficult things to do in the mass consumer marketplace is to figure out where your customers might be. For the book market, it’s no mystery – nearly half of your customers are researching and buying online. They live there, so that’s where you need to be.

Moreover, the e-book is growing in leaps and bounds, so fast that it’s difficult to keep track of the changing stats.

With all this online focus, and statistics changing as quickly as the industry can report them, it’s paramount for authors and publishers to focus on their online assets. It’s not enough to simply have an Amazon listing anymore. To compete, you need more:

Web Site – Every author should have their own Web site, whether they are marketing one book or twenty. If your book has garnered some positive reviews, feature them on the home page – get as much leverage from those reviews as possible. Make sure visitors to the site can easily purchase your book directly from the site. No need to invest in an expensive e-commerce web solution – PayPal is totally acceptable and trusted these days, and easy to implement on your site. Even though most of your online book sales will come from Amazon, it’s worthwhile selling on your site and will provide the opportunity to add these book buyers to your own mailing list. That way, when your next book is ready to be released, you can email everyone on your list and let them know. If your topic or area of expertise lends itself to a weekly or monthly newsletter, add a newsletter signup to the site, and make sure each edition of your newsletter contains links back to your site. You never know where your newsletter will eventually land.

Book Reviewers – The reality is that the top book review publications – Publisher’s Weekly and The New York Times Book Review – are already very exclusive. They can’t possibly address all of the hundreds of thousands of new books published every year, so self-published books rarely make their lists. But the Internet has opened new doors for authors looking for reviews. Book bloggers – reviewers who post their reviews on their own blogs – have become as influential as book reviewers in traditional publications, so make sure you don’t overlook book bloggers when you are launching your new title. It’s even possible that some of the top book review publications may become obsolete one day, as their space and restrictions make it impossible for them to address the lion’s share of the books available to readers.

Press – Getting as much media coverage as possible is always desirable when marketing your book. But after the radio or TV interview has aired, or the review has appeared in various publications, are you done? Absolutely not! Getting press is a huge boost to your credibility and you want to squeeze out every last precious drop. You’ve got “bragging rights” now… so use them. Make sure to post your radio and TV clips, and links to your articles on your Web site. Email your newsletter subscribers and business associates to let them know when you’re on the air or featured in a news story – it’s marketing gold. Here are a couple of articles from our Web site on how to do this:

• How to Make the Most of Your On-Air Time
• The True ROI of Public Relations: What Do You REALLY Get From a PR Campaign

Over the years, I’ve found that the best way to market a book is to put yourself in a place populated by your customers and then provide them as much information as possible on what you’re selling. Today, the Internet is one of THE most important places to be so as not to miss out on those valuable opportunities to connect with potential buyers.

If you follow the steps I just outlined, you’ll be able to do just that.

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The AP article was picked up by CNBC online, which has 2,320,540 VPM (visits/month).

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The AP article was picked up by CNBC online, which has 117,878 VPM (visits/month).

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In promoting my book, Celebritize Yourself, I have my team at EMSI treat me like a client. They help me write and distribute articles that are aimed to promote the book, following the exact process that we perform for our clients.

Last week, one of the columns we produce and distribute to our news contacts reached the desk of Erin Conroy at the Associated Press. My advice on how to be a great radio guest resonated with her, so she called me up and interviewed me for her syndicated “Watercooler” column. This morning, that column was picked up by forbes.com, businessweek.com, cnbc.com and newspapers like the San Francisco Examiner.

I constantly advise my clients that the print media is a wide open playing field, and that the secret to getting great press is to develop a news angle (NOT a sales angle) and get out there. My team helps me do that the same way they do it for our clients, and the results of those efforts are clear.

The AP article was picked up by LehighValleyLive.com, which has 241,587 VPM (visits/month)

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