BAIPA member Julie Freestone admits she’s obsessed with the twice-daily dispatches she gets from HARO—Help a Reporter Out: helpareporterout.com. The free service links journalists with sources they can interview for insights on a broad variety of subjects.
Does it sell more books? Hard to say, but it is a way to get your book mentioned in a market that you might not otherwise tap into. Recently Julie and her husband and co-author Rudi Raab were one of seven couples mentioned in Bustle magazine—and their Stumbling Stone novel got a free promo. Check out the story: bustle.com.
HARO also led to a Chicago Tribune “promo” that was written for Sweetness Day. chicagotribune.com
They’ll be appearing live on November 6 at A Great Good Place for Books in Oakland, and at November 9 at the Albany Library. More at stumbling-stone.com.
Thanks for the helpful link to HARO; I ran across this service before and now I am looking into it further. Thank you for the link and story.
And checking our website traffic, I discovered that 18 people came from the Chicago Tribune site from that story to our webpage. Nice!