Face2Face KLAY Radio Interview Cancelled
Update: I won’t be on Face2Face this Sunday on KLAY 1180 Radio. Turns out there’s a fee to appear on the show. I just was told about that on Monday. That’s a deal-beaker for me.
As a small, independent, relatively unknown author and publisher, my outreach must consist of 100% free outreach. (Social media, articles, guest blogs, and radio/podcast/TV interviews.) I never know if I’ll get a return on the investment.
I’m not exactly JK Rowling!!!
And the experience at New Day Northwest a year ago in August cost money instead of making any. Not because they required a fee but because they wanted the studio audience to go home with a copy of my book. (35 audience members, 35 copies; any extras went to the crew at New Day who wanted them.)
I figured a local TV show was a decent bet because I’d be exposed to New Day’s entire Pacific NW audience for five minutes on a major station. I thought I’d CERTAINLY get at least 35 books’ worth of sales! It seemed like such a no-brainer to me.
As it turned out, the country’s most avid, most well-heeled Star Trek fans were in Las Vegas that very day at the 50th anniversary Creation Convention. And the station neglected to post the link about where to get the book until 10 PM that night (I appeared at 11 a.m.) when it posted the interview link to its Facebook page.By the next morning, the post was so far down their page very few people who visit their page even saw it.
So the anemic boost in book sales wasn’t even enough to offset the cost.
Needless to say, it was a HUGE disappointment and a major hit to my skimpy pocketbook.
So I don’t take risks anymore. My books are supposed to make money, not cost money, YA KNOW?! It was a costly, hard-won lesson in shrewd marketing…
Ya win some, ya lose some. I just can’t afford to LOSE any… so I don’t do “risky” anymore!
Making a living as a copywriter is all the risk I’m still willing to take as a Creative when it comes to selling words. It’s time-consuming to find clients willing to pay what great copy and content are worth.
It takes literally hours to find people who will pay for professional-level copy and content at the existing freelance portals, even when you’re top-rated. (I am.)
People are pinching pennies everywhere except in penthouses. Our “recovery” worked for the oligarchs, plutocrats and corporations at the top of the food chain, but they sure haven’t worked for anyone else. That’s another topic entirely, but it impacts people like you and me because so few of us have sufficient “disposable income” that we can turn loose to enjoy a good book and other joys of life. It’s very sad.
Heck, if Createspace wasn’t free to use, publishing via a third party would be a deal-breaker for me, too.
When it’s hard to find two dollar bills to rub together at times, avoiding risk is understandable. I get it! I’m in the same boat.
But we gotta keep rowing or we drift backward…
Keep rowing!
P.S. I did let the Face2Face KLAY Radio host know that she needs to make it very clear right up front immediately that there is a fee to appear on her show. Otherwise, it seems like a bait-and-switch tactic at the last minute, as she has been advertising my appearance on the show for a couple of weeks now. People will be tuning in expecting to hear from me and they will be disappointed.
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