By Stacey J. Miller, Book Publicist
S. J. Miller Communications
bookpromotion@gmail.com
Believe it or not, here's a book publicity tool you once had and will probably want again for the duration of your book promotion campaign: a landline.
Yes, as a citizen of the world (besides being a book publicist), I know that just about everyone has traded in his or her landline for a cell phone. It's the economical and reasonable way to go. Why pay for landline telephone service that you don't need?
But for authors who are planning book publicity campaigns, here's an unwelcome surprise. You probably will need a landline to participate in radio interviews. Some radio show producers still check to ensure that the phone number authors provide are landline phone numbers and not cell phone numbers. Those radio show producers, certainly, are becoming relics, and they do sound strangely archaic trying to convince authors to find landlines to use.
However, this book publicist's motto is: the radio show producer is always right. If the radio show producer will book a radio interview only if the author has a landline available, then guess what? You need a landline to do the interview. You're not going to talk the radio show producer, who doesn't accept cell phone numbers for radio interviews, that your cell phone line has never been garbled or gotten disconnected. The radio show producer has heard it before, and it's nothing personal. It's just that every radio producer has had problems with other interviewees' cell phone lines and isn't willing to risk bad on-air audio again -- for any author, even for you.
So, even though you may not keep the landline telephone service at the conclusion of your book publicity campaign, you'd be wise to have a landline -- or access to a landline -- available for the duration of your book publicity campaign. Don't miss out on opportunities because you're unwilling to hold onto old technology! What's old to some people is still an indispensable book publicity tool.
