From Corey Deitz,
Your Guide to Radio.
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Mar 31 2007

Francine Silverman runs an online publicity service for authors (bookpromotionnewsletter.com) and has taken her experience and information to create "Talk Radio for Authors", a book designed to help authors get interviews on radio shows in the U.S. and Canada.

Reviewing a book as this is not the same as reviewing, say, a novel. This is a reference tool and as such, my review can only provide you with my opinion on how it may help you - not necessarily how much I enjoyed reading it or how it personally served me.

The first portion of the book - and the bulk of it - is devoted to information on radio shows by topic of interest. For instance: Addiction and Recovery, Animals, Art, Cars, Disabilities, Food, Hispanic, Law, Men, etc. Silverman provides a breakdown of 38 more popular ones.

Under each topic, the reader will find the name of radio shows, hosts, website addresses, email addresses and what she designates as the "Theme" of each program plus a "Guest Profile".

The Theme aspect gives the author an idea of what the radio program is about while the Guest Profile information provides the author with an a sense of what type of guests the show seeks out.

In addition, many entries under topics also list "Also aired" which tells the reader where the show is also heard, whether on another station, network, Internet stream, or podcast.

I like the fact that Silverman understands that the latter are important in pursuing a promotion structure for selling books. The new media are just as important as the traditional media - maybe more so in some instances.

Occasionally, an entry for a radio show will also include a comment from the program’s host on a recent guest or one that made an impression for one reason or another.

Back of the Book

Appendix A is one page featuring radio show directories.

Appendix B is a list of "Bios" of guest authors. I didn’t quite understand why this particular information would be useful to another author who is trying to get interviews to promote his or her own book. So, to be fair I asked Silverman and she responded:

I think that authors who have never been on the radio reading other author's bios who are on the radio will see what kind of authors they are. It may show them that they have just as much background as the guests profiled in the book and give them courage. It also helps to show what kind of authors the hosts are looking for. If I just put the author's name under their quote, it wouldn't tell readers anything. In any way, their bios are just as important as the host's.

Appendix C contains "Host Bios" which might be useful to an author who wants to understand better the person they are about to be interviewed by.

Appendix D lists four articles of interest by other authors on the subject of promotions and interviews.

The Bottom Line

Overall, "Talk Radio for Authors" seems like it would be fairly useful for many authors. Silverman has done the legwork in compiling a decent list of contacts for many radio shows.

Having promoted a book myself, I can tell you that compiling your own list of radio host & show contacts by searching the Internet is slow and grueling. It may also be cheaper, but for the price of Silverman’s book - $17.95 - any author should certainly get their money’s worth.

"Talk Radio for Authors"
by Francine Silverman
InfinityPublishing.com
2007

You can find ordering information for "Talk Radio for Authors" at bookpromotionnewsletter.com.