Using HARO to boost originality and quality

[JD]

Many thanks, Antonia. That's really useful.

Jane

[Celeste Stewart]

I so much prefer email interviews because of all of the above. . . I didn't know you could record Skype calls. THat's cool, I'll have to check that out. I'm such a Skype newbie.

A long time ago, I interviewed my child's pediatrician for an article. I used Microsoft Office OneNote's recording tool and my computer's microphone to record the call (on speaker phone). It was helpful. I don't use OneNote as often as I should, but it's useful for keeping all your files, notes, audio recordings, etc in one place. I did buy the Pulse Smart Pen a couple months ago and it's also great for taking audio notes. What's neat about it is you can write a single word or phrase describing the discussion like "contact info" and then later touch that word with the pen and hear the audio that corresponds - way cool actually!

[Celeste Stewart]

Oh my! I put out a query for nutritionists and am overwhelmed by the quality of respondents on HARO! I'm getting responses from well-respected hospitals and even an expert from the Food Network.

[Debbi]

Yeah, I put in a request for animal experts and got something like 30 pitches immediately. Several were from Animal Planet, NPR, Discovery, etc. Others from authors, animal behaviorists, scientists, inventors, and game designers. One even sent me some samples of their games for pets (in trasit). I also had a pitch from an Animal Communicator but I haven't followed that up yet. My favorite was from a guy who trained his two border collies to play soccer against kids. Oh, and a K9 officer who trains other K9 handlers and is on his 3rd partner. Makes me wonder what happened to the other two....

I am a bit intimidated by all these worthies and not very comfident in my interviewing skills. I'm no journalist, but primarily a fiction writer turned web content writers, so I don't quite know how to go about this. But the opportunities are stupendous.

Celeste, when the respondent asks you waht publication your article is going in, what do you say? Since we never know where an article will end up, I'm not sure how to phrase it.

Debbi

[Celeste Stewart]

I tell them that I'm writing the article on speculation and will be posting it for sale on Constant-Content.com where it's difficult to predict who will pick it up. I do mention that I've sold many articles this way as well as list some of the more prominent Web sites where my work appears. Still fine-tuning that part. I wish I could say exactly where, but so far the people have been fine with that.