As a book publicist I talk to authors and clients every day and every so often one says, “Oh I really don’t want to do radio” or I’ll have a client who’ll decline a radio interview and then give me reasons like “There’s only 5,000 people listening to that station, or such and such is a small town, or nobody listens to radio at 2AM,” or whatever.

I usually respond with “If the Rotary Club in your home town called you today and invited you to speak to their club and 450 people would be in the audience, would you go?” The answer is always a resounding “YES! I’d love to do that…” What’s the difference? Perhaps it’s perception. If you can see them, 450 people are a lot of folks. If you can’t see them it’s too small. How about 5,000 people? But, it’s not always the quantity of listeners it’s the quality of that listening audience.

Let me tell you, radio makes stars, radio interviews get people on TV, radio gets people on Oprah.

That brings me to the story of Rachael Ray and her big break in 2001. She had already sold 10,000 of her cookbooks and she had her own TV segment on WRGB, the local CBS affiliate in Albany, New York. Jennifer Pullinger, the publicist at National Book Network assigned to work on two of her books, Comfort Foods and Veggie Meals, had booked her on various radio shows for phone interviews as part of the publicity campaign. After booking Ray on a handful of small-market radio shows, Pullinger utilized one of Ray’s contacts at WAMC in Albany, New York and scheduled her for a cooking demo on Northeast Public Radio’s “Vox Pop.” The host, Joe Donahue, had had Ray on his program before and happily booked her again. Ray did her demo, and of course, listeners loved it.

And, guess who was listening to that station? Someone who knew the Food Network’s VP of Programming, Bob Tuschman. That “influential” person heard Ray’s segment, and told Tuschman about her. Tuschman then called Pullinger to arrange a meeting with Ray and the rest is history. Oh, and who was listening to another of Rachael Ray’s radio interviews while on his vacation? Al Roker, the weatherman from the Today Show. Al told the show’s food producer to check her out. The producer called Pullinger and booked Ray for a live cooking segment with Al on the Today Show. She was a hit. Then after a couple of years on the Food Network she got THE BIG CALL from Oprah which led to her daily nationally syndicated TV show.

Her big break(s) can be traced back to radio interviews and the groundwork laid by her publicist Jennifer Pullinger, who had previously shipped tapes of Rachael on WRGB-TV to the Food Network and all the morning shows. Think about it. A major star’s career was born from a radio interview, and one that happened at the last minute, and one she nearly turned down. PR opened the door for Rachael Ray and it can do that for you too. Putting a value on that is hard to do but, I’d have to say it’s priceless.

I am often called by producers who want a guest at the last minute. I always deliver them a guest and since I just helped them out of a jam they remember it.

The bottom line is, radio works – radio is a great medium. If you get a radio opportunity, take it! You never know who’ll be listening.

Scott Lorenz is President of Westwind Communications, a public relations and marketing firm with a special knack for working with individuals and entrepreneurs to help them get all the publicity they deserve and more. Lorenz has handled public relations and marketing for numerous authors, doctors, lawyers, inventors and entrepreneurs. As a book marketing expert Lorenz is called upon by top execs and bestselling authors to promote their books. Learn more about Westwind Communications’ book marketing approach at http://www.book-marketing-expert.com or contact Lorenz at scottlorenz@westwindcos.com or by phone at 734-667-2090.

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Cookbooks always sell. They’re always number one sellers. People buy hundreds of cookbooks. It seems like anybody who comes out with a cookbook sells it. Before he wrote his book, he had not known much about the cookbook market, has just read something that said cookbooks always sell well.

He was thinking of the “hungry” market and at the same time, his love for science fiction movies. He says of his idea that he was “driving down the street. My twisted brain put these two ideas together, science fiction and cooking, special effects and cooking.”

This was back in 1990. He thought of what a great idea this could be for him: a special effects cookbook; how to create recipes that move and smoke and sing and glow in the dark and puff, and snap, crackle and pop and so on.

And so immediately, he went home and created his first recipe: a smoking dragon cake. This was a cake in the shape of a dragon that actually blew out safe, mysterious smoke.

Because of his inventing spirit he was able to figure out how to do this on his own, and then from there, just created another one and another one and another one. It took him about two months to create 50 recipes and put them in a book.

He also decided to self publish, and with this sold 500,000 copies at a profit of $10 a piece. That’s five million dollars, straight into his pocket, just by self-publishing!

Do you have the makings of a good quality book? Here are a few hints for you. Unless you’re a very well versed in desktop publishing or you’re a good artist, I would hire it done.

In the cookbook, he wrote all the recipes out in longhand and did some rough sketches. He actually had a good friend who was a cartoonist and did the hand drawings that he for the cover of the book. He then just took it down to the print shop and cranked out 20 books. They were all soft cover, and had no photographs.

He didn’t even have a formal copyright; just went ahead and printed copyright 1990. His plan was to sell this by space ads, but didn’t have enough money to do it right, so did some publicity instead.

And this is another thing I think a lot of marketers don’t pay enough attention to is getting publicity for their products, especially books. Books are hard to sell. If you go to a publisher and have them agree to publish your book, they’re still not going to advertise it.

He had never even considered going to a publisher with the cookbook. Instead, he always considered self-publishing to maintain complete control over the product.

If you’ve been collecting recipes or have a unique idea for a cookbook, self publishing with a sound marketing plan is a great recipe for success.

Michael Senoff is a sought-after Internet marketer, interviewer and business coach with more than 50,000 students on four continents. For a limited time he is giving away free over 120 hours of in-depth audio interviews with some of the richest and most successful marketers, copywriters and business experts in the world at his famous website http://hardtofindseminars.com.

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