My first Gutsy interview

For the past week, I’ve been preparing for my first TV interview on the “Write Now” show.

It’s not for ABC, NBC, CBS, or CNN; it’s for local Public Access channels in seven cities.

I was asked to talk about blogging and my book, which I always seem to enjoy promoting without having a copy to show, give away, or sell to my audience. Hopefully that will change one day soon.

Surrounded by two men and a nice lady at the round table above, my first question was, “Why did your family move to Belize? For the next five minutes, which seemed more like one, I was asked about our adventures in Belize and whether we succeeded in accomplishing our goals. We then switched to blogging and “How do you grow your audience?” I had to think quickly about all the notes, books and blog posts I’ve read over the last three years on:

Darren Rowse, Problogger.net,

Brian Clark, Copyblogger.com 
Annabel Candy, SuccessfulBlogging,and so many other blogs.I’m fortunate to enjoy marketing and promotion, so it seemed natural to speak about the importance of branding yourself, and how new writers need to focus on growing their platform, three years before publication.Prior to the show, I studied women on TV. What do they wear?

After a week of paying attention, I came up with:Solid colors, bright is in, short sleeves are in, necklaces are out, big earrings are in. Even Oprah, follows this color scheme, except she wears sleeves.I have learned many helpful tips from publicity expert, Marsha Friedman’s book, Celebritize Yourself. She has a chapter on, “How to be a great radio or TV guest (and be quoted in the news!)” I also read about the importance of “authenticity” in Women Seen and Heard by Lois Phillips and Anita Perez Ferguson.