By John Gilstrap
http://www.johngilstrap.com
No Mercy is now arriving in stores, and the publicity push has begun. This morning, I awoke at zero-dark-early to be bright eyed and clear-voiced for my 7:15 live radio interview for the New York market. According to the notes from my publicist, the interview was to last between 10 and 12 minutes. It in fact lasted two. Was it something I said? Something I didn’t say?
Perhaps it was because guest host Rob was sitting in for regular host Frank. Or, maybe I’m just not as fleet of tongue on the radio as I thought I was.
But I do good crowd. Two days ago, I killed at the library event I did in Oakton, Virginia, near my home—and no, the audience wasn’t stacked with friends and relatives. I was really on. They laughed when they were supposed to, they asked engaging questions, and then they applauded enthusiastically at the end. I enjoy public speaking, and at the risk of sounding immodest, I’m pretty good at it.
I’m thinking, though, that maybe I’m not so good with radio. In fact, the more I ruminate, the more I’m convinced that my discomfort has a lot to do with the cold start. You sit on the phone, listening to the end of the lead-in commercial, and then you hear something like, “We have thriller author John Gilstrap on the phone with us now . . .” In a live speech, this is the moment when you check your fly one last time, square your shoulders and wait for the applause to bring you on. On the radio, all you get to do is take a last breath.
“. . . Good morning, John. Thanks for coming on the show.”
“Good morning to you Tom. Thanks for having me.”
“So tell us about No Mercy.”
Cue the stammer. A year ago, I worked my ass off to get the manuscript in at fewer than 500 pages. Now, on live radio, I’ve got just a few seconds to introduce a character and a plot and a theme, all without the thoughtful pauses that work so well on stage. Ideally, you mention the title a couple of times, and if you can make it happen, you mention your website. All this without sounding like the Sham-Wow guy: “No Mercy is the best gol-durned book you’ll ever read, Tom. That’s 1-800-NO MERCY. Operators are standing by.” [Note to self: I should have gotten an 800 number. Damn.]
In my version of a perfect media world, all interviews would be more about the author and the story behind the story than about the book itself. Think about it: the host can sum up the plot in his introduction just by reading the jacket notes. Then, how cool would it be to get a question like, “No Mercy sounds like an exciting read. Does this sort of freelance hostage rescue contractor actually exist?” That opens all kinds of avenues to be explored. In my world, an interview would really be a conversation in front of a few thousand eavesdroppers.
In my perfect media world, no one would ever say to a guest, “So, tell me about yourself.” It’s a great question if the point of an interview is to get a job, but outside of that milieu, I think it’s lazy hosting. Again, they need only take a glance at the jacket notes. It sounds stupid for me to mention that I’m a safety engineer and a former firefighter because it’s a non-sequitur in the middle of a discussion about books. But if the host mentions it and then asks, “How does someone with that background come to writing books about hostage rescuers?” then we’ve again got fodder for a good conversation.
But we don’t live in a perfect world, and I’ve got a bunch more of this coming—in some cases complete with television cameras.
Give me a hand, folks. How do you handle this? How do you handle the impossible questions? How do you manage a bad interview? What are the elements of the very best interviews you’ve done?
First, I’ve seen John in person, and he’s right: he’s excellent. Articulate, funny, informative, and never bullshits his way through a question to avoid answering.
I’ve not been interviewed myself (it helps to be published first), but my favorite story comes from a signing by Robert B. Parker several years ago. He was on some local morning TV show with Stephen King, and the ditzy hostess began by asking King where he gets his ideas.
“Utica,” he said. “There’s a little store there where you can pick them up. Only sells to writers.”
The hostess, undeterred, then asked Parker where he got his ideas.
“Same place,” he said.
And she went on with her next prepared question like nothing had happened.
I’m also slightly discombobulated by those early-morning call-in radio appearances. I’m usually calling in to east coast stations from LA, so I’ve called in as early as 4:15 a.m.! I deal with my nervousness by preparing a written, basic spiel that I launch into when the host gives me a cue question like, “Tell me about…”. I practice it a few times before the interview so that it doesn’t sound like I’m reading. With longer interviews, I sometimes get thrown by unexpected questions. My favorite one was the time that call-in guests wanted to talk about ghosts and conspiracy theories (the host had just finished a show on those topics). Rather than dragging the conversation back to my “message,” I got caught up in talking about ghosts, UFOs, etc. Don’t know if I sold any books that day, but it was wacky fun!
I suspect people rehearse a lot.
Have you rehearsed an elevator pitch? That is, if you had to sell your book to someone in the time it took to get an elevator to go five floors, what would you say?
Or (heaven help us all) a Twitter pitch? What can you say about your book in 140 characters?
If you keep your answers short and to the point, you’ll keep your audience interested and you’ll make the interviewers have to actually work, which is kinda cool.
Great topic, John. Writers have to face the dreaded “what’s your book about” question often. For me, having a co-writer helps in an interview since one of us will always have something to say. But whether it’s a formal presentation or a media interview, we still rehearse extensively beforehand. Just because we wrote the book doesn’t mean we can always pull a beautifully crafted response out of the air. After all, it took 100k words to tell the story. It’s hard to distill that down to 100 words or less.
I believe that a writer, just like a dancer, singer or actor, must rehearse the portion of the job dealing with discussing what the book is about. I’m always prepared to give a one-sentence “TV Guide” description. It should come as easily as stating a birthday or place of birth. I don’t need to think about it.
I’ve also found that most interviewers know little or nothing about the book. Their questions are generic. So I always fax or email a list of 4-5 basic questions in advance. But my questions are specific to the book and it helps draw out specific answers. I’ve walked into TV interviews and handed the host a list beforehand. It makes both of us look good, and they’re always.
. . . grateful.
The worst for me was during OJ 1, getting up at 2 a.m. and going to a small ABC station to talk to Charlie Gibson on GMA at 4 a.m. I should say, talk to a camera eye with an earpiece piping me Charlie Gibson. Who asked me a question I was not prepared for. I muddled through OK, but that taught me to always anticipate four or five really off the wall questions, and then have answers ready that might not be directly on point, but allow me to get back to basics.
Thanks for the input, everyone. (Special thanks to Dana for your very kind words.)
I’m realizing that perhaps I whined a little too loudly in my post. I’m making this whole interview thing sound like much more of a train wreck than it really is. I do in fact rehearse the so-called elevator speech. Still, I tend to think too much. Should I do to the ten-second version or the thirty-second one? Without visual clues from the interviewer, it’s a tough call.
I’ve received some input on this blog entry from people on Facebook reminding me that the first rule of being interviewed is to shape your message–to answer the question you wished you’d been asked. I can see how that applies to politicians, but can you really do that when you’re talking about fiction? It’s interesting that as I write this, I’m realizing that all of my media training has come from Washington firms that specialize more in evasion of difficult gotcha-style questions than on fully answering well-meaning ones.
The question during yesterday’s interview that hit me from out of nowhere was, “What’s your day job?” I didn’t quite vapor lock, but it was close. I work hard to keep the two sides of my life separated, more or less at the request of my day job employer, and this one caught me completely flat-footed. I’m ready for it next time, though.
And Joe, I’m writing those faxable interview questions today.
John Gilstrap
http://www.johngilstrap.com
Radio is hard John and I agree the best openers get you to delve into characters or your life not just ‘what’s the book about?’ I have a little cheat sheet which has my summary down so I can launch immediately into it. I find it really helps. I have also had some off the wall questions – mainly about my former life as a lawyer and economist (opinions on current economic crisis anyone…) as well as some just plain bizarre ones where I just wing it and laugh…
p.s., Sometimes I get too compulsive about preparing. I lay out a series of pages with written responses to a variety of questions that I think the host might ask, based on previous interview experiences. When possible, I also try to listen to the host over the Internet, to get a feel for his interviewing style and types of questions. Sometimes all that preparation just makes me more nervous, however, so I’ve stopped doing that lately…
I agree with Kathryn – sometimes I have so much crap around me when I’m doing the interview it actually stymies me. I’m now more freewheeling about it but I still (like many of the others) have my cheat sheet nearby!
I actually hope someday to hear Kathryn, during a radio interview, say, “Neener neener.”
I’ve been on both sides of the Mic for various talk shows. The thing about radio (never done TV except as a voice over guy for commercials) is to be ready all the time, for any thing, any time, and always anticipate that what you have no idea will happen will in fact happen.
Last time I did a talk show as a guest host I totally blew it because I wasn’t ready. The manager had been told two months in advance that would cover for the regular host, but neglected to verify this with me until the day before the two hour live call in show. I was totally unprepared and got a couple of guests that should’ve been on for ten minutes max to stay on for an hour each. So boring….
It’s one thing to feel like you blew it as a guest, at least folks will remember your name and maybe hear it in a better light next time. Its something totally different to blow it as the host…and the phone doesn’t ring again.
Dang.
A few years ago I had two really bad interviewers, one TV and one radio host. I didn’t answer any of the questions of the interviewers and just spoke directly to the viewers/listeners and told them what I thought they needed to know about me and my book.