Hi, publicists! You know I love you. You’re the reason I don’t pay for music. You help me make a living, sort of. But you don’t like wasting your time any more than I do, so here are a couple of tips that will save us both precious seconds we could be looking at animated GIFs of cats.
1. Please don’t send me invitations to concerts in cities in which I have not lived for five years. I really love it that you want to get me into shows for free, but having to drive 1600 miles to get to the venue cuts into the cost savings a bit.
2. Similarly, do not send me information about anything whatsoever involving clubs in New York. I have never been to a club in New York, and I will never be in a club ion New York, even in a bathroom attendant capacity.
3. Why do I care about your client exclusively debuting a song through a publication I don’t work for? It’s not my job to give my rivals free publicity. If they want me to get excited about something, let them hire me.
4. I really don’t need to get the same announcement more than four times. Two is really more than enough, to be perfectly honest with you.
5. The best way to get me to ignore your e-mails is to make them seem like homework. If they are more than five pages long, or require me to fill out a form, or make me feel guilty for doing my job, I’m just going to feel like I’m 11 years old.
6. When I ask for an interview or promo materials, I’m not trying to pull a fast one on you. I have enough headaches, honestly. Your client isn’t the president. I’m not going to give his phone number to Kim Jong-Il.
7. There are approximately 900 billion ways to get music to me. So there is no chance I’m going to review something based on 30-second clips. None. I recognize this may not be your fault, but it’s still bush league.
8. Screeners! I love screeners! Everybody loves screeners! I promise not to sell them on street corners! And they are so much better than a one-paragraph written description of your movie or TV show, which is as useful as a dead battery.
9. Please do not send me press releases about a new landing screen on your client’s website. No one in the history of the world has ever gotten excited about a new landing screen on a website.
10. But seriously, I love you, each and every one. I mean it.