Are You Willing to Help a Reporter Out, and Help Yourself Too?

Reporters and other media are always under deadlines, so a service like Help a Reporter Out (HARO) is a tremendous help in getting the sources they need for their stories. When YOU are the source they need, you help yourself too because you get exposure for your book, business or service. This popular sourcing service connects journalists, bloggers, and other writers with relevant expert sources to meet their demanding deadlines and enable brands, like you, to tell their stories.

There are five reasons you should use HARO.

1. They distribute more than 50,000 journalist queries from highly respected media outlets each year.
2. Their pitching process is straight forward allowing you to find topics related to your expertise, industry or experience while allowing journalists to spend more time writing and less time sourcing.
3. It’s free.
4. You have lots of chances to find a relevant story because they post frequently–three times a day
5. When your entry is published, you get massive exposure, sometimes to major media.

Five things to know before using HARO.

1. You must be a registered user at HARO to start receiving the pitches.
2. You are pitching your expertise in a given topic, not your book. For example, if you homeschool your children for twelve years, you can certainly talk about homeschooling without regard to your book’s topic. It doesn’t hurt, of course, if your topic and your book are the same.
3. The journalist or media may be masked so you don’t always know if you’re pitching to a regional, local, or major media, but free exposure is still gold.
4. The deadlines are tight so you must act fast.
5. The reporter has the final say on the editing, so they reserve the right to paraphrase, punctuate and abbreviate.

Two examples of authors who got exposure by responding to HARO.

Gisela Hausmann, who writes and speaks about mainly about PR, had written a book about her experiences with building a fire pit, so she easily gravitated to the request for information on this topic.

Here’s what Gisela posted on Facebook today

Hello all,

Remember, how in my book “BOOK MARKETING The Funnel Factor” I present that famous pitch about planting veggies? Of course, there is a reason, it comes up every year.

Well, FOXNews is looking for people who can pitch it – #rightnow. FOXNews is a phenomenal media outlet. I had my fire pit book featured there. Never marketed the book at all and still sold quite many copies just because it was mentioned on FOXNews.

If you can pitch the veggie story do it NOW!
All details below. YOU MUST be a registered user at HARO, the rest is featured below.

If you have troubles phrasing your pitch, follow the templates in my book.

Good Luck!!!

IMPORTANT: As for this comment: Looking for gardening professionals… Don’t be hung up on that, I am not a professional fire pit builder and still made it on FOXNews, You just gotta demonstrate that you know your stuff.

***HERE IS THE HARO LISTING GISELA RESPONDED TO***

37) Summary: 5 Top Tips for Growing Your Own Food Outdoors

Name: Katie Jackson Fox News (Online)
Category: Lifestyle and Fitness

Email: [email protected]

Media Outlet: Fox News (Online)

Deadline: 7:00 PM MST – 17 March

Query:

Hello,

I’m working on a story featuring IMPORTANT tips for having a
successful garden. These should be things you can do now, i.e.
to prep the soil for the upcoming summer season.

Looking for insight from gardening professionals! Thanks in
advance, and I’ll respond if it looks like I can feature you.

Requirements:

Outdoors only. Food not products tips

HERE IS PUBLISHED STORY FEATURING GISELA’S CONTRIBUTION

I confess that I would have missed this HARO query if not for my eagle-eyed friend Shirley George Frazier.

***HERE IS THE HARO LISTING I RESPONDED TO***

4) Summary: 5 common mistakes people make in their pursuit of happiness

Name: Jeff Moore Everyday Power Blog

Category: General

Email: query-6amp@helpareporter.net

Media Outlet: Everyday Power Blog

Deadline: 7:00 PM EST – 17 November

Query:

With over 200,000 monthly views Everyday Power Blog’s readers
would love to learn about: 5 common mistakes people make in
their pursuit of happiness. What steps can I take? Check us out
at EverydayPowerBlog.com

Requirements:

For consideration please send your response to the query, a
short bio, headshot and social media links to
[email protected]

After I responded to this query, I got a request to expand my contribution to a 600-word article. Like Gisela, I have written a book on the topic, but that is not always the case with HARO.

HERE IS MY PUBLISHED ARTICLE
 7 Surefire Ways to Set Yourself Up for Happiness.

Now, how about you? Are you willing to help a reporter out, and yourself too? Have you already responded to a HARO query? What was your experience? Share it in the comments below 👇👇