Do you aim for the top, the major newspapers or magazines and the bigname TV shows, or for something a little lower down the chain?
I'm not saying "Don't aim high", but you can do just as well from some very minor players. Publicity in specialist club, trade and craft journals can add up to a lot of sales. And those media are a lot more forgiving in the quality of what you submit.
You could try for years without getting on to Oprah, but be missing the sales of two, ten or more that come from a mention in those many publications which circulate to 200 members.
At the same time don't underestimate those readers. They know their subject. What they will want is hard edged details of why your book or product is better or has the answers to a need they can see.
I was prompted in this by seeing an ad for what is essentially a local restaurant in a national magazine. The restaurant is good, but not one that will persuade people to drive for an hour or two to get there. Even the local newspaper which circulates in several towns may be spreading the net too wide.
The book "Success in Store" which I co-authored, tells of a pizza store which "always" distributed 10,000 menus in order to get to the end of the next suburb. But the result of several thousand of those was a few price-taking delivery orders who'd go elsewhere the minute someone else made an offer. And each took half an hour to deliver.
By spending the same on fewer menus, he produced something which stood out, kept his deliveries within easy reach, so he could guarantee them being faster, and his profit went up.
Flyers you can deliver on a morning run (to keep fit) may not suit your market, but some trial promotion in those specialist publications, maybe for some businesses even on specialist web sites, could be the better answer.
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