Are you considering selling a story to the national press, and are wondering how to get the best deal for your story?
We secure the best deals for our clients by taking their story to the right section on the right publication. For instance, some stories are right for the Daily Mail but wouldn’t be right for The Sun.
To ensure we are securing you the best offer, we decide which publication it suits best and what section to pitch it to. We have direct lines to ever department on every national magazine and newspaper in the country.
Some stories are topical and are more ‘newsy’ and others aren’t time sensitive but would make an excellent feature. So when we pitch a story it’s imperative to know all the facts so we’re sure we are pitching it to the right publication and the right section on that publication.
Generally, we try to get you a multi-media deal. Our first port of call is to place it exclusively with a Sunday paper (mainly because they pay the best).
Once it’s run we’ll syndicate it on our news wires – meaning any publication online or in print can pick it up and run it the following day.
Once we’ve exhausted the newpaper market, we’ll raise it with our contacts at daytime TV shows such as This Morning, Good Morning Britain, Lorraine and Loose Women.
For most, this is the best part of selling their story and they enjoy it thoroughly. But it’s important to remember that those popular daytime TV shows do not pluck stories out of thin air – they follow what appears in the papers – so if you want to do TV, you will need to do an interview with a paper first. On the other hand, if appearing on TV isn’t something you’re interested in, no problem. It’s your story, and with our help, you will stay in control through the entire process.
After you’ve done national papers and TV, we’ll secure you two magazine deals as well. We send your story to all of the women’s weeklies and who will bid against each other to secure the rights to your story. This will take your money up substantially and the mag who bids the highest, gets the story.
Once it runs in that magazine, we’ll secure you a ‘second rights’ deal with a non-direct competitor magazine.
Obviously, not all stories we sell to the papers will end up on TV or in the magazines – this mainly applies to ‘real life’ or ‘true life’ stories. For instance, a news story from a whistle blower on a company would not be right for daytime TV or the women’s magazines, but the mum of a victim of crime or a love rat story would.
We will negotiate on your behalf to secure you the highest fee possible and we make sure you’re paid for EVERY piece of media you do. However, if you’re not happy with an offer we secure you, you’re not obliged to go through with it and we would not print anything without your permission.
But please remember it is quite difficult to pull out of a story last minute if you have signed a contract, posed for pictures and if we have written copy – please let us know as soon as possible.
At Talk to the Press, we feel it’s important to manage our clients’ expectations, so we will keep you in the loop throughout the process and make sure you’re happy with where we are taking your story and the angle it is being pitched on.
We do not believe in turning our clients over to make a quick buck and our dedicated team will make sure you’re 100 per cent happy with the copy before it goes to press. We adhere to the IPSO code of practice, and we are bound by copyright law.
You can find out more about our free story valuations here. In addition, you can check to see what type of stories we are looking for on our ‘do I have a story?‘ page.
You can also read some of our recent posts and headlines here:
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