The First Email Doesn’t Even Count

“I haven’t heard back from the journalists I’ve tried!”

“No one is responding!” 

“I’m getting crickets!”

We often hear it from authors as they work to promote their books. Our response is always the same: “Have you followed up? How many times?” 

An informal rule of thumb we use when pitching at Press Shop PR: the first email barely counts these days.

Why don’t people respond? For the same reasons we all fail to write back to some emails in a timely fashion: all our inboxes are crazy, AI spam is out of control, we’re working on something else and decide to respond later. Later turns into never. 

So, you need to follow up. And yes, we understand: It’s hard enough getting out of your comfort zone to pitch the first time, and now we’re telling you to press send again? We are! That said, we are not suggesting you follow up 5 times and certainly not with hastily dashed-off notes or, worse, AI slop.

Sending a follow up email may require a mindset shift: Instead of thinking about it as promoting yourself, think of it as promoting your work. You are bringing news about a worthy piece of work to their attention!

We don’t consider it a “no response” until at least a week after the second follow up. At that point, it’s time to move on. But do not take it personally! Everyone is crazed and overwhelmed these days with all the dinging, pinging, and ringing. Maybe the person is on book leave, parental leave, mental health leave—even, perhaps, touching grass.

Don’t take it personally, just keep on promoting your book with that spirit of relentless yet realistic optimism.