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issue of : October 2007

QUOTE OF THE MONTH
PTA CELEBRATES 45 YEARS! A Brief History from President Rick Frishman - Celebrating 45 Years!
PTA'S FREE TELESEMINARS
SURFIN' - Words, words, words.
WHAT HAVE WE DONE FOR YOU LATELY? - PTA’s Recent
PITCH IDEAS - Ideas for anchoring your publicity – "Cook Something Bold and Pungent Day", and National Game and Puzzle week among others
TIPS FROM THE TOP - Our Monthly Advice Column

QUOTE OF THE MONTH

"Concentrate all your thoughts upon the work at hand.
The sun's rays do not burn until brought to a focus."

—Alexander Graham Bell

If you have a great quote to share, please send it to tipsheet@plannedtvarts.com.
Thanks!

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PTA CELEBRATES 45 YEARS! A Brief History from President Rick Frishman

Long gone are the days when Planned TV Arts (PTA) was a two man operation! Mike Levine, one of the "Fathers of PR" and mentor to dozens of PR practitioners, founded PTA 45 years ago, in 1962.

I joined Mike on December 1, 1976 after being a producer at the "Barry Farber Show" at WOR Radio. I went from the one being pitched to the one doing the pitching. And for a while it was just Mike and me. Over the years, PTA grew and some of our key people joined the company - Hillary Rivman who stayed with the company for 22 years and is still affiliated with PTA; David Thalberg who was here for 20 years and is still a great friend of the company, and David Hahn who came in 1986 and who still writes a holiday poem about the company every year! In 1990 Mike retired and in 1993 Planned TV Arts merged with Ruder Finn. In fact this week is our 14th Anniversary at Ruder Finn.

I am so proud of our management - The wonderful people we have here makes it fun to come to work every day. Not many companies have senior managers who have been with the company an average of 15 years! I would like to thank David Hahn (21 years), Deb Kohan (13 years), Sandy Trupp (11 years), Kristin Clifford (13 years), Paul Schwartz (15 years), Brian Feinblum (9 years), Sharon Farnell (10 years) and all of our amazing PTA staff.

Happy 45th Anniversary,
Rick

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PTA'S FREE TELESEMINARS

Upcoming TeleSeminars

Free Teleseminar October 24^th, 8-9pm EST

Glenn Dietzel, author of How To Become A Millionaire Expert In The Recommendation Age and the founder of Awakened, LLC, a leading thought company, has been at the forefront of authoring and business coaching/consulting for years. Glenn teaches clients to simultaneously build a profitable business using the power of the Internet while authoring their own book in record time, Discover the power of Entrepreneurial Authoring and the specific attitudes, skills and knowledge not taught in any MBA program including:

How to use a new system of business technology to set your self up as the logical choice - just like he has done for Joel Comm, Wes Waddell, Sherry Watson and hundreds of others globally
How to use this proprietary model that will show you specifically how to take an idea and strategically transform it into a Recommendation...A Recommendation where your optimum clients can ONLY say Yes to you. Over and over again
How you can command Zipf's Law to your advantage
How to become an Insider in the Recommendation Age to reap the untold wealth as a Knowledge Broker
How to align your passion with a hungry market and create $5G, $10G, $50G and higher products and services easily using the power of Web 2.0
How to author your money making book-a 100 page money maker-in only 12 hours
How to gain instant access to our books-in-stores New York Publisher

To participate: Please call 712-338-8100. Then press in the code: 222089#.

Past Teleseminars:
Remember, our TeleSeminars are free (excluding your call cost). If you missed our last TeleSeminar with Jason Oman, you can dial the replay line at 507-726-3837 (Press the # sign after you dial in) or go to our website at www.plannedtvarts.com. We have about 67 hours of great information for you!

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SURFIN'

Preparing for an interview requires many things including rereading the material you/your spokesperson are supposed to speak about, making sure your clothes aren't still at the cleaners and knowing how to pronounce the names of the people you are speaking about. Ensuring that your spokesperson correctly pronounces the names in the news, Voice of America's pronunciation guide, http://ibb7.ibb.gov/pronunciations/index.cfm gives the phonetic translation of a name and in many cases an audio file. The site also has a section entitled, "Nations and their Languages" which lists what languages are most commonly spoken in that country and if there is an official language.

Stumped with a pesky grammar problem? To semicolon or to colon? http://www.bartleby.com/ is a fantastic website devoted to providing for all of your reference needs. Here you can find Strunk's Elements of Style, Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, the American Heritage Dictionary® and Bartlett's Familiar Quotations all in one place and for free. As they say on their website they are "the preeminent Internet Publisher of literature, reference and verse providing students, researchers and the intellectually curious with unlimited access to books and information on the web, free of charge." We at PTA, and our press releases, thank you.

With their unabridged dictionary, thesaurus, Spanish-English and medical dictionaries, Merriam Webster's website, http://m-w.com/, is another way to guarantee that all of your press materials are jam packed with arresting, gripping, enthralling and spellbinding words that are also correctly used. For fun the site also has great word games, crossword puzzles, buzzwords and more.

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WHAT HAVE WE DONE FOR YOU LATELY?

Here's a sampling of our latest bookings.

For a Radio Tour for Amy DuBois Barnett, author of Get Yours (Broadway/Random House) PTA booked:

Oprah and Friends on XM Satellite
Nashville (WJXA-FM) #1 Overall/AC
Tampa (WFLA-AM) #1 News/Talk
Chicago (WUSN-FM, WCKG-FM, WJMK-FM) #1 Country, Talk, Adult Hits
Sacramento (KHYL-FM) #1 Rhythmic Oldies
St. Louis (WFUN-FM) #1 Urban AC

For Masters of Sales By Ivan Misner, Ph.D. & Don Morgan, M.A. (Entrepreneur Press), PTA booked:

WOR-AM (New York, NY), Winning in Business
About.com Business Majors
Entrepreneur.com
ManageSmarter.com

For Remarkable Leadership by Kevin Eikenberry (Jossey Bass), PTA booked:

Forbes.com
ManageSmarter.com
PublishersWeekly.com
Training and Development Magazine

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PITCH IDEAS

Looking for an event to anchor your pitch idea? Some of these ideas just might translate into a Morning Drive or Satellite TV Tour topic:

November 2007

Cookbooks:

1^st – National Men Make Dinner Day
8^th – Cook Something Bold and Pungent Day

Relationships/Dating:

3^rd – Sadie Hawkins Day - Relationship Books
18^th - 24^th – National Family Week

Health:

American Diabetes Month
Lung Cancer Awareness Month
National AIDS Awareness Month
National Alzheimer’s Disease Awareness Month

Holidays:

6^th – Election Day
11^th – Veteran's Day
22^nd – Thanksgiving

General Interest:

National American Indian Heritage Month
1^st – Hockey Mask Invented (1959)
2^nd – First Scheduled Radio Broadcast - KDKA in Pittsburgh, PA (1920)
6^th – Premier of "Good Morning America" (1975)
18^th - 24^th – National Game and Puzzle Week

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TIPS FROM THE TOP

The Agenting Process Explained – Part 5 – Post-contract

After the contract is signed, the author completes the book. During this time, problems may arise. Authors and editors often clash or disagree over items, including content, structure, language, and writing style. Other issues may arise concerning cover design, distribution and promotion.

Agents often get involved to act as their clients' advocate. They may act as mediators or go-betweens in disputes and try to reach compromises to resolve them. Frequently, agents will have to reason with, educate, or settle down unrealistic or paranoid clients; set them straight; and explain the facts of publishing life.

An agent's most significant role may be as a writer's confidant. When a book is being written, an agent may be the only person an author can speak to or confide in regarding the project. The agent may be the only other soul who really understands the project, the problems or decisions facing the writer, and the ramifications of the choices the writer may be required to make. In these situations, agents serve as writers' advisors, teachers, mentors, and friends.

Some clients can become extremely needy and insecure. So their agents assume the roles of therapists and best friends. Agent/author relationships can be close and intense. New York City agent Peter Miller has such a close relationship with a client that the client calls Miller his "second wife."

After a book has been written, agents supervise and make sure that the publisher is living up to its contractual commitments. Agents will track book sales and scrutinize royalty statements and information they receive from publishers. They will also check on the sales of subsidiary rights such as audiobooks, foreign rights, products, and motion picture rights.

If a book is doing well, an agent will usually push publishers for more benefits. These can include providing more focused promotion, printing additional copies of the book, or signing the author for subsequent books.

An excerpt from the National Bestseller Author 101: Bestselling Secrets from Top Agents by Rick Frishman and Robyn Freedman Spizman with Mark Steisel

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