I wrote a book for Canadian immigrants and it will be given away for free to YMCA and other organisations. I am looking for an endorsement blurb from famous Canadians with an immigrant background – for example Sandra Oh whose parents are from South Korea. How best to approach this – do I send an excerpt from the book to the agent/manager with an explanation and request?
Wow - I feel I am getting my money's worth before I even contact any celebrities. Thank you for your response. I will print your email and convert to action points and proceed. Many thanks.
Well your off to the right start, because you want to do research to make sure that the celebrity has some type of interest in whatever is being promoted. The best celebs are the people who are actively speaking about a certain issue or topic, like in your case, being immigration. You will want to know what they've done in the past to support this cause, as you can utilize this in your pitch. Researching your potential celebrity(s) is very important. The 2nd important thing, is to make the process for the celebrity and their representative, as easy as possible.
The publicist is going to be the best contact, and your potential celeb doesn't have a publicist then the manager. The agent won't be able to assist you with this. You will want to have at the very least, a couple of chapters from the book, a summary of your book, an if you have a cover already thats a plus.
With the pitch, you'll want to follow some rules. The initial email needs to short, and to the point. You need to value the persons time and put just enough information to where they understand what you are asking, and they can easily make a decision. In the email, you will want to be specific in what you are asking for, and cover why you think the celeb would be a good fit, and the benefits there are to the celebrity. Remember in a pitch, its not about you, its about how would doing a blurb benefit their client. Your contacting the publicist, whose job revolves around the public perception and exposure of their client, so I would aim the benefits around that.
The key to your pitch, is making it as easy as possible for the publicist and celeb to say yes. So for example, you may want to create like a few pre-written blurbs that the celeb can choose from, that would be a good fit for them and your book. I would put this somewhere with the book summary, chapters, etc.
Hope this helps!
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