Cat pumpkins to get you in the fall mood, a cover story that requires lots of sources & all you need to know about holiday sourcing this year
Fall edition coming in hot!
Happy Monday all. Anyone else already know this week is going to be crazy? It’s been nonstop adventures in adulting over here, let me tell you. But on a fun note, my mom was in town last week and we did get to sneak in some fun here and there, like kayaking around Naples Island in Long Beach and swan paddle boats around Echo Park lake.
Look at us go!
We also carved pumpkins to look like cats as part of an article I worked on. I can tell you first hand, pumpkins are hard to find if you try to get them before October 1st. But Home Depot for the win! How cute are these? Hope they put you in the fall mood! :-)
Now I’m playing major catch up and back to work full speed. So here goes.
Sources Needed This Week:
Parade: I have a kids gift guide (print issue) due in a few days and am looking to connect with a few kids toy experts (like Retail Me Not type folks) to chat about the very best hot selling toys of 2022. I’d love to hear about what is going to sell out this year. What came out this year that parents should care about?
AARP: For an upcoming cover story, looking for experts in the health space (not attached to brands) to weigh in on: Common annoyances & how to fix them. Here are some examples:
No matter what pillow I use, I wake up with a sore neck.
4 a.m. and I’m back in the bathroom, peeing.
Every now and then I wake up in the middle of the night with my calf muscle in a frightfully painful spasm
My spouse’s snoring just gets worse and worse.
I’m barely five minutes into a nice walk and I’m sweating like mad.
Middle of the afternoon and I can’t resist dozing off.
Bright sunlight by day and headlights by night make driving ever harder for me.
I bit into a sandwich made with a crusty roll, and wow, it hurt!
I seem to have a headache at the end of most days.
Out of the blue, I start sneezing and my nose starts running.
Bouts of gassiness seem to come out of nowhere.
Keys, hat, glasses, mask – I am constantly searching for my everyday things.
How can I read this? The type is so small!
Every now and then, a wave of anxiety just washes over me.
I am constantly having to ask people to speak louder.
No one in my home is willing to eat quinoa, tofu, kale, or other healthy foods.
Looking for experts to weigh in on those and then also to suggest some other common health grievances and tips for how to troubleshoot.
Huffington Post: For a story on “What not to say to someone who had a mastectomy,” I need a few breast cancer experts to talk about this from their point of view as well as people who have gone through these to weigh in on what comments they did not find helpful.
Shondaland: Need a few more financial experts to weigh in on what your financial baseline (ideal) should be at each age.
For another upcoming project, I’m sourcing for:
Some couples with upcoming weddings planned in the SoCal area with interesting backstories or interesting weddings.
Additional exciting news! Top Tier Consulting, the PR consulting venture I started with fellow writer Jill Schildhouse, is going strong. We’ve had many great sessions already and are so excited about the feedback we’re receiving. And for those that are looking for our best tips distilled out weekly: Our first Top Tier Consulting newsletter is officially live. Don’t forget to upgrade to a paid TTC Substack membership in order to take advantage of these! Between the two of us, we’ve written for nearly every major publication out there. We’re treating each newsletter like an article and pouring our collective wisdom into these x2. We have different membership options and founders members get access to monthly Zoom sessions with us where they can pick our brains.
Click the button below to read the first issue.
This is part 1 of our holiday gift guide where we talk about how to work your sources into stories around the holidays when that is all journalists care about at the moment. There is everything in there from how to make your products appealing enough to actually land in a gift guide to the scoop on affiliate links but we go way beyond that and talk about how to get sources into other types of coverage. We include examples of stories we’ve written in the past and really break this down for you. Trust us, it’s way more than gift guides this time of the year.
Part 2 comes out this week and you won’t want to miss it!
As a reminder, if you want to check out Top Tier Consulting and the different sessions we offer, click here:
That’s it for that for now but will send more out next week. This time of the year is so busy and there is soooooo much I will be sourcing for coming up. P.S. How is it almost October!?
Thanks all!
Nicole
NCPajer@gmail.com