Joanne McCall Book Publicist

The Interview Habit That Softens Your Authority

Joanne McCall — Mon, 30 Mar 2026 16:00:37 +0000

There is a moment I see fairly often in media training. It is subtle, but it can make a smart, credible person sound less confident than they are. An author/expert is asked a good question. They know their material. They are thoughtful, articulate, and genuinely smart. And then, right as they begin to answer the question, they start talking us through their own mental sorting process.

Source

The Fastest Way to Sound Defensive

Joanne McCall — Mon, 23 Mar 2026 16:00:13 +0000

A while back, I watched an interview where the host got a key fact wrong about the guest’s work. Not maliciously. Not even carelessly. It was just one of those normal human moments where a detail gets flipped and something is said incorrectly. You could actually see the guest’s brain light up, and then they had a choice. Option one: jump in with a correction that’s technically right…

Source

The Question that Makes Smart People Ramble

Joanne McCall — Mon, 16 Mar 2026 16:00:14 +0000

I was watching an interview recently and noticed the host hit the guest with the triple question, and I swear I could hear time stand still. It sounded like this: “So tell us why you wrote the book, why now, and what should people do Monday morning?” The guest froze for half a beat, then tried to answer all three questions at once. He offered a little origin story, then a little cultural…

Source

Be Personal Without Oversharing

Joanne McCall — Mon, 09 Mar 2026 16:00:25 +0000

A few months ago, I clicked on a podcast interview with an author I genuinely wanted to hear. The host asked a friendly, normal question, “What led you to write this book?” And the guest started with a story that felt honest and human. I leaned in. Then the story went personal. OK, that’s interesting… Then it went private. Um…where is this going? Then it went so intimate, so fast…

Source

Make It Easy to Say Yes to You

Joanne McCall — Mon, 02 Mar 2026 17:00:11 +0000

Remember Marie Kondo? She was everywhere, teaching the world to tidy up and keep only what “sparks joy,” beginning around 2014 in the U.S. At one point, I heard an interview where she said something that stopped me in my tracks. She said, a person should own no more than 30 books. Thirty. What?! I was incredulous. My next response was, “Oh. You mean… by the side of the bed?

Source

The New Media Map

Joanne McCall — Mon, 23 Feb 2026 17:00:02 +0000

Back in the day, Oprah was the holy grail of media “gets.” You could meet someone at a networking event, talk to a fiction or nonfiction author, and within 60 seconds they would say her name. Not because they loved daytime TV, but because Oprah represented something else. Something big. Legitimacy. And that belief is still alive today, even if the name has changed. Today it sounds like: “If…

Source

How to Get Found in AI Answers

Joanne McCall — Mon, 16 Feb 2026 17:00:06 +0000

Last week, I did a tiny experiment that turned into a full-body lesson. I opened an AI search and typed in the name of an expert I know well. She is someone with a strong website, a beautiful headshot, a thoughtful bio, and a book that is genuinely helping people. The AI answer came back with confident answers and included a long list of sources. And almost none of those sources were her own…

Source

Can You Say It In 10 Seconds?

Joanne McCall — Mon, 09 Feb 2026 17:00:45 +0000

A few years ago, I was standing in a hotel lobby waiting for an elevator with a group that had just left a conference. Someone asked a woman, “So what do you do?” And you could see her brain open twelve tabs at once. She started explaining, clarifying, adding context, and by the time the doors opened, everyone was nodding politely, but no one knew what to say back. Then the guy next to her…

Source

When Your Voice Undercuts Your Message

Joanne McCall — Mon, 02 Feb 2026 17:00:53 +0000

Have you ever been listening to an interview and finally had to click off, not because the topic was boring, but because the guest had a habit you couldn’t stop noticing? Maybe they talked so fast you felt yourself getting tense. Maybe every sentence ended like a question. Maybe they kept apologizing for taking up space. Maybe they laughed nervously after perfectly normal statements…

Source

Another Hidden Reason Smart People Sound Weak on Air

Joanne McCall — Mon, 26 Jan 2026 17:00:04 +0000

Last week we talked about hope, that quiet little strategy so many smart people bring into interviews without realizing it. Hoping you’ll be asked the right question. Hoping the host will guide you into your best material. Hoping the big takeaway will appear if you stay in it long enough. It doesn’t work, and if you missed it, you can read about it here. This week I want to go one level deeper…

Source