Joanne McCall Book Publicist

Your Book Is Not Your Hook

Joanne McCall — Mon, 11 May 2026 16:00:03 +0000

There is something powerful that happens when a room full of nonfiction writers gathers together. Even if the room is virtual, you can feel it. The ideas, and the questions, and the quiet determination. The “I know I have something important to say, but how do I help people find it?” energy. Love it. There is nothing like it. That was the feeling at this week’s Nonfiction Writers Conference…

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Your Book Publicity Plan Starts While You’re Still Writing

Joanne McCall — Mon, 04 May 2026 16:00:58 +0000

I recently spoke with an author who had finally finished her book. And I mean finally. After years of thinking about it, two years of writing it, rounds of editing, cover design, and formatting, she finally reached the end of the whole glorious, exhausting, emotional journey of bringing a book into the world. She was proud and rightly so. It is a very big deal. Then she said, “Okay…

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Big Media is Impressive. Fit is What Works

Joanne McCall — Mon, 27 Apr 2026 16:00:47 +0000

There was a time when top-tier media was not just the shiny prize. It was the thing that truly worked. A big national TV segment on Oprah, a major newspaper feature in the New York Times, a splashy magazine placement in People, was big. These could bring broad visibility, real credibility, and meaningful momentum in a way that was hard to match. This isn’t empty prestige. There’s a reason people…

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Why Earned Media Matters More in the AI Era

Joanne McCall — Mon, 20 Apr 2026 16:00:58 +0000

The other day, I was thinking about an author and expert who should have been easy to find. She is smart, credible, experienced, and deeply helpful. She has a good website, clear messaging, strong content, and a real body of work. The kind of person who has done everything people say to do and should be showing up all over the place. But when I looked at how AI tools were surfacing answers in…

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The Question You’re Hoping They Don’t Ask

Joanne McCall — Mon, 13 Apr 2026 16:00:06 +0000

Years ago, I was interviewing a celebrity relationship expert who had been married six times. You can probably guess the question sitting in the room before anyone even said it out loud. Why should anyone take relationship advice from someone who has been married six times? That is the kind of question people dread in interviews. The one they hope the host will politely skip.

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The Guest Who Made the Host Work Too Hard

Joanne McCall — Mon, 06 Apr 2026 16:00:21 +0000

I was listening to a podcast recently and, of all things, the guest was a media trainer. You would think this would go beautifully, but life is filled with surprises. The host asked a question, the guest answered it, and then everything came to a complete stop. Another question from the host. Another answer from the guest and then everything came to a complete stop. Another. Same thing.

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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.

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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…

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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…

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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…

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