In my “Interview Your Heroes” guide, I said that a key opportunity to land interviews is when someone important is about to publish a book.

If you want to do that, subscribe to your favorite publisher’s blogs.

I like business books from Portfolio Javelin. Here’s an example of how they announce upcoming books.

If there’s someone there that you want to interview, send a request for a review copy of the book. Notice that the person responsible for sending out those books gives you her email address in the post.

Random House will email you lists of upcoming books.

After you get the book, you can follow up and ask for an interview.

A few related tips

– Ask for the interview about a month before the book comes out.

– Most authors don’t like talking about their books 2 months after their release dates. (One author told me it’s because they’re disappointed that publishing a book didn’t change their lives or they’re exhausted from talking too much about it.)

– If there’s an author you’re interested in, Amazon (and other booksellers) will include her publisher’s name on the book’s product page. Find your author on Amazon then Google the publisher and send a short email asking for a review copy and an intro to the author. (Again, don’t do this 2 months after publication. Their promotional push is usually over by then.)

Your feedback

If you use this tip, email me and let me know what you think.

If you have other tips for getting guests, email me about that too.

[Image via ButterflySha]