Ever been to Everyone Who’s Anyone? It’s a website that’s useful but very, let’s say, quirky. The gent who runs it is trying to get journalists and others to pay attention to his writing, which he calls “the greatest work of art of the 21st Century.” To those who choose not to read his work, he says, “You'd rather wallow in the ignorance and petty self-aggrandizement your owners keep you wallowing in for their own mean, miserable, money grubbing reasons.”

So he’s quirky, but his website lists thousands of journalists and others, complete with phone numbers, postal addresses, e-mail addresses, and so on. It needs updating, but it’s still one of the greatest sources of contact information that I’ve ever seen.

If you try to get press attention for events and organizations, you know that it can be an uphill climb. Sites like Everyone Who’s Anyone can help. Author John Kremer’s amazingly comprehensive Book Marketing is another gem, with one page listing hundreds of journalists who write about books and another that includes some editors of newspaper book sections.

Newspapers, though, are in decline. Websites that cover local events can help to spread the news about whatever you’ve got going. The top sites for announcing events include AOL’s CityGuide and two Yahoo! sites: Yahoo! Local and Yahoo! Upcoming.

To find popular blogs and other sites covering your area—well, you probably know this already, but dig through Technorati and Alexa. They’re not always easy to use, and the results aren’t perfect, but they can reveal sites that act as useful pipelines to people you want to reach.

If you’re planning an event dealing with my field—comic books and graphic novels—I’ve got two great places to contact. Publishers Weekly’s The Beat often recommends public appearances by comics creators all around the country, and the Comics Reporter has a pretty comprehensive events calendar.

One last thing. As a journalist by training, I know how crazed and disorganized my colleagues and I can get. When you send out a message to journalists, follow it up a few days later with something like this: “Last Wednesday, I sent you an e-mail about our upcoming event. Did you receive the e-mail—and if so, are you planning to cover the event?” To refresh the journalists’ memories, your follow-up should include a copy of the entire original message. And obviously, you should send out another reminder a day or two before the event.

There are a lot of other ways to pull the press your way – phoning TV stations, mingling at the local press club, and so on. Whether you go by those routes or ones that are, let’s say, quirkier, all I can say is: Good luck, go get ‘em, and remember your old friends (like me) when you become famous.

Posted by: David Seidman