When PRs promote writers

Yonks back, the PR representative of an adventure travel firm wrote to me. They were going to enter my piece about an Eastern European holiday of theirs into a writing competition. “Great,” I said. But what I really snobbishly thought was: “Pah. I know writing better, and the Peru piece that I’m entering stands a greater chance.”

The Eastern European article got nominated. The Peru one didn’t.

I was thinking of this instance recently upon hearing, a few times, of PRs writing to travel desks on behalf of a writer — or, sometimes, on behalf of a ‘celebrity’ who will do the writing. “[Person] has just visited the Costa del Cool,” they might say, “and can write you a fantastic piece.”

Hmm. I’m of the belief that you PRs can be terrific middle men or women (or other non-gender-specific terms) in subtle client-promoting ways. That might be in putting forward us writers for clients’ in-house magazines. Or mooting a particular journalist when an editor is keen about a destination during a one-to-one meeting. And, yes, in being far better than me at entering travel awards.

But I’m dubious about writing on behalf of a writer. The issue is highlighted by that sentence’s repetition. Let’s suppose that the destination and story is tempting; then, in the case of an unproven writer, an editor’s next question will always be — whether the candidate’s name is Johnny Instagram or Johnny Depp — can the person actually do a good job? Can they be trusted?

That this proposed writer apparently can’t even pen a pitch email hardly bodes well. It also smacks of laziness. All in all, there will be too many uncertainties for most editors I know to take the plunge.

It must work for it to be so rife. But I reckon a far better tack is for the mooted author to contact the editor themselves (what an idea!); or, failing that, for your pitch on their behalf to contain evidence of their writing ability.