How Much is Too Much?

As I ruminate on my career as a publicist, I think about the broad variety of clients I have worked with over the years. The one topic that is standing out in my mind is the authors who would send 10-20 emails each day as well as faxes and telephone calls dispersed among those emails. At some point, there has to be a line drawn and things have to stop!

I can appreciate the thought of an author wanting to stay in touch and be in the loop for their campaign. I can appreciate wanting to make sure every detail is taken care of. I can appreciate the need to be reassured. There does come a point however that the media just isn't being contacted because the publicist is too busy answering emails!

Because of the problem email can be, I actually had to count email time as campaign time and reiterate over and over again to the client that their constant contacts and insistence that I respond immediately were preventing me from doing my job. I also instituted a division of day to protect the best interests of all of my authors. In other words, I would work on one client in a time frame and not answer emails or do any tasks not related to that particular client. Yes, it sent some authors into a frenzy but I couldn't be productive otherwise.

On the other hand, I have heard of publicists having zero contact with their clients and that is never acceptable. A good medium in my mind is a weekly report summarizing all the activities of the week on Friday. There are details to be cleared up during the week but if a detail will not directly impact an event or action within the next 7 days, it is not urgent and a response can wait.