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My name is Jane Harbury and I’m a publicist.
A publicist is responsible for bringing awareness to artists and events to media who therefore spread the word to the public.
First of all, you have to believe in what you’re doing.
You have to find the selling points, the positive angles, the excitement,
the love in the artists that you work with, or the events that you work with.
Your voice, you’re a good actor, I thought you were going to say it was no! Congratulations!
Today we have to prepare ourselves for two new artists that we’re beginning to work with.
That means that we must get ourselves organized with a database
and a clear understanding of which media we will go to for these artists.
There are some similarities in both these artists, but there are a lot of other aspects that we have to take into consideration.
We will also be following up on one of our Juno nominated artists.
We have a tour happening, leading into Edmonton, for the Juno awards
where he will be doing breakfast shows in Winnipeg, Calgary, and Edmonton.
Then he’ll be doing radio calls and appearances in stores.
We know that it’s not traditional.
Before most people on this planet were born, I was hanging out at a folk club in Yorkville,
and one night the dishwasher didn’t show up, and I offered to wash dishes and suddenly I was in music; I was working at a club.
Then I went to a recording studio, and then I worked for a record producer
and then I began managing artists, and then suddenly I had a title that said ‘national publicity director.’ That’s the truth.
Before I really knew what it was, I was it.
You’re doing so well, I’ll phone her up, so nobody else gets it.
I am in favor of education all the way; however, I do not believe that a formal education necessarily is required to become a good publicist.
I believe that the way into arts and arts related events is by volunteering and becoming an intern.
As an independent, if you walk out of a week’s worth of work with $400, that’s not bad.
If somebody thinks that publicity is for them, I think they should try and identify what is their passion,
because if you do not believe in what you do, how can you persuade a media person that it’s positive and good.
I don’t think you can.
It’s a wonderful career, I think,
if you love working with people and you enjoy the challenge of getting stuff from media where they’re not really interested initially.
I just think the downside is also that people think you’re going to get wealthy, that this is where you make a lot of money.
You really don’t, and you have to love what you do.