TODAY Wednesday: Tin Shingle's Office Hours 1-2pm EST

Office Hours
Open Today

When: Wednesday, February 9th
Time: 1pm EST
Where: At your computer or on your phone.
How: Follow the directions on this page to get the registration link.
Or, if you're a Tin Shingle Member and are already logged in, click here to get the special registration link.
Required: Media Kit Membership with Tin Shingle. Join today.

It's Wednesday!

TuneUp Wednesday. Use this space to get ideas on how to pitch a product, event, concept or your business as a feature. If you are promoting a policy change, big idea, or big story, we can discuss how you can do this with tools you have at the local and national levels. Think Board of Education Meetings, City Council Meetings, etc. These can provide lead-ins and timeliness to the article placement you seek.

Tin Shingle Members can attend this TuneUp Office Hour session as a way to have a micro-brainstorming session on their own marketing needs. The time will be shared and moderated. Come join us if you haven't yet!

If you can't make this time, you can book a Private Training session for 25% off for a personal phone call.

About TuneUp Office Hours

If you are a member of Tin Shingle, come on today's Members-Only TuneUp! These are closed sessions, and not open to the public. This is a safe space for Tin Shingle Members to come in with brainstorms to give and get feedback.

You can turn on your video camera to speak eye-to-eye, or just talk on the phone or through your computer speakers.

In this series, members of Tin Shingle with the Media Kit Membership can call in to workshop any need in their marketing campaign, including:

• Media Pitching: What a pitch to a certain media outlet should look like, and how it should read.

• Instagram: How to get sales and create PR opportunities from you posts.

• Facebook: How do you increase traffic from this platform?

• Website: The media will circle back to evaluate their website. What are they seeing, and is it clear?

• SEO: What's your game plan? Let's get one. You don't want to miss out on all that search traffic.

HOW IT WORKS:
Tin Shingle's owner Katie will moderate the call.

She will rotate through people on the call, and encourage each other to contribute to each person's challenge as a conversation.

CALL-IN DETAILS
When you are logged into your Media Kit Member account at Tin Shingle, you will be able to click this link in our Community section of the website to get the private link to call in details.

Once on the call, Katie will adjust your settings so that we can hear and/or see you. We love talking face-to-face, so turn your video on if you want. Otherwise, audio-only is fine.

Pitch Tip: Pitching A Detail Story During A National Trend - That Won't Get Forwarded To The Ad Sales Department

One of the most heartbreaking statements I heard from a client when I suggested she pitch an event or trend to her local media (newspaper or TV) was: “They only want me to advertise. I’m not doing it.” The client was a stenography school. She hired Tin Shingle for SEO (Search Engine Optimization) services, which for us means creative writing that targets keywords and ranks highly in SEO for certain terms. This organic SEO usually brings solid leads who are likely to convert to new customers.

Our SEO work made her school catch the attention of many, so much so, that the head of her trade association asked her to turn it down, because their member schools were wondering why the same level and quality of marketing wasn’t being done for them. But - she refused to invest in PR - burned by that answer of “You can buy an ad!” by a local media producer.

There is a very clear reason for receiving that dreaded answer: the pitch was wrong.

That’s it! Re-craft that pitch, and you’ll hook the local or national publisher or producer.

In this Pitch Tip Video, I explain how to do this, using a music industry example. The live music industry has not recovered from the ongoing pandemic. There are many musicians who are doing back-bends just to get to a gig, let alone get promotion for it. Yet, the news-cycle is thick with other compelling stories.

Simply pitching that someone is playing at a venue is not enough. It never was. Including all of their accolades and praises might get the musician a feature, if the Art Editor has nothing else on their plate. if you want to rise above and cut into the already assigned articles, you would add details to the pitch that reflect what is happening at the national level. And if you’re pitching local, you must connect it to the local market/community if you want to perk the attention of the editor.

If the musician has experienced unbelievable inconvenience to travel all over the country - to Broadway, to California, to remote corners of Vermont - to only face cancellations, appreciative vaccinated audiences, pushback from anti-vaxxing freedom abusing fans - mention these things in the pitch. Why is it so significant that this musician is coming to this venue on this date.

View fullsize

View fullsize

The audience wants to know the musical landscape. Describing safety will most likely increase the chances that during this time when people are so uncertain about venturing out, this will help them feel more comfortable to do so. A story like this lends itself to the national trend of this story, and elevates the national message of living one’s life more safely during a pandemic - while still venturing out.

After I recorded this tip, a local paper in my community did a story on this very thing. The writer did not signal out specific performers, but interviewed venue operators and a tourism director. The article was a perfect example of “piggy-backing” on this trend story to create another article that features an upcoming local performance.

Related TuneUp Classes To Learn From

Listen to these TuneUps to learn more about pitching local media:

TuneUp: Pitching Local Media

TuneUp: How To Pitch Local Magazines With (Former) Editor-In-Chief Of Hudson Valley Magazine Olivia Abel

All TuneUps are available for Members of Tin Shingle to stream for free 24/7, or for the public to purchase individually.

Need help setting yourself up for success when pitching local or national media?
Join Tin Shingle today to get access to our weekly private TuneUp Open Office Hours, and access to the private Google Group for email support. We can review your draft pitch before you email it to a reporter!

Ready To Download! :: 2022 Content Planner Template For Editorial Branding

Your brilliance must be organized in order for you to execute those content ideas you know will help build your brand, nurture your customers to increase loyalty, and increase sales.

Time is of the essence. When you publish an article on your business News section or blog, or when you post an Instagram or TikTok, is crucial to staying in the rhythm of your people so that they can support you and/or buy what you sell.

Tin Shingle designed this simplified Editorial Content Planner that lets you plot out your ideas by date. It is a planner that lets you see when you intend to publish a blog post, send a newsletter, and post a social. All across an Excel-based grid that you can upload to Google Drive and share with your team and yourself when on the go on your phone.

PLUS, it has those awareness holidays throughout the year that TV and social love to create content around.

HOW THE EDITORIAL CALENDAR WORKS
Created as an Excel document with 12 tabs - a tab for each month - every single day of the year visible to you very easily. Daily ideas are also included for each month, so you know when to plan for large holidays and tiny ones (ex: Make Up Your Mind Day).

FREE or $75: This Editorial Content Planner is free for Members of Tin Shingle. Activate your membership today to download this and all of our exclusively produced Templates.

FREE: If you are not a member, but purchased this template in the past, you are able to download this year's - and every year's - for free. Go here now to download the 2022 version.

INCLUDED WITH THIS 2022 EDITORIAL CONTENT PLANNER TEMPLATE

• Organization: Article Assignment Slots for 12 Months, 365 Days Broken Down Into Weeks
  Every single day of the year is organized into 12 monthly tabs for your viewing and organizational pleasure.

• Content Ideas: Over 250 Hot Topics & National Days for Instant Ideas for Fresh Content

• Social Media + Newsletter Options: Dedicated columns to call out when you are sending a special newsletter to your customer base or subscriber list, and when you need to publish a social media post, and not necessarily publish an article to your news or blog section.

• Who Does What: Tracking Who is Writing, Who is Making the Art, and Who is Posting the Article, and Socializing

• Forever Access: Always have free access to next year's Editorial Planner Template

• Free for All Access Tin Shingle Members: If you are an All-Access Pass Member of Tin Shingle, you automatically have free access to this Template. Just hit that Download button when you are logged in!

WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE

A Word From Your Friendly Neighborhood Editorial Calendar Hunter!

Photo by Andrea Piacquadio from Pexels

Go check out the evolving Editorial Calendar layout! To view the full spread, you must be logged into your Tin Shingle Member account.

Big changes are here in Editorial Calendar Land! You’ll notice first, how absolutely GORGEOUS our editorial calendar page is. Look at all those covers! From all niches, too! That is, honestly, my favorite part of editorial calendar research - finding all the niche publications out there! There is more out there than just health, wealth and fashion!

Some of Yvonne’s Favorite “Micro-Niches” Include:

• Farming

• Parking (YES, omg)

• Law Enforcement

• Pets (Ever heard of Guinea Pig magazine? Well now you have!)

• Parent Teacher Organizations

• Education

• Coin Laundry (Yes, there exists a monthly magazine called Planet Laundry)

• Miniatures

While we might not feature these publications on the regular, I will absolutely hunt them down for you on request! One year I found over 20 publications about Human Resources!

Don’t forget, there are more publications outside of the USA as well. Many of our most popular “health, wealth and fashion” tities also have international versions. Publications like Vogue, Tatler, Elle Decor, Architectural Digest and more have audiences all over the world.

Another update you’ll notice soon is in our descriptions. We will begin to include past topics so you can start to get a feel of the themes surrounding a particular time of year. You read that right…we have been keeping the monthly themes of many magazines for the past 3 years at least. For you data sleuths out there who love knowing how a magazine ticks, this will help you.

So yes, stay tuned! My searching has only just begun!

- Yvonne de Salle, Editorial Calendar Hunter-in-Chief

New Year, New TuneUp Office Hour Strategy Sessions!

New Session Signups!

New year, new TuneUp Office Hour Strategy Sessions. Use this space to get ideas on how to pitch a product, event, concept or your business as a feature.

Tin Shingle Members can attend this TuneUp Office Hour session as a way to have a micro-brainstorming session on their own marketing needs. The time will be shared and moderated. Come join us if you haven't yet!

If you can't make this time, you can book a Private Training session for 25% off for a personal phone call.

About TuneUp Office Hours

If you are a member of Tin Shingle, come on today's Members-Only TuneUp! These are closed sessions, and not open to the public. This is a safe space for Tin Shingle Members to come in with brainstorms to give and get feedback.

You can turn on your video camera to speak eye-to-eye, or just talk on the phone or through your computer speakers.

In this series, members of Tin Shingle with the Media Kit Membership can call in to workshop any need in their marketing campaign, including:

• Media Pitching: What a pitch to a certain media outlet should look like, and how it should read.

• Instagram: How to get sales and create PR opportunities from you posts.

• Facebook: How do you increase traffic from this platform?

• Website: The media will circle back to evaluate their website. What are they seeing, and is it clear?

• SEO: What's your game plan? Let's get one. You don't want to miss out on all that search traffic.

HOW IT WORKS:
Tin Shingle's owner Katie will moderate the call.

She will rotate through people on the call, and encourage each other to contribute to each person's challenge as a conversation.

CALL-IN DETAILS
When you are logged into your Media Kit Member account at Tin Shingle, you will be able to click this link in our Community section of the website to get the private link to call in details.

Once on the call, Katie will adjust your settings so that we can hear and/or see you. We love talking face-to-face, so turn your video on if you want. Otherwise, audio-only is fine.

2022 Editorial Calendars Are Being Added To Tin Shingle's Database

Happy Monday!

Youuuuuu asked for it...the official Editorial Calendars from magazines for 2022. Our lead Editorial Calendar Researcher, Yvonne de Salle has been seeking and finding, and updating Tin Shingle's proprietary database with the themes for the year.

Here is a list of new Editorial Calendars added so far:
Backpacker Magazine
Backstage
Beer Connoisseur
Bella NYC
BHG
Better Nutrition
Bevnet
Bicycling
Biopharm
Birds & Blooms
Bitch
BizBash
Bloomberg Businessweek
Blue Ridge Outdoors
Boca Raton Observer
Bon Appetit
Boston Home
Bridal Guide
Building Design + Construction
Bust
Car and Driver
Condé Nast Traveler
Cosmopolitan
David Magazine
Designers Today
Elle
Forbes
Fortune
Perfumer & Flavorist
Scout Life
The New Yorker

Make sure you’re logged in!

Money Monday: Go Get Those Taxes. This Financial Template Can Help

Nothing like a good accountant to set clients up for success by sending them a Client Organizer packet! This tax season may be a real head spin with all of the pandemic federal stimulus money that went out. Some money that was sent as a grant (like the PPP loan if you applied and got it “forgiven”), and some money that was sent as an advance (like the Child Tax Credit that is simply an advance of the credit you were getting before…it’s not free money and you may need to pay it back depending on how your 2021 income/expenses balanced out).

A few tax tips for this year:

• Pat Yourself On The Back:
  First of all, if you did something different than you did last year, like if you stayed up on your bookkeeping so that issuing 1099s and W2s is a breeze, then do pat yourself on the back for that accomplishment!

• Note Which Expenses You Aren’t Using:
  There are some subscriptions you may have forgotten about, and can cancel this year. Make note of them, and carve time out in your day to pursue their logins, and cancel. Or, revive use of a good thing if you forgot about it!

• Use A Bookkeeping Software:
  If you haven’t switched to Quickbooks, Waveapps, or another bookkeeping software yet, now is the time. We saw in the pandemic times, when applying for loans or grants, quickly issuing reports for payroll and expenses was imperative to getting that government money. Tin Shingle does offer a fancy Excel spreadsheet for freelancers and business owners who haven’t stepped into software yet, if you prefer living within the lines of Excel. But remember, the dynamic effects of Quickbooks are really special and time-saving.

• Use Quickbook’s Payroll Feature:
  One of the best decisions I ever made. The Quickbooks Payroll Feature can do all of your federal and state filing for you if you pay the top tier. You can also issue a paycheck whenever you want for no additional cost. Other payroll services may charge you $90 or more per check. Ouch! And no. That is so old school.

• Pandemic Money:
  Track it. All of those stimulus payments, rental assistance, everything. Put it into the spreadsheet that you give to your accountant.

• Hire An Accountant:
  Could be very good for you, rather than going in circles with the changing rules of the IRS. However, if you do do your own taxes, hats off to you! That is major.

• 2020 vs 2021 vs 2022:
  Go easy on yourself if you mis-state the year. So many people have been wishing everyone a Happy 2020. These pandemic years have blurred together! If you think you didn’t pay a vendor this year for 1099 income, do a double check in your books, as it may have indeed happened in 2021 and not 2020.

Members of Tin Shingle get all of our templates for free. You can buy the Finances template separate, and have lifetime access to updates when we release them.

IG Live + Office Hours - January 5, 2021

IG Live + Office Hours
Open Today!!

When: Wednesday, January 5th (UPDATE: This has since happened! Listen to the IG Live here.)
Time: 1pm EST
Where: At your computer or on your phone.
How: Follow the directions on this page to get the registration link.
Or, if you're a Tin Shingle Member and are already logged in, click here to get the special registration link.
Required: Media Kit Membership with Tin Shingle. Join today.

Listen to the IG Live here.

Hello!

Tin Shingle's owner Katie will be doing a quickie IG Live for you today (Wednesday) at 1pm to discuss how Tin Shingle's Editorial Calendar Collection works. Follow our Instagram to get the notification of when the account is live. We love connecting with you!

Next week will be another IG Live with our lead Editorial Calendar Researcher, Yvonne DeMoss. She reaches out to all of the magazines for their Editorial Calendars and publishes them to the website. But - some magazines release them quite late, so she makes predictions so that you 1. have the production cycle date, and 2. have an indication of what they might be looking for.

Meanwhile, today is the Office Hours TuneUp! Where members of Tin Shingle can come in and strategize in a mini-group session. Join Tin Shingle to get access.

If you don't want to, or don't have time to, use this Wednesday time slot, you can use the member-only Google Group to type your thoughts, or book a Private Session with Katie.

Tin Shingle Members can attend this TuneUp Office Hour session as a way to have a micro-brainstorming session on their own marketing needs. The time will be shared and moderated. Come join us if you haven't yet!

If you can't make this time, you can book a Private Training session for 25% off for a personal phone call.

About TuneUp Office Hours

If you are a member of Tin Shingle, come on today's Members-Only TuneUp! These are closed sessions, and not open to the public. This is a safe space for Tin Shingle Members to come in with brainstorms to give and get feedback.

You can turn on your video camera to speak eye-to-eye, or just talk on the phone or through your computer speakers.

In this series, members of Tin Shingle with the Media Kit Membership can call in to workshop any need in their marketing campaign, including:

• Media Pitching: What a pitch to a certain media outlet should look like, and how it should read.

• Instagram: How to get sales and create PR opportunities from you posts.

• Facebook: How do you increase traffic from this platform?

• Website: The media will circle back to evaluate their website. What are they seeing, and is it clear?

• SEO: What's your game plan? Let's get one. You don't want to miss out on all that search traffic.

HOW IT WORKS:
Tin Shingle's owner Katie will moderate the call.

She will rotate through people on the call, and encourage each other to contribute to each person's challenge as a conversation.

CALL-IN DETAILS
When you are logged into your Media Kit Member account at Tin Shingle, you will be able to click this link in our Community section of the website to get the private link to call in details.

Once on the call, Katie will adjust your settings so that we can hear and/or see you. We love talking face-to-face, so turn your video on if you want. Otherwise, audio-only is fine.

Hello!! Vision Boarding Turned Chapter Book To Leave 2021 For 2022

Hellllllo!

What a holiday season! Filled with extreme highs and lows for some. At Tin Shingle, we have always liked setting resolutions. Call them what you will - visions, intentions, goals - whatever. Declaring them makes us accountable, even if it's 3 years later. Once started, we can pat ourselves on the back, saying: "See!? I knew you'd start that someday, and that day was yesterday. Good job."

One of the themes for us (well, me, Katie, the owner of Tin Shingle) going into 2022 was "honesty." Honesty with one's self. Honesty can hit in many forms. From the music you listen to in public, to how you spend your New Years Eve.

Where does "honesty" fit in? Some people like to party, decorate, have lots of people over, cook, etc. I'm just more quiet, and admitting that can be hard. It’s not meant to crash someone else’s preferences of how they like to spend the evening. But if mutual admiration for different styles can be found, then that is ideal.

For me, I prefer to be under water, turning around in the current as the big wave passes overhead. Once the wave hits the shore, I emerge, having felt its pull from underwater, playing with the rushing energy from underneath.

Once the wave crashes on land, the emerging happens. Call it emerging like a mermaid, where her tail turns to legs, and she's ready to leave the sea to walk on shore, exploring curiosities for the next creation to fulfill a purpose. Put on fresh silver glitter for the next day. I don't watch the countdown shows; I don't call people; I don't text as many people as I can type in 3 minutes until the next day.

The day is spent prepping: recycling filmy plastics, paying bills, paying invoices, declaring income goals for the new year; digging into paint; spreading new rubber cement; buying and playing with new watercolor markers.

Vision Boarding Turned Chapter Book

My neighbor and I (and our daughters) spent the evening vision boarding. When I used to have an office on Main Street in my town, one of the last events I had was a Vision Boarding Day for the community. Anyone could come in and cut up my magazine collection, use glitter, beads, etc.

My old bar/desk is in my living room now, so we gathered round and got to cutting. Each person was in their process. Talking to each other, but in our own plans. My plan evolved from a single board to a thick, lined journal. I'd wanted plain paper, but all the store had was lined. I figured I'd like the effect and could take notes.

This happened. The single board evolved into a vision journal for the year. Open for anyone to read. A friend wanted to see the results, so I made her a video. You can watch it here. My neighbor and I have discussed meeting up once a month to revisit the journal boards with new clippings/discoveries.

Highlights

Reading the highlights/intentions/resolutions in the video may be difficult. Therefore, here they are:

• Sketching
  Sketch anything. Just let your hand go and play with those art supplies.

• Boarding
  Keep vision boarding throughout the year.

• Newspaper Homework Time + Clipping
  I love reading the paper! But I need to save some of the articles for visual stimulation of new articles.

• Scheduling The Work
  I run 3 companies. Need to finally commit to mini-schedules to show up at each of them, and not be consumed by one.

• Pictures: Album Assigning + Printing
  Assign the pictures of my family to albums and print them all.

• Play With My Kids
  Sit and play with my kids more. Just sit there and do nothing or play their game or sit while they color or play Fortnite.

• Phoenix Rising: Buy a Building
  I once rented an office. But I want to own the building.

• Stay Strong + Fit
  Ever since my Pelvic Prolapse diagnosis, I have been so thankful that I started running every day and doing Pilates once per week to save my body. The extra benefits have been unexpected and amazing.

• Accept
  Practice accepting things and feelings into my life. People give, now it needs to be absorbed.

• Sunday Magazining
  For years I said I'd carve time on Sundays to only read magazines and not go on social.

• $7,000/month Income
  This is what the bank wants if I am to buy a building. Therefore, this is what the bank shall have.

• Maybe the Book: Children’s Book
  Have a couple ideas for a children's book - one with a friend. Go deeper and explore it.

• Plantings/Cuttings/Succulents
  Get more live plants in the home. Before kids, I had live plants. After kids, they were too much to take care of and water. I need them back.

Watch the video of this vision board/journal here.

What did you do? What do you like to do? Share in the Comments on Tin Shingle's blog.

Office Hours Live Today 1-2pm, And Special Message About 2022 Editorial Calendars

Office Hours are happening live for 9/29/2021 from 1-2pm. Members of Tin Shingle can call in to get one-on-one strategy help.

Also a special message about Editorial Calendars: October is just around the corner, which means that Tin Shingle’s Editorial Calendar Database is empty as magazines finalize their 2022 plans. In the meantime, we create a production schedule style database for you, which lets you see when the right time is to pitch a magazine for specific month. For more on Tin Shingle’s Editorial Calendar Collection, click here.

To activate your membership to access it, plus these live TuneUp Office Hours, click here.