Or have you?

Last week a writer friend forwarded me a press trip invite she’d received (and declined) and wondered if I’d be interested in following up with the host since I had some interest in the locale. I gave the invitation a quick read. It seemed like a personal invitation, and the trip host claimed there was only one space left available for a journalist. However, when I asked my friend if she’d ever worked with the PR agency, she said she’d never even heard of them before. Double hmmm. That’s when I moved the invite into my trash folder.

I get maybe a half-dozen of these trip invites each year and rarely do I ever follow up on them. Because I don’t know the PR agency inviting me, nor do I have any confidence they’ve researched me, I just figure they’re trolling for a warm body — the most well-qualified warm body especially if there’s only one spot left on the trip. The way I figure it, they’re probably sending this invite to dozens of journalists, and if they’re lucky, six of them will volunteer the spot. The PR agent will ask each journalist to produce “assignment letters” (letters from a magazine and/or newspaper editors affirming that the writer will produce a story relating to the trip’s destination). Then the agent can sift through those assignment letters and pick the journalist who’ll the best press for the client. The remaining writers get the “Sorry, we’ve already selected someone else,” which is very unfortunate if you’ve pitched and sold some ideas to magazines based on the trip. Since this has happened to a couple writers I know, I suppose that’s why I’m so suspicious of such invitations.

I wondered, though, if my deep suspicion was warranted, so last week I informally surveyed some of my writer buddies who focus mainly on travel stories. Do they get such invites? How many per year? Do they treat them with suspicion or have such invites paid off for them? All of them said that yes, they get these types of invites. One writer says she ignores them. Another writer treats them with less suspicion, although she says that yes, she realizes the invite is going out to a number of writers. Her take is that a writer has probably dropped out of the trip and the PR person is willing to give the space to the first journalist with credentials who responds. Only a couple times has she run into the “may the best man/woman win” scenario. One friend who’s a well-published travel writer noted that PR agents often have a difficult time filling spaces on trips, simply because fewer writers today have viable outlets. (Now that’s depressing.)

I’ve readjusted my cynicism about these invites, but will continue to ask myself these questions when one of them appears in my inbox:

• Do I know the PR agent/organization inviting me? If not, can I discern how they got my name?
• How personal is the invite? Meaning, is there anything in there that gives me the indication that the inviter has done research on the type of stories I cover? For example, if I get an invite to attend the National Bullfighting Championship, that’s a pretty good indicator the inviter has no idea what kind of topics interest me.
• Do I have any interest covering this locale/event? Look, it’s lovely to get invited to cool places around the globe, but if you’re a career freelancer who has to make income to pay the bills, it won’t make any financial sense going on these trips just for the fun of them. (Plus, they’re not all that much fun, as you’ll quickly find out.) When I got the forwarded invite from my friend, yes, I loved the locale, but I had to be honest with myself — I didn’t have much interest in the event the PR agency was repping.
• Will I be “competing” with other writers for a place on the trip? You can answer this by picking up the phone and talking to the person who invited you. If he or she is cagey on the answer, you might want to give serious thought before you start pitching possible stories to your editors without the assurance you’re truly on board for the trip. On the other hand, you may find out the agency is delighted to host you based on your credentials.

Lastly, check out the PR agency/host with fellow writers. Just as PR people blacklist insane writers from future press trips, writers have their own horror stories about poorly organized press trips. [db -- follow me on Twitter]

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