The #1 Mistake Artists Make After Hiring a Publicist

Hiring a publicist is a big step in an artist’s career. It means you not only have something to publicize, you also have the budget to hire someone to publicize it!

Something I’ve noticed over my nearly 25 years as a music journalist, however, is not every artist knows what to do after they’ve hired a publicist. In fact, many trip up so badly they might as well have thrown the money away.

I’ve seen plenty of artists blame their publicist for a campaign not getting the results they wanted, not recognizing their own part in the failure.

So what’s the #1 mistake artists make after hiring a publicist?

They think the work is over

When artists hire a publicist, many have a false notion that everything on the PR side of things will now totally be taken care of. Hiring a publicist, however, isn’t like hiring someone to mow your lawn. PR is something that requires your direct involvement.

A publicist isn’t just doing a job for you, they’re creating access.

A good publicist is opening doors for you that wouldn’t be open to you otherwise, but you still have to do the work of actually walking through those newly opened doors.

If you think your publicist is going to send out a few press releases, every major website is going to post them as is, and then the music world will become your oyster, you’re thinking of the wrong mollusk, because rather than an oyster, you’re going to need to put some muscle (mussel) into this.

Yes, hiring a publicist will likely lead to more articles being written about you, but more articles means more requests for original quotes, and more requests for interviews. Those quotes, and interviews will take time.

Some artists may think, “I have social media. I can say what I want there.” Sure, you can, and you’ll never reach a new audience, you’ll never develop relationships with websites, and writers, and when it comes to the actual interviews, answering questions often leads to unique thoughts, and views you wouldn’t have expressed otherwise, which in turn leads to more people connecting with you, and your music.

After providing quotes, and doing interviews, you’ll have a number of articles written about you, which means you’ll have quite a bit of content to share on social media.

“But Adam, isn’t that what the publicist is for?”


The publicist should absolutely share everything written about you, but you need to share everything, as well!

While your publicist is busy helping you gain a new audience, you need to show your established audience all the things you’re doing.

Also, and I can’t stress this enough, if you want those publications, and writers to ever feature you again, you need to share, share, share.

Speaking as a writer, we remember which artists share articles, and which ones don’t, and it affects who we decide to write about in the future (this goes for publicists, too! If you don’t share, we remember).

So the reality is, hiring a publicist doesn’t mean you’ll spend less time on the PR aspect of your career, it means you’ll spend more time on the PR aspect of your career. You should plan for this, and embrace it, because when you put in the effort, it can yield some really nice long-term results.