Interviews / Journalist

Focus on round&about with columnist and lifestyle writer Carol Farley

By ResponseSource

15 Feb 2011

news@responsesource.com

Round&about’s columnist and lifestyle writer Carol Farley tells us a bit about her role at the lifestyle magazine, and has some helpful advice for PR people in today’s Focus interview…

About the publication:

Who reads it and how many of them are there?
Round & About magazine is a general interest, lifestyle magazine delivered to 52,989 homes and has the largest circulation of publications covering the affluent Surrey area.

About PRs:

If you could make one change to the way PRs deal with you, what would it be?
As I’m no stranger to the PR world, am very happy to deal with PRs and understand the difficulties they sometimes face.

How should a PR approach you about their client?
All I ask is that they stand back from their task and consider the information they send out bearing in mind that I know nothing of their book or product as I’ve not been working on it for weeks although they have, so please send me every possible piece of relevant information and a succinct comp slip.

What information/input from PRs is most useful to you?
I’m really happy to receive books and products for review and suggestions for articles.

When is the best time for PRs to contact you & what is your deadline for contributions?
Anytime by email. Email is preferred. Am happy for PRs to follow up any initial contacts by email … I always respond.

About you:

Describe a typical day at work: What are you editorial duties/responsibilities at the outlet (e.g. commissioning, subbing, features, interviewing)?
I’ve worked with Round & About Surrey since its inception providing general interest articles on things such as hen-keeping, learning to ride a motorcycle, wig-making at Glyndebourne, beginners pottery, amongst other things. Have also just started two regular columns in the magazine: one is a quarterly book review column and the other is a bi-monthly parenting column.

What interests you most about your job?
I truly love my job as I get to learn about so many different things and discover people who have a real passion for their products, their books or their jobs – it’s fascinating.

Where have you worked previously, and how did you end up in your current position?
I’ve worked on books with publishers for years – marketing and publicising them – so when a contact asked me to write a book column for his magazine I jumped at the chance.

What’s the best advice you’ve been given?
The best advice I’ve been given is … treat people as you’d like to be treated yourself.

What media do you seek out 1st thing in the morning?
Books by the side of my bed are: Just My Type (a fabulous book about fonts/typesetting); a book of short stories by Colum McCann; the latest book by Scarlett Thomas; a motorcycle magazine and the instruction book for my new motorbike.