💛 The new pitch: "I don't know what I'm doing"

Here's a pitch letter that worked on me—and it led me to discover a great true-crime.

I live in the strange place where I pitch people podcasts for Tink and receive pitches for Podcast the Newsletter. Every year my goal is to have a “no pitch year,” meaning I’m not sending out pitch letters but a meaningful Letter To a Friend. (LTaF.) I received a pitch recently and I haven’t quite figured out how I’ll ever replicate it.

But I think there’s something to learn from it. Let’s call it an I Dunno Letter: a letter that feels like it was written by someone who knows nothing about PR, and that actually works to their favor. It’s a letter that was written from the heart from a person who believes in what they are writing about so much that they are like “f*ck it I’m not having a PR company write this, I’m doing it myself.”

Ben Kuebrich, the writer and lead producer of KSL's Ransom wrote such a great pitch that worked so well on me that I asked if I could publish it here.

(Our email exchanges have a yellow line next to them, my thoughts are in between).

Oh, and guess what? Ransom is INCREDIBLE. I’m so glad I listened. Go listen. I wrote about it in Podcast the Newsletter on Monday:

🎶Lost media, found 🔍 pope poisoner ☠️ dirty Disney🧜🏻‍♀️ the grog log🍹

June 3 email from Ben:

Hi Lauren,

My name's Ben Kuebrich and I'm the writer and lead producer of KSL's Ransom (distributed by Podcast One).

The podcast is a documentary-style retelling of the ransom kidnapping of 12-year-old McKay Everett from his Texas home in 1995.

Despite a slow rollout starting May 15th, after four episodes, we're right now #5 on the overall Apple charts with over 526 reviews and 4.8 stars.

But this Wednesday's episode (ep 5/9) reveals a big twist, although McKay's kidnapper was caught and convicted, his mother Paulette suspects that another person featured in the podcast was involved but was never indicted for a crime.

Host Art Rascon talking to McKay's Mother Paulette

I don't want to give you more spoilers than that here, but if you're interested I can explain more or get you advanced copies of the upcoming episodes. I think there would be similar timely pegs for the next couple of weeks. Next week's episode 6 reveals who Paulette is suspicious of. Then the week after, episode 7, is our investigation into Paulette's claims.

My last project Algorithm was named as one of the Atlantic's Top Podcasts of 2021, and I've previously worked on top true crime podcasts like Monster: DC Sniper, Monster: The Zodiac Killer, Broken Harts, Cold. But Ransom is by far the work I'm proudest of. It's full of interesting people, interviews, and archival tape, and it's the most layered and emotionally complicated story I've ever worked on.

Anyways, I don't really know how to write these kinds of pitches (though your article on that very subject was very helpful!), but I hope you check it out. I'm happy to answer any questions and provide other photos or media that might be helpful (some on our ig here).

Best,

Ben Kuebrich

“I don’t really know how to write these kinds of pitches…” No shit, Ben. And thank God you don’t. Your email is so much better. This note…

• Felt personal and from someone intimately connected with the show

• Was from someone in my community—a subscriber of my newsletter!

• Felt handmade

• Didn’t feel copy and pasted

• Had pictures

June 12 email from me:
Sorry for the silence! I plan to write about this, really enjoying it!!!

I think I had only listened to the very beginning, which I had started to enjoy but not yet fallen in love with.

June 12 email from Ben:

Great to hear, and no worries — I know you get flooded with emails like this!

Let me know if you want previews of upcoming episodes or have any questions!

June 18 email from me:

Oh man I binged everything today, I really loved it! How many more episodes are there?

June 18 email from Ben:

Awesome! Three more of the main episodes, and four bonus episodes. 

Here's tomorrow's episode if you want to continue the binge -- it was the hardest one to make. It felt necessary because it's become such a big part of Paulette's story, but it's also very fraught story to tell journalistically. 

Ep 7: The Elephant in the Room

Paulette is overwhelmed by grief and rage at the tragedy. As she looks back, she realizes another accomplice might have been in their midst the whole time, bringing up a bigger question: When someone hurts a child, how far does the culpability extend?

And I put in the descriptions to the other episodes below, but blacked out in case you don't want spoilers. I can dig up links to those as well but it might take a second because I'm not sure if the latest versions are bounced out.

Ben

Above, where you see the black lines, Ben had highlighted in Black to tell me about the upcoming episodes without spoiling anything. Genius! This is a screenshot so you can’t do it yourself. Go listen.

➡️ So, what can we learn from this?

• A “professional” pitch often feels soulless.

• A pitch from someone who makes the podcast can be really impactful. (Yes I know my entire business relies on me doing this for other people.)

• If you don’t know what you’re doing, admit it.

• Make your letter stand out.

• Tell a story.

• Share photos.

• Black out spoilers?

• Be patient. It took me fifteen days to set aside time for this show!

• And you know what, we give a lot of rules for writing pitch letters, but it cannot be overstated: if you know what you’re doing, you can get really good at breaking them.

✨ More magic

• Elaine Appleton Grant and Podcast Allies are launching a workshop on advanced interview skills — think of it as a 201 once you already feel you know the 101 of interviews.

• We’re so proud of Lowlines winning an International Women’s Podcast Award for Behind the Scenes Brilliance!

🎧 From The Desk of Tink

The Whole Damn Pie is hosted by Amalia Martino, founder and president of The Vida Agency, who embarks on a quest to explore what it truly means to achieve fulfillment across all aspects of life with her new podcast. Settling for just a "slice" of life is a common theme for many, but Amalia challenges this notion, aiming to uncover the full spectrum of personal and professional fulfillment. The Whole Damn Pie is not just a podcast; it's a movement towards feasibly embracing the entirety of one's aspirations. Tune in here!

Wil and Shreya return next week with more podcast marketing magic!