This is a guest post from Lauren Orsini, a reporter and blogger. 
When I told Justin I wanted to plug my new book, Otaku Journalism, for OASG, we agreed that since it’s an advice guide, why not dish out some advice?
Otaku Journalism: A Guide to Geek Reporting in the Digital Age, is all about how fans can go pro by harnessing the passions they already have. So today, I want to share some pointers on a topic I feel a lot of people have wrong, mainly: You don’t have to be a pro to interview the pros.
Is it your dream to interview your fandom idols, whether they be anime voice actors, game designers, or web cartoonists? If so, what are you waiting for? If you’ve got a place to publish and a respectful attitude, there’s no reason you can’t reach out to people you admire.
Here are my tips for connecting with those sometimes intimidating VIPs:
Show them what’s in it for them
People don’t agree to interviews because it’d make your day. VIPs are busy so you need to prove to them why an interview with you would help their career.
In your initial pitch, you could write something like, “While my audience at (x site) may not be as large as the one you command on your own, it is a different demographic. The exposure you’d receive from our interview could earn you some new fans.”
Or let a convention do the talking
Sometimes even smaller outlets can snag big name interviews by applying for a convention press pass. As a former press liaison for an anime convention myself, I know that I looked for politeness, respect, and a regular body of work more than I did any “reputation” that writer might have had. After all, just because I haven’t heard of them doesn’t mean other people haven’t!
If you attend a convention as press, you can get the press liaison to set up interviews with some of the convention’s featured guests, no agency outreach required.
Don’t ask “Wikipedia questions”
Where were you born? What was your first voice acting role? If you can find the answer on Wikipedia, it’s not a good question to ask in an interview.
In fact, if you’re interviewing somebody you admire and really know a lot about them already, stick to “how,” “why,” and other questions in which you get them to share opinions with you. Stuff like “If you could cosplay as anything, what would it be?” is not just more interesting, but it’s less likely that other reporters have asked it before.
Be a journalist, not a fan
You may be tempted to ask for an autograph, but restrain those thoughts. It’s OK to be a fan outside of the interview, but not while you’re in the middle of it.
Be sure to be professional until the interview is over. Ask relevant questions and avoid talking about yourself with tangents like, “The first time I saw your show, it changed my life.” After the interview is done, you can offer a compliment or ask for an autograph, but keep it brief.
Read my book chapter on interviews
I’ve interviewed a lot of big names in fandom, from the CEO of Crunchyroll to Nobuo Uematsu, the famous Final Fantasy composer. And I took all the lessons I learned along the way and put them in my book chapter on interviewing. Unlike other journalism textbooks, my book deals especially with the challenges fandom journalists face in today’s digital world.
Otaku Journalism is for sale in the Kindle store starting today. This is just a taste of the advice I offer in the book, so if you’re serious about making a career out of fandom journalism, pick it up! And, of course, be sure to let me know how your writing career goes from there.
Lauren Orsini is a professional journalist and blogger. She thinks being an otaku and being a journalist are two great tastes that go great together, and wants to recruit other geeks to find their passion for writing, too. Orsini currently writes about emerging technologies for ReadWrite.
Screenshot via Kuroko’s Basketball
