A couple months ago bookworm seo tipped me off to an amazing new free service – Help a Reporter Out (HARO).  Peter Shankman started HARO with the belief that everyone is an expert at something.  Many of his friends were reporters and would approach him looking for sources.  He explains, “Rather than go through my contact lists each time, I figured I could push the requests out to people who actually have something to say.”

HARO, quite simply, is an email distribution list (usually published daily) with a collection of queries from journalists.  It is a great opportunity to get you, your site, or your client in front of a journalist or prominent blogger.  You don’t have to pitch the story since the journalist is already writing on your topic.  He or she is just looking for sources.

It is also a great way to find sources if you are a writer.  My wife is publishing a book in an extremely small niche (BYU Jerusalem Center).  I posted a request for help on HARO and within three days I received nearly a dozen emails from highly qualified people eager to help with the project.  I didn’t receive a single off-topic note or piece of spam.  I sent my request about a month ago when the list had around 13,000 members.  Now it’s approaching 30,000.

The fast growth is a testament to the quality of the list.  Profnet offers a similar service but charges ‘experts’ up to thousands of dollars to become a member of their community.  The upstart success of HARO has ruffled a few feathers at Profnet as their business model is threatened. 

So, if you consider yourself a writer or an expert on something, add HARO to your daily reading.