Magazines – for magazines you’ll want to plan to pitch them 3 to 9 months out. The general rule of thumb is that bigger the magazine the longer the lead time.

Book signings – For booksignings in bookstores you’ll want to plan to target the manager or community relations manager about 3-4 months out. For smaller, niche stores your lead time probably won’t be that significant

Local TV – Plan to pitch your local television stations 4-6 weeks prior to your event.

National TV – depending on the nature of your topic I’d recommend going after them as far in advance as two months. If you’ve got a subject that’s making a lot of noise in the media there’s a chance they might start booking these guests much earlier. In those cases it never hurts to pitch too early!

Radio Interviews (local) Pitching them two weeks out should be sufficient

Radio Interviews (national) – the same rules apply, unless the show is syndicated in which case you might want to expand your pitching out by about 2 weeks

Newspapers (regional and national) pitch them one to two weeks out. Unlike magazines newspapers work on a much tighter timeline, often making their decisions the week of the story or (in some cases) only days before it’s scheduled to appear