Monday: Some acts of service we can all do in the PR/media community today + newly published stories and this week's travel plans!

Also: Sourcing for a few Valentine's Day gift guides!

Good morning!

Have a few things I’d like to chat about today, as I’m traveling tomorrow (headed back to Vegas for the rest of the week and have an itinerary packed with fun plans!), but before that, I have a few newly published stories and other timely info to share.

As I mentioned previously, I am part of the panel of travel & food journalists who come up with the nominees for the Newsweek Reader’s Choice awards in a number of categories. The latest to publish is a fun one — Best Cruise Ship for Families 2025.

For Forbes.com, my first Valentine’s Day gift guide of the season has published: Valentine's Day Gift Guide 2025: The Best Gifts For The Romantic Martini Lover, also for Forbes.com: 25 Romantic Cocktails To Order For Your Valentine. For Apartment Therapy: I Tried the 30/30 Rule, and I Discovered Something Unexpected (this was a fun one!), and Forbes.com: Ghost Donkey Brings Agave-Forward Cocktail Program To Chicago’s River North (this spot is such a fun concept!).

This weekend’s Industry insights email covered an important topic (and a timely one) - The Ultimate Guide To Submitting Photos To Media.

As today we celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Day, many of us honor this day with acts of service and proactively volunteering or contributing within our community. I thought maybe it’d be timely to talk a bit about how we can do acts of service and proactively help each other within another community - the PR and media community.

I have no doubt everyone (well, at least most people!) reading this have the best of intentions and wishes for everyone else reading this, and that they work with day in and day out, but how often do we back up those words and thoughts with actual tangible deeds?

This is a great time to take steps toward greater community engagement. Whether this is you as an individual, brand, or agency, taking time to volunteer your time (or resources), supporting local community efforts and organizations, or taking part in local movements and initiatives. This can take so many forms, and we’ve seen so much of it the last few weeks since the horrifying wildfires have been spreading in Los Angeles. We saw so many brands donating their time and product and services toward helping the community — but also those trying to profit off an ongoing tragedy. Look for the helpers. Be the helpers.

It’s not just about your brand and product and services your company offers, but small (and not so small) ways you can help the community. We all have skills and knowledge and experience in something - always take some time to use those skills and experience to support and mentor others. This could be mentoring students in your field, or embracing thought leadership and webinars and workshops to help people develop and expand their own skills. We should all always be trying to grow and expand our community — and one great we can do it that in our realm is to help develop aspiring professionals doing the very work we are doing.

We’ll all be better for it.

Thanks SO much to all of you who attended our webinar event last week, covering the upcoming ShareASale to Awin migration. During the Zoom, some of the topics covered were an overview of the migration process and timeline, pricing of networks, and choosing a network for your specific client needs. If you missed it (or were present and just want to refer back to some of the topics covered during the info-packed session), we do have a recording available. This recording is available for anyone who is a paid subscriber of my newsletter, as well as Jill’s and Alice’s newsletters. Email any of the three of us and let us know and we’ll get the link right out to you!

Looking to up your affiliate marketing game?

Affiliate marketing is complicated, and it seems that the landscape keeps changing. If you are looking to be prepared for gift guide season and all other shopping-related content, you may want to try the Ultimate Masterclass and Introduction to Affiliate Marketing for Publicists. It's a brilliant course and it'll answer all your questions (including some you didn't know you had!)

Newly published or freshly updated

Since people are often asking about the status of stories from a while ago, and I only share stories in this newsletter that were published or updated in the current week, I have created a list of my author pages at various publications to which I contribute. Bookmark it and make your life a bit easier.

This list will live on my Substack URL and be updated as necessary. That way, you can see what I’m doing at any publication, at any time, from types of stories to general structure of stories to even volume and frequency of my content at that outlet.

This can also help you to target pitching a bit better. That makes your job easier, and mine too!

• Newsweek Readers Choice: Best Cruise Ship for Families 2025, Best Apres Ski Spots, Best Casinos with Live Music (outside Vegas), Best U.S. Wellness Resort, Best Packing Cube, Best Vodka, Best Gourmet Subscription Box, Best Mattress, and Best Outdoor Grill - more categories coming very soon!

• Forbes.com: Valentine's Day Gift Guide 2025: The Best Gifts For The Romantic Martini Lover

• Forbes.com: 25 Romantic Cocktails To Order For Your Valentine

• Apartment Therapy: I Tried the 30/30 Rule, and I Discovered Something Unexpected

• Forbes.com: Ghost Donkey Brings Agave-Forward Cocktail Program To Chicago’s River North

• Travel & Leisure: A Travel Writer's $10 Amazon Packing Hack for Shoes

• Apartment Therapy: 10 Experts Share Their Biggest Decluttering Regrets

• Parade.com: How To Use an Air Fryer (Beginner's Guide)

• Martha Stewart: 19 Walk-In Pantry Ideas for a More Organized, Stylish Space

• Forbes.com: Chef Nobu Matsuhisa Brings Gold Standard Sushi To This Year’s Golden Globe Awards

• Forbes.com: 8 Hot Toddy Variations To Try Just In Time For The Winter Chill

• Food Network: Starbucks Finally Adds Cortados to Its Menu

• Southern Living: Can You Eat Wilted Cilantro?

• Today.com: Do drugstore wrinkle creams really work? Experts weigh in

• Martha Stewart: 18 Coffee Table Décor Ideas That Blend Form and Function.

• Travel & Leisure: I Travel Solo Often, and I Won’t Stay in Another Airbnb Without Packing This 1 Safety Device

• Saatva: 5 Ways to Deal With Sleep Deprivation

• The Spruce: How to Add Storage to Your Kitchen Walls and Make the Most of the Vertical Space

• Southern Living: The 9 Best Bottles Of Bourbon, According To Southern Chefs And Bartenders

If you or your client are featured in any of these stories, I super appreciate any social media shares! Please remember to tag @alywalansky and the outlet.

Here’s what I’m working on:

Be sure to read the below list carefully. Many are stories I posted about yesterday, but some of yesterday's stories are no longer listed and a few new ones have been added since yesterday. This (below) is everything that is still a currently open opportunity as of today.

Please remember when pitching me: Email me at alywalansky@gmail.com - do NOT just hit reply on this newsletter, or there’s a good shot your email will be lost in the heap. Give your email a subject line that makes it clear which story you are pitching me for — it’ll help you in the long run.

Please consult my industry insights guides on submitting expert commentary, sending emails that will catch a journalist’s attention, how to craft pitches journalists will say ‘yes’ to, and the right and wrong way to submit photos, if you need any extra guidance before sending your pitches.

Forbes

I’m looking for ways to incorporate caviar into a romantic valentine's day evening, and for this one I’m open to being pitched products but also dish/recipe ideas...like caviar martinis, caviar pasta, caviar sea food tower!, whatever. I’m looking to make this piece a hybrid ofcocktails/dishes at restaurants/bars but also items you can buy/make to have a romantic night at home too. (And, yes, the caviar cocktails story I mentioned last week will be incorporated into this larger piece…so keep those pitches coming!)

Valentine's Day Gift Guide 2005: The Best High-End Red Wines For Warming A Heart This Season. Great high-end red wines for a chilly winter night or a romantic date night this season.

Valentine's day Gift Guide 2005: The Best Romantic Culinary Experiences To Gift This Season (so virtual cooking classes, maybe, cooking/recipe. kits, stuff like make your own hot sauce, send me fun ideas!)

To pitch me for any of these gift guides, please make sure to include ALL of the following:

• Name of product

• LINK where sold (does NOT have to be a major retailer for these!)

• Description/why YOU think I should consider it for this specific guide

• Link to dropbox image of product (does not need to be high res but should be good quality)

Plate Magazine

I’m putting out bites/drinks of the week feelers, which is sort of a drink/dish spotlight piece. (Some examples are this Peruvian-inspired sweet potato in Savannah and a molecular banana daiquiri in Chicago.) Basically if you are pitching me something for this, think along the lines of: Is this dish/bite something new? What interesting techniques are used to make it come together? If the technique is simple, what’s the hook? An interesting ingredient? Something being made in house or in an interesting way? What’s the story behind the dish? What inspired it? Is there a cultural/family story behind the dish? An ingredient the chef got their hands on? Love to hear what you might have for me!

I’m also taking style-related pitches, obviously with the audience in mind: such as the the stories behind chefs who take their style seriously, but also various cooking styles, and how does style play a role, how does plating style affect how a dish tastes and sells? What does it mean to go from one cooking style to another in the course of a career, or operate restaurants that showcase various cooking styles?

Also taking After Dark-related pitches, as in everything that happens after dark—from late-night industry happy hours to night markets, such as the labor and techniques that take place in the kitchen (or parking lot) overnight—from BBQ to sous vide cooking and baking. I’m also looking for noteworthy bartenders to profile.

<3

aly