“How to use HARO” is still a real search (~150/mo, KD 2). Most guides add a morning routine, a spreadsheet, and a prayer. You need four rules.
1. The digest is not the work
HARO (and Connectively) dump queries three times a weekday. You will not read 80 of them as email. Ingest them. Rank against the people on your roster. Open the ones that are actually a fit.
2. Not every “interview” is a call
“Looking to interview” in a HARO query is often a written quote. Authority Magazine-style series are a different product — a long Q&A, even when they say email is fine. If the author does not do live or series work, hide those. Do not burn a morning on a Zoom you will decline.
3. The answer is their words
Journalists can smell a shop blasting the same paragraph from four bylines. Dictate. Transcribe. Tidy. Do not let the model invent a COO origin story. If the query bans AI commentary, that is not a vibe. It is a constraint.
4. Send from the registered mailbox
HARO still wants the expert’s Gmail, not pitches@youragency.com. Connect Gmail on the author. Copy-paste is the fallback, not the plan.
Speed matters because deadlines are real. Quality matters because the byline is theirs. The digest is just the input.
GetPress runs that loop: one catalog, authors you represent, send from their Gmail. Open the desk.