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Rebecca Bardoux has a two-hour radio show every Friday night on XXX Porn Star Radio. It’s a mash-up of fan call-ins and industry interviews that Bardoux does while she’s out and about town. This week PR agent Erika Icon was one of her guests.

In another installment, Bardoux chatted with Amber Lynn at Porn Star Karaoke’s 9th Anniversary. Lynn, www.amberlynnxxx.com talks about how she and Ginger Lynn would promote their old KSEX show at PSK.

“I’m officially back in front of the camera,” Lynn also announced. “It’s a really hot scene with a really hot guy- Keiran Lee. I had a blast. I wanted to make a big splashy comeback.”

Lynn said after her brother Buck Adams died she began working out as a coping mechanism but got perhaps a little too muscular for the camera. In an amusing segment, Bardoux’s interviewing a female porn fan in the ladies room.

Although the woman claimed that she watched a lot of porn she had no idea who Bardoux was nor Kurt Lockwood who was at PSK that evening.

“You’re asking me a lot of naughty questions,” the woman told Bardoux.

Asked if she would consider doing a scene for $10K the female fan said it depended who it was with.

“Would you do it with Kurt Lockwood?” Bardoux asked her.

“Who’s that?” replied the woman.

PR agent Erika Icon called in. Bardoux observed that it’s really tough for a performer to make headway in the industry without a publicist.

“It’s really tough to do anything without a PR person; you’re the one person I constantly see on Twitter,” Bardoux told Icon.

Icon has been in the business for seven years. She’s been a video buyer, an advice columnist, has written for XBiz, AVN, and YNot. After working as a freelance publicist, she started up her own PR firm, The Rub four years ago.

“If you’re serious about your career,” get a publicist Icon agreed.

“There are hundreds of girls who come into the industry each week – you know this. You need to stand out, to be interviewed and you do need to be in magazines and have a publicist. Another thing a publicist is very important for is to submit you for AVN and XBiz awards. Because only certain people can do that.”

Icon’s asked what makes one new girl coming into the business more special than another.

As an illustration, Icon mentions that she’s been working with Nikki Delano for about a year and a half.

“I remember the first time I saw her. I knew she was the new ‘it’ girl. I could tell when I saw her. I don’t always get that from new girls. I take established people and I take people who are newer.

“There’s an attraction of a newer girl because they’re fresh. But people want to interview people who are more established. They’re not as interested in the newer girls.”

Asked if she handles male talent for publicity, Icon replied, “I get guys hitting me up all the time looking for an agent which I’m not. The problem with the male talent is they don’t work as much, and, if they do, they make about half or less as the girls make.

“They generally don’t have money for PR, unfortunately. I’ve had one male talent. I’ve had a male director. But most of the males I deal with, own their own companies.

“Not many publicists have male talent. They [the male talent] can’t afford to, no matter what the price is per month.”

Bardoux recalled that when she first started in the business, she had no idea what to do.

“Is that something you do with your clients? You sort of teach them and coach them through an interview?”

Icon said most of her clients don’t need that because they’re “pretty chatty”.

“I don’t coach them in the sense that they’re not themselves,” Icon continued.

“They are themselves but I have rules, like, don’t shit-talk people; don’t speak negatively, don’t get into fights and don’t talk about drugs. Pretty much anything else they can talk about what they want.

“I tell interviewers don’t ask them about their families or their boyfriends because there’s always some kind of conflict. There are some things in their private life that need to remain private. I just tell them to be themselves.”

“I’ve had girls that are not very good with interviewing and I do practice with them. Then I have some girls who don’t like to do written interviews.”

Bardoux said judging from Twitter activity Icon always seems to get her clients spots on radio shows.

“They’re always going to conventions,” Bardoux noted as well.

Icon made a point that talent agents don’t set those gigs up.

“[Talent] Agents are just mainly concerned about things that make them money,” she says.

“Unfortunately they don’t see the interviews as making them money in the long run. They’re not really concerned about that. There are some agents that like to horn in and take part of the money when I get a girl a magazine layout or something.

“They want every nickel. Most of the agents are concerned with getting movie work that pays- that’s pretty much all they’re concerned about- whether it be mainstream or adult.”

According to Icon, one of her clients just wanted to pay her a monthly fee to run her Twitter and Facebook.

“I do a lot more for my monthly fee. The only Twitters that I run are generally for companies. Because fans really need to get to know the girls and so they [the girls] do need to run their own Twitter. I don’t run their Twitters, generally.”

Icon charges a monthly fee to her clients.

Bardoux notes that “there’s so much media out there”.

“That’s also what you’re paying for,” replied Icon.

“My connections. I have lists upon lists, straights lists, gay lists, tranny lists, mainstream lists. It’s endless. That’s what’s included in the monthly fee. If I get them something that pays I don’t take a percentage unless it’s a toy deal then I can take a percentage if I broker a toy deal for them.”

Icon claims people don’t have a hard time finding her.

“I’ve got a lot of people hitting me up every week for PR. I turn down quite a few of them.”

Expanding that thought, Icon says she won’t take on a client if she thinks she can’t help them.

“I don’t just take peoples’ money. I also don’t take on people if I don’t like them. I don’t like people who scream. But if I think I can help them and that they’ll do well, I’ll help them. It depends how many clients I have.

“Right now I have quite a few clients and probably can only take one or two more. Sometimes I drop clients as well.”