How to write a press release

A pianist friend of mine wrote me today, asking:

how do write press releases, john? I need to write one for the new album. the label director showed me his draft, and it looks boring. are there books about this?

My friend suggested I pass the advice onto my blog, so here is what I wrote him:

I haven't written one in years, but I used to be good at it, and then I relinquished it to my employees, who did a terrible job.

Here is one I wrote, that is pretty good: [prlyr1.pdf]

The key item is "downloads of its applications for Linux have surpassed all other Unix-based versions combined" which was my angle to get into a "Linux is winning the Unix wars" story, which was starting to emerge back in 2001. Also note that I give a lot of substance in paragraph two. I also am piggy backing on the "will Sun survive Linux?" and "Oracle comes to Linux" news that were hot topics at the time. This press release is mostly not about us, but could be part of someone else's story.

Most releases tend to be filled with meaningless words, look at this one that my MBA wrote: [lyrpr2.pdf]

words like "announce" (duh) "leading" (leader?) "award winning" (sure) "utilize" (use?) just make you not read on. The article continues with lots of chest pounding about how great we are. Yawn. Where's the story angle? There isn't one here. What could we have done instead? We should have turned this release into a story about how crowd-sourcing of anti-spam lists (MAPS RBL) was the new battle strategy against spammers and that the corporate world was starting to embrace that approach. *That* would have made a good story!

-

Think of a press release more as an elevator pitch.

Your first sentence needs to get their attention, or you're lost.

The next few sentences are the meat, and need to sustain the attention. Flesh out the story idea, don't self-aggrandize. It's a press release, for god's sake, the reader knows your agenda.

If they're still reading, you're home free, and you want to give them some quotes that they can use in their own article. When the journalist calls, be sure to have a few more references in your pocket, that were not quoted in the press release, so the journalist can do the own 'research', come up with a distinct article, and not just reprint what every other journalist just received.

Short is better than long.

Pitching a story that isn't about you is a very good idea, so the journalist doesn't feel like a shill.

Hope that helps!

-j

Comments

[Sam]

Nice article, thanks for sharing your experience :)

One question, in the case of a recording artist, how would they write a press release that "isn't about you"? You mean get someone else to write the press release for them? But then it wouldn't be official...

[John from Magnatune]

re: One question, in the case of a recording artist, how would they write a press release that "isn't about you"? You mean get someone else to write the press release for them?

No, you could write it yourself, but the story needs to be more than "I just released an album". How is that interesting?

Take this week's release by Vito Paternoster. His English is not great (this was originally written in Italian) but his pitch is not bad http://magnatune.com/artists/albums/paternoster-popper

The punch comes at the end, where he writes: "Vito Paternoster has taken these studies and made concert pieces out of them. A challenge, some small readjustments and they've become not studies, but music. Alive music."

If I were to write a press release for this album, I'd try to build a larger story about how old music that has seemed too challenging, and too technical, is now being rediscovered and made beautiful. As the musician, I might also find two other musicians who I am impressed by, and make it a 3 person press release with "Ugly" music can be beautiful, or some other provocative headline that a newspaper would like, because it grabs readers attention.

-john