How to Write a Press Release

How to Write a Press Release

Guidelines

by Susannah Greenberg,CEO,
Susannah Greenberg Public Relations

These are guidelines for how to write a press release. They are guidelines only, not rules.

The length of a press release should be approximately 600 words excluding headline, contact information, and bibliographic detail.

The text should answer the five basic questions of journalism: who, what, when, where and why?

The press release should have a newsworthy headline and sub-headline.

It should have a dateline. For example:

September 19,2019

NEW YORK (BOOKBUZZ) —

It should have contact information of contacts whom the media can reach out to for further information - name, phone number, and email. At the bottom or top, the address of the organization, its website address, and its logo should appear.

It should contain 3-4 bullet points highlighting features.

It should contain, on average, no more than 3-4 links and 1-2 images.

Images should be captioned and carry credit lines naming the photographer or source of photo if needed.

Copy should appeal to the broadest possible audience and assume no background knowledge on the part of the reader.

Remember, all emails need to be mobile friendly, which means consider that most or many will read the email on a cell phone or other mobile device.  So, type size should be 13.5 pt at a minimum and use white space liberally.

Also, there should be white space around all hyperlinks as well in order to make it easy to click on them on the small screen of a cell phone.

Finally, consider sending a VERY brief pitch letter INSTEAD of a press release, and in the pitch letter include a link to your press release which you can make available either online or via a service like Dropbox or Box.

Here are more tips on writing press releases from a journalism and public relations site called Muck Rack:

Come up with a creative, attention-grabbing headline and sub-headline. Make sure the headline you choose both engages readers and accurately explains the context of the press release.

[Very important! My emphasis]  Get right to the point in the intro using an inverted pyramid writing style. Make sure the first paragraph of your press release addresses all the important points to follow.

Include one or two key quotes when possible. Incorporating quotes from expert sources is a great way to get key elements across in your press release while humanizing the content.

Keep your press release relatively short. Journalists typically don’t have a lot of time to closely read lengthy releases. Stick to the most important information.

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Some news wire services which will help you write and distribute your press release are:

ereleases.com

newswire.com

businesswire.com

CONTACT: Susannah Greenberg Public Relations, (646) 801-7477, publicity@bookbuzz.com

Susannah Greenberg to Speak at uPublishU at Bookexpoamerica

Susannah Greenberg of Susannah Greenberg Public Relations, a book publicity firm in New York, will speak at uPublishU, a new educational arm of Bookexpoamerica, the largest trade show in the book industry in the United States, on Sunday, June 3, 2012 at the Javits Center in New York, NY. uPublishU was created to address the huge growth in self-publishing spawned by the digital revolution and the social web.

Greenberg is both organizer and speaker for the session "Building the Buzz for Books: The New Book Publicity." Greenberg will speak about the elements of the new book publicity and how to get great publicity for books, both print and eBooks, including advice on meeting the special challenges facing the self-published author; from creating strategies and goals, to writing a great pitch to the media, to building a web presence and community online, to figuring out how to reach top journalists, producers and bloggers.

Discoverability and credibility are keys for success for the self-published author and her book. They can be built if you know how, says Greenberg, and I will speak to exactly how one goes about building them, and building the buzz.

Greenberg has enlisted Publishers Weekly Editorial Director Jim Milliot to be a part of the session and Milliot will offer his insights on book publicity and speak about the special new section of the venerable book trade magazine PW which is devoted to self-publishing called PW Selects.Publishers Weekly has been the publication of record for the book trade since 1872 and reaches publishers, booksellers, librarians, agents, and media.

Publishers Weekly is a bellwether publication looked to by media for indications of what the big books are going to be and what books they need to pay attention to. And the PW reputation is golden with the media.  Authors in PW Selects will benefit from PW's longstanding relationship with general consumer media, says Greenberg. 

Greenberg has also drafted Patrick Brown, Community Manager of  Goodreads who will speak about opportunities for authors to build community and reach readers on his site. Goodreads is a social reading site with 7.3 million members, more than 100 million pageviews and 15 million unique visitors a month.

Building your community online will help build the buzz and reach readers. Goodreads has the distinct benefit of being a community solely devoted to avid book readers and the ability for the author to target niche communities of readers within who are most likely to be interested in a particular book, a marvelous benefit of specificity which the net, and Goodreads in particular, brings to book marketing and publicity, says Greenberg.

I'm delighted and honored to have been invited to participate in uPublishU, an exciting new program designed especially for self-published authors' benefit. If authors are given the right tools and an understanding of the book business, they can speed up the learning curve and successfully publish their books.  I think uPublishU will give them the tools to do the job. 

Registration for the all new uPublishU at Bookexpoamerica 2012 is open:
Register Online Now for uPublishU at BEA 2012. Your uPublishU at BEA registration includes a boxed lunch during the conference and a 1-day pass to BEA on Thursday, June 7.