A lot of artists fall down on press releases but I’m here to help.  Defining a press release is a great place to start. A press release is a pseudo-news story, written in third person which seeks to demonstrate to a reporter, blogger or editor the ‘newsworthiness’ of a particular event or product.  For you this is most likely to be a music release, gig or tour. By evidencing this ‘event’ as a news story (albeit one of your own creation) you convince them to run the story as a news item, thus ensuring you publicity.

It’s actually a two way relationship, you will hopefully gain publicity for your ‘product’ or event and in return the media gains a story to run (content).  It’s written as a ‘fake’ news story so that the journalist doesn’t have to go to the trouble of rewriting it.  I’m not saying that people are lazy but the easier you make the job the more likely your press release is to be used.  Welcome to the world of copy and paste journalism or ‘churnalism’ as it is referred to.  When should you write a press release? When:

• Announcing a gig or tour
• Obtaining a record, publishing or sponsorship deal
• Album, single or video release information
• Band personnel changes/additions (this may depend upon the size of the band)

Most press releases are for use by third parties but you can copy and paste them yourself as use a news item for your website.

We’ll start looking at more factors tomorrow.