Re: News Releases

[BurkBrick -at- AOL -dot- COM]

>I've been asked to develop and distribute news releases.

1) Use Cahner's Standard Rate and Data Book for names of magazines
publishers. Magazines are moving targets, so try to get the most recent one.
Most libraries have this source and others in the business reference section.
I created a database for this information, and automatically generated the
labels for the envelope.

2) Pick two or three of the magazines you would most like to appear in. (I'll
assume you're doing new product news releases for the sake of example.) Read
the new product release section. Word your press release to be as close in
style and verbage as possible to the samples. Editors get tons of these
things a month, so the less work they have to do to your release, the more
likely you are to get published.

3) If it's reasonable, include a 5x7 b/w photo. It gets you that much more
column space, and it catches the reader's eye.

4) Don't forget to give the editor a person to call.

See if you can find a book that covers press releases - they have a different
style than standard business letters. You might also contact a firm that does
press releases professionally (in Cleveland, Dix & Eaton is an example). I've
gotten samples from them for a class I teach.

If you need more information, I could send you some information and examples
I've put together for my class. Let me know!

Hope this helps -

Barb