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Re: Attn Marketing Gurus: Need help writing a press release

Friend of mine shot me these links. They're supposed to help with press releases. See if these make anymore sense. They're still just as confusing as the other ones to me. But as I've said before, I'm probably over thinking this whole thing. Of course, as Texrat said, it's hard to write your own press release. lol. Man, I can knock out some killer novels and tech articles, and yet I'm flummoxed on a simple press release. >.<

http://www.writing-world.com/promotion/hanes.shtml
http://www.xpresspress.com/PRnotes.html
http://www.writershelper.com/writing...-releases.html
http://www.davidmeermanscott.com/doc...ules_of_PR.pdf

Re: Attn Marketing Gurus: Need help writing a press release

Just add the relevant information like, who the author is, when the book is released, the blurb that you put on the back of the book so that people know what it's about and finally where you can get it.

The press release has to be short and packed with all the information I need to get interested and be able to find the book.

Re: Attn Marketing Gurus: Need help writing a press release

I use the reader built into Internet Explorer. When I try to subscribe to your link, it gives me this:

"An invalid character was found in text content.
Line: 42 Character: 65

<description>The Google system provides much more capacity"

Have you ever seen that before? I can't figure out where to start.

Re: Attn Marketing Gurus: Need help writing a press release

Quote:

Originally Posted by christexaport (Post 323791)

I can't figure out where to start.

Start here

Re: Attn Marketing Gurus: Need help writing a press release

ROFL! Yeah, I agree with Luca. IE's RSS reader is seriously borked, and doesn't properly follow XML and RSS standards. Firefox does.

Re: Attn Marketing Gurus: Need help writing a press release

I'm in marketing and I think this overview here http://www.ehow.com/how_2131244_writ...s-release.html is actually quite straightforward.

Don't think your press release has to be very complicated. Maybe a simple outline would include:

- your contact info
- a short paragraph summary meant to "hook" a reader into the plot and basic premise of your book and leave them wanting more

For example, with my own paraphrasing to make it more of a cliffhanger, taken from an Amazon's review of 2001: A Space Odyssey

When an enigmatic monolith is found buried on the moon, scientists are shocked to discover that it's at least 3 million years old yet releasing a powerful signal aimed at Saturn. What sort of alarm has been triggered? Who is it trying to contact? To find out, a manned spacecraft, the Discovery, is sent to investigate. The highly-trained Discovery crew is assisted by an on-board supercomputer, the HAL 9000. The crew soon realize that the machine may have learned too much about what it means to be human and must fight to save their own lives while rushing to unravel the mysteries behind the forces responsible not just for the monolith, but may even human civilization.

- a direct call-to-action line that tells the person reading the press release what you want them to do "pick up a copy at xyz" or "find out the answer to this mystery in this first installment of the xyz series"

- end with general book info and a line or two about the author "has written X short science fiction works over the pas X number of years. This is his first full-length book available for download/purchase"

Hope that helps! From what I saw briefly on your website link, I think that cliffhanger paragraph is what will really count. If you'd like you could post it here and get feedback on that directly?

Re: Attn Marketing Gurus: Need help writing a press release

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lord Raiden (Post 323871)

ROFL! Yeah, I agree with Luca. IE ~~'s RSS reader~~ is seriously borked, and doesn't ~~properly~~ follow ~~XML and RSS~~ standards. Firefox does.

There, fixed for you :D

Re: Attn Marketing Gurus: Need help writing a press release

paperscissors: Thanks. I'll try that.

Luca: ROFL! :D

Re: Attn Marketing Gurus: Need help writing a press release

Quote:

Originally Posted by luca (Post 323864)

Start here

LOL! I'm actually using Maxthon when I can, but I can't alter the PC I was using that day. But I don't hate IE as much as the rest of the world. I guess its how I learned the web. Habits...

Anyone know a way I can sync the RSS feeds I have in IE to anything or anywhere else?

Re: Attn Marketing Gurus: Need help writing a press release

lol. It's funny you bumped this thread, because I was about to reply in here. Anywho...

http://www.prlog.org/10281863-south-...ok-author.html

Ok, I found this while doing some more link diving, and I think it's got what I needed to see to understand this. And oddly enough, being sleep deprived I actually understand this now. Go figure. It must be that I was just overthinking the whole thing. lol. Anywho, here's my first attempt at a press release. Tell me what you think.

Quote:

Title: Southern Michigan Author Releases First Novel

New Release: "The Oort Perimeter," (Science Fiction) written by Steven Lake is a tale of intrigue, mystery, action and adventure wrapped up in a curtain of stars.

Sept 9, 2009 – Marshall, MI. – Marshall, Michigan native, Steven Lake, a well known and respected writer and reviewer in the Information Technology sector has released his first novel in a series known as the "Bitter Cycles of Man." The book entitled "The Oort Perimeter," tells the story of an organization known as "Earthfleet" who is tasked with the protection of Earth, and all who live on it, from the myriad of alien races spread across the three galaxies who wish its destruction.

Novel Teaser: Born of a need to protect their homeworld, Earthfleet, the military arm of the Society, struggles continuously to ensure the safety of Earth and all who live on it. But a dark force arises within the galaxy, one who wishes to use Earth as a pawn in their quest for power. In a struggle for survival, the Society, Earthfleet and their allies must race against time to uncover the truth of this dark force, before it can destroy Earth, and the nine races. Failure means extinction of the human race.

This novel is book 1 of a total of 15 novels in this series which is broken down into three sagas: Earthfleet, Lost Fleet, and Lost Races.

Booksurge, the publisher of this novel, is a division of Amazon Corporation and specializes in print on demand titles of all genres and types.

About the Author:

Steven is a well respected member of his local community, as well as the online Linux and Open Source communities as well. He is an accomplished writer both in technical and literary merit and has been compared by some to a mixture of Isiac Asimov and E. E. Doc. Smith, two of the greats of the Science Fiction world.

For more information or to request a free review copy, members of the press may contact the author at writing@raiden.net. "The Oort Perimeter" is available for sale online at www.Amazon.com, and through select wholesale and retail channels.

Any comments?