Attn Marketing Gurus: Need help writing a press release
 

I'm calling out to anyone here who's a marketing guru, or at the very least knows how to do a press release, who can help me write one for my book.

I've been trying to do a press release for my book for the past several days with no luck. The examples I've seen just don't make enough sense to me to put 2 and 2 together. Maybe I'm just trying to brain this too much (yeah, that wouldn't be a first. That's where we get writers block from. lol), but even if I'm not, some help with this would be welcome.

Maybe just a simple outline so I have something to start from. I think that's the one thing I'm having the biggest fit with is figuring out the proper layout and exactly what content is needed where. And no, just because you can write a novel or a technical article doesn't mean you can do marketing script, which is what this is. heh. And yes, I suck at marketing. I already figured that out by running a tech site and trying to do my own marketing. Anywho...

Here's a list of PR sites I've found to submit the release to: 50 Free Press Release Submission Websites, a few of which have some help files that aren't all that helpful. At least to me. But they're a start if anyone wants them.

And one of the people who replied to the article at the above link gave prweb.com as another option, which had this article for writers in the help section: Promote Your Book To Google and Yahoo! Readers - PRWeb News & Press Release Distribution

prwebdirect.com in turn offered this: How to write a press release

And yet I'm still stuck. Again, I'm probably over thinking this, which as I said is not a first, but because I do that often enough, I tend to find myself bouncing ideas and questions off people in order to rattle the ideas and stuff loose. So any help you can give will be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Also, I'm sure some of this info will in turn be useful to others here too. So even if you're not a Marketing Guru, I'm sure you can still benefit from my humble little post. :)

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

It's hard to write your own press. Takes more objectivity than that.

I'll try to look at this later and see if I can help. No promises though.

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

What's the book about? I'm a big fan of Texrat's writing, but if its a joke book, he may not be the right choice. (He may steal your thunder. LOL!) Is it a mobile themed book? Do you have an agent to shop the book?

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

Hey I can be serious. :p

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

http://www.raiden.net/writing/the_oort_perimeter

It's called "The Oort Perimeter" and is a sci-fi novel. I posted about it in another thread recently. I think Texrat may have already grabbed a copy since that'd be a genre he'd like.

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

Well buy Texrat a beer and some nachos, let him be him, and you got it covered, ask me...

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

And I don't generally read sci fi, but I might give it a try and see what I've been missing. Will it be an ebook I can read on the N900? (heh heh 8) )

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

Yeah, there's a free eBook at my site. If you read and like it, consider buying the paperback as thanks. :D

You can get the ebook for free here: http://www.raiden.net/writing/the_oort_perimeter

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

Thanks, Lord Raiden! Your site looks like a resource I'd be interested in. I have zero Linux experience. But your RSS feed isn't working right with IE's built in reader. Any clues, or do you have the link to the rss/atom feed?

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

http://www.raiden.net/rss/raidens-realm.xml

Well, that's the feed address. It's a standard 0.91 version RSS feed, so your reader should be able to process it. Otherwise, I don't know what to tell you. As for the site, I'm glad you like it. It should prove quite useful to you. :D

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
 

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
 

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
 

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.
Any comments?

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

Drop one "as well".

Isaac

"Doc" is a nickname, so: E. E. "Doc" Smith.

Axe the comma.

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

Thank you kindly good sir. :D

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

You ARE good, Lord Raiden! ;P I see ya!

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

I noticed that it's on your list, but we use PR-Inside all the time for minor announcements at work - it gets us into Google News for free. We used a few others including 1888pressrelease and some of the other ones but none of them were as reliable at getting us into Google News

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

i would change "series known as"... maybe "first novel in the "Bitter Cycles of Man" series"

I would also change "has released" to "announces the release of"

I'm not 100% sure but maybe grammatically the next sentence should have a few commas, IE, "The book, entitled "The Oort Perimeter.", tells...."

One more thing, is there a punctuation in the title of the book? weird man, weird...

ahhhhhh actually, it would be better to put the book title in the first sentence and the series in the second. IE, "Steven Lake, a well known and respected writer and reviewer in the Information Technology sector, announces the release of his new novel, entitled "The Oort Perimeter". The book, as the first part of the "Bitter Cycles of Man" series, tells...

I'd say "which is tasked" rather than "who is tasked", given that it is an organization. I'd also take out ",and who all live on it" from the book description, kinda awkward and unnecessary.

One thing I'm noticing is that a lot of sentences have bits tagged onto the end that really should be integrated, such as "who wish its destruction".. try this "from the myriad of hostile alien races spread across the three galaxies."

minor issues:

This novel is book 1 of a total of 15 novels in the "Bitter Cycles of Man" series which is divided into three sagas: Earthfleet, Lost Fleet, and Lost Races.
(if you've put quotes around all the other titles, why not put them on the sagas?)

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

Overfloat, I think the "and all who live in it" phrase is something that sounds as if the common people of this story's era and location would say things that way, just like Celtic or Irish people saying "I'm Chris from the Clan McFann in Caelum Gurst" in those medieval(?) movies. It seems filmy, and I say keep it. Geeks will get it, and this spells Geek's Book to me.

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

you're right - i misread it as the organization living on earth. IE - the organization - who all live on it

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

lol. The Society is actually a shortened name for "The Brayburn Society", which is the full name of the organization in question. They just got tired of using the full name, so simply shortened it to the "Society". :)

And in regards to your other comments, The period in the title is proper grammar when doing a news post. On the web we're using to doing the period outside the quotes, as that came from a habit by programmers to distinguish punctuation from actual code elements. And for the question about quotes on the name vs no quotes on the sagas, they don't need delimitation like the book name did, given that they're in a list rather than embedded in a sentence.

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

Ah, i see the problem - its a US English vs UK English thing
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/When_do_yo...uotation_marks
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quotation_mark#Punctuation

You almost turned my world upside down.

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

Can I give you a hand? I would change the part about the novels to this:

"...his first novel, entitled "The Oort Perimeter." It is the first in series known as the "Bitter Cycles of Man."

The novel tells the story of Earthfleet, the military arm of the Society, tasked with Earth's protection. Earthfleet continous struggle for Earth's safety turns into a deadly race against the clock when a mysterious new force alters the delicate power balance of the Galaxy. Now, Earthfleet and their allies must find the truth behind this dark force... before Earth and the nine races are destroyed.

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

Edit: I could very well change the last sentence of the paragraph (after "Galaxy" and before "This novel is the first book " for:

"Will Earthfleet and their allies find the truth behind this dark force before Earth and the nine races are destroyed?"

Hope it helps!

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

mrojas, I like the last sentence. Leaves you in suspense. perfect.

Lord Raiden, why not just crowd source your next book? We're pretty good at this. LOL

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

Personally, I would not use this sentence in a press release as it quickly turns the article into advertising rather than press.

Press releases should be objective, to the point where a newspaper could pick up the article and run it on the front page without editing.

This sort of sentence would be fine in a quote from the author, but I'd argue against it in the body of the release.

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

Yeah, that's one thing I kept reading. IE, don't advertise. Tell only, and be objective in doing so. You just want to pass along info, not sell a product.

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

True. Reads more along the lines of what they print on the back of a paperback book. But I still like it for that purpose.