| What | Your input |
Today
Older or undated items are likely to be tossed.
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Instructions
The date you are sending the release | Example
Wednesday, September 08, 2010 |
Your Contact Information
If they have questions, whom do they call?
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Instructions
Use your cell phone number. You may get a call other than normal business hours. | Example
PUBLISHER CONTACT: Joy Pleaa, AArdvark Books, 909-555-1313, JPleaa@aardvarkbooks.com
AUTHOR CONTACT Kiki Leaky 212-555-12-12, kikileaky1967@gmail.com/ |
Release Date Instructions
This tells them when the information contained in the release will be newsworthy.
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Instructions
Normally, "FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE" | Example
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE |
Headline
To attract attention, to announce the lead story, and summarize the text.
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Instructions
It should be ten words or less, no more than fifteen words - fifteen is best. Use keywords. | Example
Former Journalist Takes on "Green Mafia" |
Paragraph 1
Tell them what you're going to tell them
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Instructions
The first paragraph reinforces the headline with the specifics of the Who, What, Where, When And Why and Often the How.
• This paragraph must grab editorial attention. Use an entertaining, instructional, emotional, controversial or newsworthy story angle. This angle is also called the hook.
• Weave the important information into the hook in the first two paragraphs. Use fact not fluff. Use price, tips, trends, benefits and outcomes.
• Traditionally, quotes should not be used as a lead in the first paragraph unless it dramatically depicts the lead story content where no other words would do the same job. Examples: courtroom statements, reactions, a personal encounter.
• Avoid using buzzwords and techno babble, unless that is what the article is about.
• Don’t try to pack a great deal of information in the lead paragraph (twenty-five words or less). As television’s Detective Jack Web said, “The facts, just the facts.”
• Remember that editorial cuts from the bottom up, so don’t hold the best for last. You don’t want them to throw out your release because it needs too many revisions or it begins with fluff and they have to hunt for the kernel of information they need.
| Example
(Springfield, CA)Journalist turned writer, Kiki Leaky's new book, "It's Not Important Being Green - How Corporate Interests Have Stolen the Environmental Movement" claims that the frightening array of so-called "environmentally safe" products are just a trick by corporate America to cash in on growing consciousness of green issues. |
Paragraph 2
tell them a little more
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Instructions
The second paragraph supports, expands and authenticates the information in the first paragraph.
• Offer contact information such as a phone number, web site, E-mail and price in parenthesis. | Example
Based on research conducted while Leaky was Science and Technology Editor for the Willington Declarer, this book claims that Americans are following the same road that got us into an ecological mess. And it hasn't even changed who's getting rich. |
Paragraph 3
Here lives the all-important “quote.”
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Instructions
The third paragraph houses the company or personal quote that establishes reference or credibility. This is the paragraph where you introduce personal or company feeling, comment and opinion. | Example
Nobel prize winner, Herbert Loomis says, "Leaky's book is an important first step in educating the public. We need to be thinking not about trivial things like whether our air fresheners are recyclable, but about whether we should be living in detached homes, and whether we should live and work in the same neighborhood." |
Paragraph 4
Contains the wrap up or offers more of “what’s in it for the audience”
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Instructions
This paragraph has two lives.
1) If it is a short release, then this could be the final paragraph. If that is so, then see paragraph five and six for how to set up the contact content.
2) If the release is a five or six paragraph release, then you can use this paragraph to show how the product, business, talent, event or idea is going to carry out the claims made in the first three paragraphs. | Example
Leaky examines the ten top environmentally significant decisions most people are likely to make and explains how to put personal convenience in balance with environmental outfalls . |
Paragraph 5
The wrap up or offering one more benefit
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Instructions
The fifth paragraph either houses another quote by the same person as in paragraph three or another person with equal stature, or if it is the end of the release, provides the wrap up contact content information. | Example
Loomis adds, "Global warming isn't something that's going to be cured by answering questions like, 'Paper or plastic?' correctly. These are serious issues that require serious consideration. Leaky will convince anyone who reads her book that is so." |
Paragraph 6
The final wrap up⎯directions to beat a path to your door
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Instructions
The last paragraph, whether paragraph four, five or six, offers detailed contact information. | Example
"It's Not Important Being Green - How Corporate Interests Have Stolen the Environmental Movement" is published by Aarvark Books and is available on Amazon.com |