Part 2 of "Getting Your Story Story Out There", which you can find on my blog of January 11, 2004.
I recently presented a half-day workshop on self-promotion for artists, focusing on writing press releases and creating your own press kit. My thing is, every artist, no matter where they are in their career, can benefit from promoting their name and work. My mantra is start where you are; take small steps; as you know better, do better; and repeat until success.
This was the longest session I've given, and I was afraid I would run out of things to say. (I'll just interject here...HAHAHAHAHAHA! I need not have worried...) I decided to see what else has been written on the subject, to see if I'd missed any bases.
I found only one book on writing press releases at my public library, and it didn't look promising. It was "Writing Effective News Releases" by Catherine V. McIntyre, 1992. It seemed out of date, of course and had no mention of the internet. But I thought I should at least browse through it. If it were well-written, the principals involved should be the same.
Am I ever glad I did! I was pleased to discover I was on-target with my presentation, but I had missed two hugely insightful points.
First, although I had implied it throughout, I never actually made the connection made by Ms. McIntrye--a press release is NEWS. As such, it MUST be factual. And this is the crucial reason you must include your name and contact information along with the release. It's not JUST so the newspaper can follow up with you if they have a question or decide to make it into a feature article. It's because it absolutely will not be printed if the information it contains cannot be substantiated. It doesn't mean every news release is substantiated, but it must be ABLE to be substantiated. A release submitted without contact information cannot be, and will be thrown out, period.
The second insight is that like any other news article, the decision to run a press release will depend on many factors (which again I mention in my presentation): its value as a story. If the paper has plenty of room and no other pressing stories, it will run every press release it can to fill up space. But there is also the potential for a release to be bumped--if it's not submitted in time (and if time is important to the story), if there's no room that day or week, if more demanding stories take priority, if it's not relevant to that publication's target audience.
What I hadn't realized is all the different ways you can elevate that audience appeal by the story values YOU add.
Huh? Isn't news just that? News? Facts? There's no story in facts!
Not so. Although a news article is factual, what gives it its interest is the story value. And being human beings, we always look for the story. The story is the "hook" that pulls us into the article.
The reason our local newspaper will run a press release about the book I've written is, they know their readers are interested in what other people in the area are doing. A newspaper in Gladwin, MI will not run a press release about me. Unless I wrote a book ABOUT Gladwin, MI, or came originally from Gladwin, MI (which, what a coincidence! I do!), or the subject of the book would be of great interest to people of Gladwin, MI.
We loved to read about Bill and Monica because news about them contains the story values of sex and romance, prominence, human interest, consequences (or disaster, if you are a Democrat) and, er, perhaps novelty. (Use your imagination.) The story went beyond something that was only of interest to people living in Washington, D.C. because these story factors took it further. The similar activities of Bill Brown and Monica Adams, both also of Washington, D.C. (fictional people) would not have generated the same interest.
Let's take a step back and look at it from the editor's point of view. News media are swamped with releases every day. It's where many of their feature articles are generated, after all. Some national publications receive hundreds and thousands of such releases daily. There is no way all of them will lead to a story, or even make it into the newspaper or magazine.
So like any other news story, the editor looks for these news values--or story values--in a press release:
Conflict
Progress or disaster
Consequences
Eminence (honors conferred) and prominence (celebrity)
Timeliness
Proximity
Novelty
Human Interest
Sex and Romance
Incorporating these elements (no, not all of them at once!) will add punch and purpose to your press release.
I've been targeting the more obvious of these news values, especially timeliness and proximity--what's new and what's of interest to the target audience of the publication, its readership. But I've been overlooking the potential of these story values. The possibilities are exciting!
I've successfully generated a lot of great publicity for myself and my artwork in an incredibly short time. But now I see how I can do even better.
Hmmmmm....how can I work sex and romance into my upcoming open studio event on November 13?
