TIPS FOR WRITING A PRESS RELEASE
© Kansas City Artists Coalition
Give your press release a title or headline at the top. This should appear in bold or capitol letters to draw the reader's attention to the focus of your information.
Make sure important contact information is clearly visible at the top of your press release. This should include the contact person's name, address, phone, fax, e-mail, website. If you are using letterhead that contains this information, do not re-type it.
Keep press releases to one page. If you absolutely have to go over a page, staple the pages together.
Be sure to put the date on your press release. If you are e-mailing your information to a publication, put the current date. If you are sending your information in the mail, consider choosing a date a few days ahead so the reader will know your information has not expired. You might also include a line such as "For immediate release"
Start of with an exciting sentence about your news that will grab your readers and more importantly, keep them reading. Don't begin your press release with where the person is from, or when they were born, etc. This information should go in your background/history section.
Keep it short and sweet. Make sure that you cover who, what, when, where, and why in your information in a clear and concise way. Your readers will want you to get to the point quickly, so it might be useful to bullet information such as dates and times rather than burying it in a paragraph.
Use action verbs and sentences and avoid passive voice.
Don't use abbreviations. You can't assume your reader will know what you mean.
Background or historical information should appear at the end of the press release in a section titled as such.
If your text includes a quote, make sure that it is relevant and illustrates the character of the person speaking. It should be distinctive, and not sound like something you could have just as easily written yourself. The person you are quoting should be a respected individual who is an authority on the topic you are writing about, such as a curator, gallery owner, critic, etc.
Provide digital images or slides for the editor. A great photo can help market your story,