Message:

<p>[QUOTE=&quot;kaparthy, post: 1040, member: 57463&quot;]<b>From the Editor&#039;s Desk</b></p><p><br /></p><p>Actually, Cameron, that standard press release format is a pain in the neck.&nbsp; The information at the top (Name address, etc.) is only if the editor really wants to talk to someone for a follow-up or something.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>Most press releases get rewritten.&nbsp; That is to say, at Coin World, we called it &quot;writing from the basket.&quot;&nbsp; The clerical person who opened the mail (often an editor, actually) put press releases into a box and when you had nothing better to do you took one and rewrote it.&nbsp; If they stacked up, some editor at a staff meeting would fuss a bit and after the meeting, we might actually take one and re-write it. </p><p><br /></p><p>The other big effort was close to deadline when a lot of small spaces had to be filled.&nbsp; You could flip through the basket and find something you really cared about -- a dealer you knew or a club you liked or a coin you wrote about or something -- and you would take their 2000 word press release and make two paragraphs out of it to fill some space.</p><p><br /></p><p>It is not just Coin World that works this way.&nbsp; As a technical writer, I place a lot of magazine articles.&nbsp; I even sell the service.&nbsp; I meet some marketing manager who tells me that he does not need to hire the service because he gets his company&#039;s name in the trades all the time and I say &quot;Great!&nbsp; That will make it easy to place a 2000-word article about you&quot; and his eyes light up.&nbsp; He writes 2000 words and gets one paragraph under &quot;New Products.&quot;&nbsp; No one cares about your new products.&nbsp; They all have new products of their own.&nbsp; People want to read stories about people succeeding in ways they want to see themselves succceeding.&nbsp; Oh...&nbsp; So, I have written and sold about 50 of these since 1990.&nbsp; If the marketing manager still does not want to pay, it is not a problem: the editor will pay for a good story.</p><p><br /></p><p>If you want your press release to get in, write it like a news story:&nbsp; Who What When Where Why and How.&nbsp; Make it short and sweet.&nbsp; Make it the kind of story YOU want to READ, not the kind of eulogy you want when you die.&nbsp; Put the contact information at the bottom.</p><p><br /></p><p>Also -- this is getting complicated -- READ the newspaper you are sending it to.&nbsp; One press release will not meet all the expectations of all the editors of all the trades.&nbsp; With word processing, it is NOT a big deal to send five versions of the same story to five places.&nbsp; Numismatic News is way more &quot;people oriented&quot; than Coin World.&nbsp; Coin World does not care why YOU do what YOU do:&nbsp; what they care about is what their READERS can get from what you are OFFERING.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

Your name or email address:

Do you already have an account?

• No, create an account now.
• Yes, my password is:
• Forgot your password?

Stay logged in