Press Release Drafter

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Press Release Drafter writes the announcement journalists, bloggers, and podcast bookers can act on without rewriting it first.

Give the Media Something They Can Run

Your book comes out in six weeks. You want local coverage, a few podcast bookings, and maybe a trade mention. So you write an email that opens with how excited you are to announce your debut novel.

Nobody covers that. Editors get dozens of those a week, and excitement is not news. What gets covered is a story with an angle, delivered in a format the newsroom already uses.

Press Release Drafter builds that. Tell it what you are announcing and what makes it interesting, and you get a release in standard form with your angle in the lead.

You get back:

• A headline written for an editor scanning a full inbox
• A lead paragraph that puts the newsworthy part first, not your publication date
• Body copy that develops the angle and stays out of sales language
• Quotes attributed to you that a reporter can lift straight into a story
• Book details, availability, and contact information in the places editors look
• A boilerplate paragraph about you that you can reuse on every future release

Use It To

• Announce a launch to local papers, trade outlets, and genre bloggers
• Turn an award or a starred review into coverage instead of a social post
• Pitch podcasts with something more useful than a request to come on
• Give a local reporter the local angle they need to justify the story
• Announce a series conclusion, a new edition, or an audiobook release
• Hand a bookstore or library a ready-made announcement for an event
• Build a media kit page on your website

Why It Works

Journalists are not looking for books. They are looking for stories, on deadline, with a local or timely hook. A release that leads with your book treats the reporter as an audience. A release that leads with the story treats them as a colleague, and colleagues get covered.

Format carries more weight than authors expect. Newsrooms process releases fast, and one that follows convention gets read while a heartfelt email gets skipped. That has nothing to do with the quality of the book.

The quotes matter more than anything else in the document. A reporter with a quote can file a short piece without interviewing you, which lowers the cost of covering you to almost nothing. Releases without usable quotes make the reporter do work, and that work often does not happen.

The hook field does the most work here. The angle you supply drives the whole release, and "my book is out" produces a weaker document than "a retired firefighter wrote a thriller about the fire that nearly killed him."

Related Tools

Explore more Patron Toolbox tools that pair well with this one:

• Media Hook Brainstormer - Find the angle before you write the release.
• Podcast Host Directory - Find the shows to send it to.
• Influencer Finder - Identify people with an audience who cover your genre.
• Book to Blurb - Write the description your release quotes from.
• Tagline Brainstormer - Generate a line that works in a headline.

FAQ

• What is Press Release Drafter? A Patron Toolbox tool that drafts a press release for a book launch, award, event, or other announcement. It returns a headline, lead, body, quotes, and contact block in the format newsrooms expect.
• Do press releases still work for authors? For local media, trade outlets, genre blogs, and podcasts, yes. National coverage rarely comes from a cold release. Local papers cover local authors, and that coverage sells books and builds the credibility other outlets check.
• What if my announcement is small? Small announcements get covered when the angle is right. A regional paper cares that you live there. A niche blog cares that you write their niche. The hook field is where that angle goes.
• Do I have to use the quotes as written? Edit them until they sound like you. A reporter may print them verbatim, so read them the way you would read a quote attributed to you in tomorrow's paper.
• Can I get a version for a specific outlet? Yes. Ask for a version aimed at a local paper, a trade publication, or a podcast pitch, and it will rework the angle.
• How much does it cost? Press Release Drafter is available to all Novel Marketing patrons at the $10/month level and above. You can become a patron at patreon.com/novelmarketing.