Friday 16 May 2014

Press Kits are Hard Work, but worth it.

Phew! Just spent the entire day with my twin sis, Tasha, creating press kits. Up till now we've always generated information about our books and ourselves as needed for particular promotions, usually from the Wittegen Press website. However, looking round during the A to Z, and after prompting by author, Chris Votey, who we're working with for some up coming blog posts (keep an eye out on all three blogs for more info), we decided it was time we created some permanent information in downloadable format. Thus followed about four hours of collating data and spinning words.

We decided to use Google Docs (Google Drive) to host our Press Kit, because it makes it really easy to share with just a link, plus we can both edit the directory as needed in order to add new books as they are released. Compared to MS Word, a Google Doc has its limitations, but the press kit isn't supposed to be a wonder in formatting, so there was plenty of functionality to compile the information we needed. Plus we have the inbuilt added security of the kit being on Google Drive and therefore in multiple locations should something happen to one of our hard drives.

When it came to the contents of the press kit, we went with the kind of kits we'd seen from other authors, both via the A to Z and before: author bios, book blurbs and pictures to go with the information, plus, since we run our own publisher, we also have information on Wittegen Press and our logo up in the pack. We decided to duplicate all pictures, a small size inside the documents with the text to keep the docs small and larger higher quality versions downloadable individually for use on websites/blogs.

The book blurbs and pictures were just a matter of cut and paste from the website, so the most difficult bits by far were the author bios and the equivalent for Wittegen Press. I find it quite hard to sum myself up in a couple of short paragraphs, which is why working with Tasha helped, because we both had insights into each other that we used in the bios. As we developed the bios, we also considered how each line would come across standalone, to allow easy editing if shortening was required.

I expect I shall be tweaking my bio ad infinitum, but the important thing is I now have something that I am happy to share quickly and easily with any interested parties, an elevator speech about myself and my publisher that I think conveys something interesting and engaging about me as a writer and as a professional in the publishing industry.

20 comments:

  1. I made a press kit a few months ago. Nothing fancy, just made it so you can copy and past it off my blog.

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    1. Your media kit off your website was something of a kick of inspiration :)

      We decided to host on google, because we each have more than one blog, plus the website, so we could distribute it to all of them.

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  2. Good for you Sophie getting this organised. That's certainly seems like a lot of work, but the outcome is worth it.

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    1. We've got to a point with over 20 titles to each of our names where we decided we had to get organised or spend our lives recreating the same info at different intervals :)

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  3. My website http://home.chrisvotey.com is a site that can be seen as a press kit, but I also have an individual press kit that is mostly pictures and extra content.

    It's good to have press kits, especially for like professional interviews like newspapers, magazines, and TV as they can spend less time do the research about you and spend more time writing about you. I developed my idea from Joanna Penn "How to Market a Book"
    http://www.amazon.com/How-To-Market-A-Book-ebook/dp/B00DO9HJF8

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    1. Thanks for the reference.

      Yeah, we have the same thing on the Wittegen Site, all the books, author bios etc, and this is the compact easily downloadable version.

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  4. As a freelance writer, I've been asked to put together press kits and distribute press releases for companies. I write news releases, but I've never done the distribution part of it. I worked in public relations in my younger years, and I'm in awe of all the work you've done on this! You seem to really know what you're doing.

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    1. So you know all the tricks to compacting essential information into short, punchy pieces then. Personally, I have come to the conclusion that writing press kit contents is only one step away from writing book blurb when it comes to difficulty.

      I'm not sure I'd say I know what I'm doing ;P - but thank you for saying so :)

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  5. I've never even thought about making a press kit for myself. It's probably a good idea if one is serious about being a professional writer, and wants to get written up in newspapers and websites.

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    1. I've been doing more guest blog posts, so I think I'll find it useful not having to recreate the same bios every time - and yeah, it would be nice to be written up in newspapers and other websites too :)

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  6. Great ideas and good for you for doing it at all. I'm fed up with all marketing and promoting. Hundreds of hours and no result. Bleck! Life's too short - be happy while you can. :)

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    1. Marketing can become overwhelming, that's why we decided on the press kit (finally), so we already have some ammo in the arsenal, as it were, for when opportunity knocks (and that's a real mixture of metaphors) :)

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  7. I haven't made a press kit for myself yet, but I guess I should soon. Oh boy! I'll definitely be reading your post a few times when I do. It was very helpful.

    P.S. I nominated you for the Liebster Award. If you want to accept it, you can find more info here: http://writewithfey.blogspot.com/2014/05/liebster-award.html

    Happy Memorial Day! :D

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    1. Wow - thank you :D

      Glad the post is helpful!

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  8. Great work!

    Just checked over your press kit and was most impressed. Wish I was that good to warrant one! :)

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    1. Thank you :) We decided to prepare our press kit, because we kept recompiling all that info for guest posts and the like - and you are definitely good enough to warrant one!

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  9. Hi Sophie .. you really have pulled the information together .. and so useful to get up to date and organised .. also this is a good reference tool post - thanks ..

    As I mentioned to Tasha .. I'd emailed you after the A-Z to the WittgenPress site .. but am not sure if it arrived?

    Cheers for now .. it's always interesting to see how authors get themselves organised .. Hilary

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    1. HI Hlilary - glad you found the post useful.

      Sorry about not responding to you email - I think the email form must not be working - Tash's looking into it. :)

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  10. Dang! You've been busy! :) I need to work on something like this for the future. Maybe when I'm feeling more optimistic. lol! Glad you've gotten it gathered and ready to go!

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    1. I suppose it helps that there are two of us when creating stuff like this :). When you've created one, I promise you, you'll feel accomplished ;P

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