Journalists delete most press releases in under five seconds. Yours needs to survive that cut. The secret is simple: lead with the news, not your biography. The first sentence should say what happened and why it matters. New album, tour dates, a chart milestone — put it up top. If the news is buried in paragraph four, the email is already in the trash.
Keep it to one page and write it like a news story, not an ad. Include a real quote from you that sounds like something a human would say. Include the facts a writer needs: dates, links, contact info, and high-res photos attached or linked. Make their job easy and they will actually consider covering you. Make it hard and they will cover someone else.
Your subject line is half the battle. It should read like a headline, not a plea. Name the news and the artist, keep it under ten words, and skip the hype words. Words like groundbreaking and revolutionary get your email filtered mentally before it is opened. Specifics open emails. Hype closes them.
Send to the right people at the right time. A Tuesday morning pitch beats a Friday afternoon one. Target writers who cover your genre, and personalize the first line so they know you read their work. Mass blasts to a thousand random contacts convert at nearly zero. Twenty targeted, personal pitches beat two thousand blind ones every time.
Build a targeted media list and guard it like gold. Fifty writers who actually cover your genre, with notes on what each one likes. Update it as people move outlets. A personal list you maintain beats any purchased database. Relationships with the right fifty writers will do more for your career than blasting five thousand strangers.
About the Author – Ruben Burgos: Ruben Burgos brings over 25 years of music expertise and more than 15 years of model guidance to the table. He is the indie major pinnacle to retaining credits for musicians and helping them navigate this wicked industry without the fuckery.