Libraries and leisure

Press releases

Dos and dont's for press coverage

• Establish a contact and build a personal relationship. There may not be a dedicated arts journalist at a local paper, but find out who does the leisure pages or is interested in the arts.
• Offer them complimentary tickets to encourage them to attend and produce a review.
• Offer tickets as competition prizes in their newspaper and suggest the competition ideas.
• Find out newspaper and arts pages deadlines and plan your publicity accordingly. If you are planning to send information to magazines you may have to submit it several months in advance of your event, in order to make the right edition.
• Newspapers are extremely busy and short staffed and they rely on information being sent in to them. Make your press release as useful to the journalists as possible. Keep the information short and try to sum up your event in a brief paragraph at the beginning.
• You may need to present your information in different ways, depending on whether you are targeting a local, county or national publication.
• Provide clear accurate information including dates, times, prices and places. Include your name and telephone number and always double check the article before sending it off.
• Include good clear images with your press releases. It is worth checking with publications how they like such information submitted e.g. slide, photo or computer disk. If you are a visual artist always include an image of yourself