The press release, and when it is worth writing
A press release about a book being published is, on its own, a fact rather than a story. It says that a thing now exists. Nobody runs it, nobody answers it, and the writing of it takes an evening that would have been better spent on four emails.
That is the honest starting position, and it is worth sitting with before you write a word. The form is not dead. It is just narrow, and most books that get one do not need one.
When it is worth writing
A release earns its evening when there is genuine news attached — something an editor could justify to the person who decides what goes on the page.
An award. A win, a shortlisting, a place on a judged list. Someone independent made a decision, and decisions are news.
An anniversary tied to the subject. Fifty years since the flood, a centenary, a closure, a founding. Listings and features desks plan around dates, and a book that lands on one has a slot waiting for it.
A local connection. The book is set there, researched there, or about people from there. This is the strongest card most authors hold and the one most often left out of the email.
A book that intersects with a live argument. If the subject is being debated this month and you have spent four years on it, you are a source rather than a pitch.
An event with a date and a place. A launch, a talk, a signing, a festival slot. An event is inherently listable: it has a when and a where, which is most of what a listings page needs.
Notice what these have in common. Each gives the outlet a reason that is not "a book came out". If none of them applies, you do not have a release yet — you have an announcement, and announcements go in your newsletter.
The structure, and why each part is there
A headline that is the story, not the title. The commonest mistake is to make the headline the book's name. An editor reads dozens of subject lines and needs the reason in the first six words. "Novel set during the 1976 flood published for the anniversary" is a headline. "The Long Field by Ruth Okorie out now" is a filing label.
A first paragraph that would survive being the only thing printed. Assume everything below it gets cut, because on a busy page it will be. Who, what, where, when, and why it matters, in about forty words. If the paragraph reads fine alone, the release works even when it is trimmed to nothing.
A quote that sounds like a person. Two or three sentences, in your own voice, saying something a human would say out loud. A quote that reads like marketing gets deleted, and then the piece has no voice in it at all. Say what surprised you, or what made you spend four years on it. That is the sentence that ends up in print.
The practical details, in a block. Publication date, format or formats, publisher or imprint, page count, trim size, price, where it can be bought, and the ISBN for each edition — every edition has its own, and whoever fills in the database will pick the wrong one if you give them just one. Put these in a plain list, not a paragraph.
Contact details that reach a human fast. A name, an email you read the same day, and a phone number. A features desk closing a page calls; it does not open an email thread and wait.
In the tools. The Cover Maker exports your cover at print resolution — a 6 × 9 front with bleed is 1,838 × 2,775 pixels at 300 DPI — and Mockups renders the same wrap as a physical book, which is what an outlet means when it asks whether you have an image. Start your book → · about the tools
One page
One page, and one page means one page. Two hundred to four hundred words of actual release, plus the details block and the contact line.
Length is not thoroughness here. Everything you add pushes the news further from the top, and nothing below the first screen is read by someone deciding in fifteen seconds whether this is worth a reply.
Put it in the body of the email
Not as an attachment. This is the single most common self-inflicted wound in the whole exercise.
An attachment from a stranger is the thing corporate mail filters are built to be suspicious of, and the thing a busy person does not click. Even when it arrives, it costs an extra action before anyone can see whether it is worth reading. Paste the release into the message, plain, with the headline as the subject line.
What to link instead
Link the images rather than attaching them, and say what each one is.
A high-resolution cover, at print size, because a picture desk that receives a small image lifted from a retailer page will not write back to ask for a better one. It will run the piece without a picture.
A high-resolution author photo, with the photographer's credit line if someone else took it.
This is exactly what a press kit is for — one link, always current, nothing to download blind. See The press kit nobody asks for until they do.
The honest hierarchy
A short personal email to a named journalist, with an angle in the subject line, beats a press release almost every time. It is addressed to someone, it proposes a story rather than announcing a fact, and it can be read in twenty seconds. That is the approach in Getting local coverage, and it is where your effort should go first.
The release is what you send afterward, when someone replies asking for something formal, or when the outlet's own process needs a document to paste from. Have one ready for the award and the event. Do not lead with it.
Make your book
The tools are free to use: name your book, bring your manuscript or your artwork, and work as long as you like. You only pay when you want the files without the preview watermark.
Next: Getting local coverage · Also useful: The press kit nobody asks for until they do · Writing an author bio · Podcast interviews, and how to get on one