I put together a press release for my upcoming book launch, 

and I thought that my fellow authors who follow the blog might like to see how I did it—just as one example! Be sure to pin it to Pinterest if you think you might want it for future reference!

Why did I send out a book press release as an author?

My publisher is doing a fantastic job of media outreach, but sometimes I think of something extra that I can do to support the upcoming release of my magical romcom novel, Her Knight at the Museum. I thought that my hometown newspaper and my college’s alumni magazine might be interested in printing something about it, and I thought there might be a benefit in my reaching out personally. 

I think a press release needs to do two things:

1. convince a journalist and/or editor that their readers will be interested

2. make it very easy for them to write and publish a story about it

In my case, I thought that people in the not-so-big city I’m from might be interested to hear about a book written by a local author. 

Here’s the top of the press release I sent to my hometown paper. The headline takes that “hometown girl makes good” approach and lets them know the book is in Chicago, less than three hours away. The subhead contains the release date and the movie option. Then I have a photo of the book and a photo of me.

For the college I graduated from, I switched out the headline to talk about being an alum.

The movie option is a great attention-getter, but you don’t need to have anything like that to do a press release. Any information about the book can go in the subhead. It might be a great place for an advance review quote.

The paragraph under the photos touched on the title, the genre, what the book was about, the publisher, the formats, and the release date. Here’s what that looked like:

In the rest of the press release, I talked about:

•being a graduate of the local high school and a nearby college (context for that local angle)

•having the manuscript chosen through Berkeley’s “open submissions” program

•where the book has been reviewed—I included a review quote from Booklist here

•where it’s available for pre-order (I included a link to my publisher’s website here)

•information about a book launch event 

•a quote from me! When I worked in publishing, the publicity folks always asked for a quote from me for new releases, so I figured I’d do that for my own book, too. Here’s what that looked like:

Here are other things you could say about a book in a press release!

•your motivation for writing the book (e.g., “wanted more people to know about this chapter of history,” or “wanted to see more fantasy novels with heroines over 50”)…depending on the book, this could be a great headline!

•more information about you as an author, including how you became an author (e.g. “wrote it on her days off from a busy job as a nurse”)

•your inspiration for the book (e.g. “inspired by my disastrous internship” or “inspired by my grandfather’s experiences as a farmer”)

•any connection to a cultural trend or a hot topic (e.g. “Tokyo has quickly become a top travel destination for Americans” or “more and more people are choosing to remain childfree”)

As an author, you’re a creative person. If you give it some thought, you will figure out a good angle and good information for a press release. Don’t be afraid to brainstorm with friends if you’re stuck!

Here’s how I sent out the press release for my book!

I looked up the masthead for my local newspaper and found the person who seemed like the most likely recipient. I sent a short email saying I was from that area and would love it if the newspaper could cover my upcoming book release. I let them know the press release was attached.

I did the same thing with my alma mater. I emailed the VP of communications and said I’d love to see it covered in the college alumni magazine.

And here were the results!

I try a lot of marketing tactics, and plenty of them just plain don’t work. Like all writers, I’m used to rejections and radio silence. 

As it turned out, this was a good marketing tactic.

My hometown newspaper got back to me with a few more questions. I answered immediately, understanding that they were on a deadline. They ran the online story and shared it on their Facebook page. Then, a bit later, they published it in the Sunday print edition! 

This generated a lot of interest, based on the Facebook comments…and some pre-orders, judging from the Amazon and Barnes and Noble rankings. I’m not saying it was a huge bump, but it was worth it to me. 😊 I think it made my parents proud, too, so that was really heartwarming.

My alma mater got back to me and assigned a student writer to interview me for a profile in the alumni magazine. It was a lot of fun to meet her, and I’ll be thrilled to see it included.

Do you have other advice about how to write a press release for a book?

I know I have a lot of experienced and savvy authors among my blog readers, and I always learn things from the comments, so I appreciate people’s opinions! 

Thank you so much for reading, and I hope you have a wonderful week!