Home  >  Offending.net

How To Write A Press Release For A Book

Sometimes it Does 

A couple of years ago an author created agronking satirical erotica book focusing on Rob Gronkowski, a player for the New England Patriot’s football team, called “A Gronking to Remember.”

This may come as no surprise, but the book wasn’t exactly an instant hit, until it ran into some legal problems.

It turns out that the author used a picture of a couple who had just gotten engaged.  When that couple found out their beloved picture was on the cover of this…well, not really sure what you’d call it…they were not very pleased.

However, a well-timed press release on the picture put this little book of….umm…whatever…right into the limelight.  This caused the book sales to skyrocket and even had Rob Gronkowski himself do a fake TV trailer for a “Gronking to Remember” movie with HBO’s Funny Or Die.  (Not shown here because it’s pretty inappropriate – I’ve got standards.)

How To Write a PR For a Book

So now that you’ve seen the difference between a cleverly written PR versus a generic one, how exactly do you go about creating a press release for your book?

Thankfully, you don’t need to produce an evil political manifesto or write dubious football fan fiction! (wipe sweat from brow now)

However, you do need to know the format of a book press release and some best practice advice on writing one.  Remember, a legitimate editor[4] is more likely to accept a press release on your book if it’s properly formatted and they don’t have to do too much work on it.

Book Press Release Template

A press release for a book follows a fairly standard format which helps with its mass syndication:

It’s conventional to state FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE in bold, at the top of your press release.

  1. Headline – <20 words
  2. Subheading – Optional, but sentence length
  3. Dateline – Location and date (include your city/state/country)
  4. Intro – Needs to be attention-grabbing, can include a problem/solution hook
  5. Author Quotation – MUST be weighty, avoid bland, empty statements
  6. Mini Author Bio – Emphasis on ‘mini’ – 1-2 concise paragraphs, every sentence must be impactful
  7. Book Information – Similar to the author bio[5] – 1-2 impactful paragraphs at most
  8. Contact Details – A place to include links to your website, email, phone number, social media, and, most importantly, how to get review copies
  9. Call To Action – It’s essential to end on a CTA, so pay due attention to this
  10. Optional Hashtags – Depending on your use of social, you can include hashtags here. Only do this if they will be used, though – nothing looks sadder than a hashtag with no one using it.

The conventional method for ending a press release is the hash symbol, three times, centered, like this:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Categories:Offending.net

Share