Monday, February 8, 2010
Creamtastic / National Skyline Publicists: How to Properly Send Press Releases. Writers: How Not to Be Dicks.
Posted by D. Patrick Rodgers on Mon, Feb 8, 2010 at 12:27 PM
Without getting too "inside baseball" on it, as they say, allow me to just share a little part of our job with you: Our inboxes here at the Cream/Scene are regularly inundated with just about every sort of entertainment-related email you'd never want to see. Random example from the top of this morning's e-heap? "Extra's First Look [as in the TV show hosted by A.C. Slater]: Simon Cowell's 'Everybody Hurts' Video." Blech. I also received word just last week that Guitar Center has created a battle-of-the-bands style competition (perhaps as a diversion from this), the winner of which gets to record a three-song EP with Mike Clink and Slash. Cutting-edge stuff right there.
But for all the Slash contests and old-man breast fests we catch wind of, there are also plenty of emails about bands we actually care about. Though there are pretty much never bios we want to read, there are albums we want to hear and videos we want to see. The trick is getting folks to send them to us in such a manner that we can a) distinguish them from the shit we don't want and b) actually have copies of an artist's material, not just links to streaming 30-second clips. That's where Chris Weingarten comes in. He's the fire-and-brimstone pastor of music journalism we've blogged about before, and he recently squeezed out a series of tweets about the suckiest parts of publicists' emails. Not to be outdone, Bloodshot Records publicist Marah Eakin responded with a list of how writers can be less sucky as well. Both lists are pretty entertaining, and you can see them after the jizzy.
Weingarten's publicist tips:
PublicistTip 1: When I ask for a digital promo and you tell me "its streaming on their site," you might as well be telling me to fuck myselfPublicistTip 2: Sending "fake-out" emails where subject line looks like a real convo totally works--but we all secretly resent you for it
PublicistTip 3: If I can't download your record in ONE FOLDER with ONE CLICK, my chances of listening to it decrease by ~75%
PublicistTip 4: If you're a "big indie" and guys like me still have to "request" records from you, you are pretty much doing your job wrong.
PublicistTip 5: If I see you at a show, keep the "what I'm working" speech to a one-or-two sentence reminder--or you are playing yourself
PublicistTip 6: Treat every press releases and bio like a newspaper story. Inverted pyramid. Most important info is IN THE FIRST SENTENCE
PublicistTip 7: Tagging the correct artist, album name and song titles on a digital promo takes 5 minutes and makes everyone's life easier
Yes. RT @jesshopp Can #8 be "If you have to call PlayMPE tech support to get the digitally watermarked stream to work, why bother"
Tip #9 RT @jesshopp Telling me Pitchfork/Fader/GvB/Stereogum have *already* covered is not a good pitch--it makes me want to cover it less
PublicistTip #10: Don't ever ever ever ever attach an MP3 in an email, for fuck's sake. It's 2010.
PublicistTip #11 Make sure the band name is ON THE .ZIP FILE. I have 20 folders on my desktop marked LabelName144.zip (via @bourgwick)
PublicistTip #12: A publicist willing to admit they sometimes work a crappy record is infinitely more trustworthy than one who won't.
PublicistTip #13: No-brainer: Bios should be exactly one page. Anything longer gets tossed. It's called a "one-sheet" for a reason.
PublicistTip #14: "Influenced by Radiohead" reads to us as "this band has a shallow record collection and is corny as fuck"
Eakin's responses:
All valid points, @1000timesyes. Now "hey music writers": don't call artist b/c you have their phone # from an old interviewhey writers pt #2: don't go off the rails when i can't list you for a show. there are always reasons. sometimes, we all have to pay
For the record, i'm not trying to stick it to @1000timesyes or writers. Publicists, writers alike, we're just talking about extremes.
hey writers (from another publicist): don't quote the publicist of the band in the article - esp. w/o asking them. credibility, shot.
@austinlouisray and you can't just say "GET BENT." publicists = nice people. ;-)
good one! RT @dangervillage: @marahe how about pretending to preview a show for your band when they want to get listed to see the headliner
hey writers: things that don't go unnoticed: not showing up for shows you're listed for habitually.
hey writers: also not unnoticed: always having to ask for a new copy of a cd after you "lost" (sold) the 1st one we sent.
Also for the record, I like 99.99% of writers very much, and think they do great jobs. Real talk.
hey writers #7 (h/t j.d.) "Really? You CAN'T review it unless you get hard copy?...
@dangervillage @1000timesyes that's like "RIYL: Radiohead" MEANINGLESS.
hey writers #8: asking me about a band that left the label years ago doesn't fly. it's not that hard to find out their current label, right?
In conclusion, we writers should be more patient, polite and grateful considering the fact that we're getting shit for free, and publicists should think about the fact that we have to sort through scores of these emails and mail-outs every day. Wait ... what are we bitching for? We all have pretty great jobs.
Comments (15)
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For a long time I used "jizz-ump," which I've now shortened to "jizzy." You can only say "after the jump" so many times before you have to switch it up.
"Tagging the correct artist, album name and song titles on a digital promo takes 5 minutes and makes everyone's life easier"
I have been saying this for years and it never seems to stick. I am completely convinced that a large majority of people (especially those "in the industry") have no idea how to update meta-tag info and probably shut their brains off at the mention of the word "meta"
Now's your chance to walk everyone through it, Michael! Wouldn't that be fun? An e-tutorial you wouldn't get payed for and people would ignore once anything "meta" came into play?
Then, someone could criticize you for getting all that free music and daring to complain about how you receive it!
Art Director's tip:
If your band is being covered and the publication needs to get some art from you, have some sort of contact information on your web/myspace/facebook page. I'm not going to send a myspace message and you can't even message fan pages on facebook. Provide an email or phone number please. In an obvious place.
Very nice. Having worked on both sides, I can appreciate the tension. I might add:
Publicists
: Make your pitch relevant and personal to the publication and/or writer whom you'd like to see coverage from. Receiving mass emails with the writer's name or publication misspelled or wrongly attributed doesn't help facilitate the editorial 'relationship' so coveted in PR circles.
Writers: However frustrating, the chances that P4K, Stereogum, GvB or Fader have covered the artist in question before their music gets to you is almost a given. Instead of wholly disregarding the pitch or numbly regurgitating what everyone else has said (with probably way too much intensity), take the opportunity to cover a different angle on the band, label or scene the artist was borne from. Despite how proliferated music criticism has become, its merit dies a little every day due to the homogenous way bands are talked about in online hype circles.
Breaking from this trend, Sasha Frere-Jones of the New Yorkerand, dare I say Carles of Hipster Runoff, have managed to distinguish themselves very well and in very different ways. Both do a sound job of covering shifts in music from a more contextual, big picture perspective, without getting caught sounding like 10,000 other Hype Machine bloggers taking their cue from Ryan Schreiber.
"Numbly regurgitating what everyone else has said (with probably way too much intensity)"...
It would be nice if we could get music writers to stop doing this altogether.
Also, if I make the mistake of accepting your friend request on facebook DO NOT send me invites everyday to shows at shitty venues in towns I don't live in -- looking at you Jas Patrick and Rachel -- there is no way in hell I'm driving to Franklin on a Tuesday night, never mind going to Bumfuck County, KY on a monday night to see you at an open mic. A little fucking discretion goes a long way...
Oh my god, Bawston Sean, right on. RIGHT! ON! Number one worst part about having a facebook when you're in the music industry. At least only invite me to shit that's in or around Nashville. I get invites to shows in NYC and the like with astounding frequency. It's annoying.
@ Bawston. Yeah, we were using some scheduling software that sent out crazy invites as well--we've since figured that out. My apologies about that. As far as sending out invites (I never send to people out of radius) it's simply what must be done to tell folks about a show. They, unlike you, may want to check it out. Certainly wasn't meant as a personal affront to you. Polite. Hyperbole-free.
Wait, people do this? Why didn't I think of that?!
"hey writers: also not unnoticed: always having to ask for a new copy of a cd after you "lost" (sold) the 1st one we sent."
I would also very much like to add - If you send me an email inviting me to a show, I write you back saying yes and you reply there is no room on the list, WHY THE HELL DID YOU INVITE ME IN THE FIRST PLACE?! This is such a problem and waste of our time we felt we needed to put it in our FAQS.
"PublicistTip 3: If I can't download your record in ONE FOLDER with ONE CLICK, my chances of listening to it decrease by ~75%"
If a publicist sends a download link where you can download the record in one click, the chances that you will pass this link along to all of your friends who are not in the media is ~75%. Probably more.
Am I wrong here?
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