C. P. Lesley
Bookworm, writer, radio host—I blog about history, fiction, and publishing in the Internet Age. You can find the full blog on my website. This space is for books.
That Ol' Demon Publicity
This post is for my fellow writers—just in case anyone else is as clueless as I was about what constitutes a press kit.
Sometime ago—the spring of 2013, I think—I read a recommendation that every writer should include on his/her website a tab for the media. Unfortunately, I no longer remember the source, but in any case, the idea was to put in one place, clearly labeled as “Media” or “Press,” the information that reporters might need: author bio and picture, book descriptions, reviews—in short, a press kit. The advice suggested putting the information in both readable format on the web page and in PDF format for download.
Even though my books, published by a small press, had made so little splash in the media that preparing a press kit seemed like hubris, I figured a media page with information on me and my books couldn’t hurt. Alas, I had never seen a press kit. I put together the information in a single document that ran about 15 pages.
Luckily for me, no one downloaded it. But on the off-chance that some of my readers may never have seen a press kit either, I thought this post might prove useful. Even traditionally published authors are asked to provide information for their own press kits, although they can expect to receive more guidance than I did.
You can read the rest at http://blog.cplesley.com/2013/11/the-press-kit.html.
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