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Press Releases are the accepted bridge between the business world and the editorial world and your effective use of this tool can contribute a lot to your promotional success.

When you send a release to a major daily it's never going to be used in that form. Never, never. Press releases aren't news. However, they *carry* news. So your goal in sending a release to a major newspaper is not to see the release used. There are a number of things you should be hoping for:

1. That your release makes an editor or reporter aware of your business, service, book or company. The *next* release will reinforce this.

2. That something in your release sparks an idea for a story and that you (or your author) are used as a source.

3. That something in your release runs into a story currently in the planning stages and -- again -- you (or your author) are used as a source.

Every newsroom I've ever worked in or with has a person whose reponsibility it is to scan the releases that come in. In some news organizations this is done by the editor (or section editor) who flags the ones they find interesting and passes them off to the relevant reporter. In others it's done by a very junior person who then passes their choices off to a more senior staff member. In either case, releases are read and some are sent into the news stream.

Linda on E-mail Press Releases

I love getting press releases via e-mail and never consider it spam. To me, spam has an entirely different tone. I get snail mail spam as well: I promptly throw it in the trash. I much prefer the e-mail variety in that regard as well: doesn't kill trees. Also, it's far easier to delete a message that isn't of interest to me than it is to look at and throw away a physical press package that's off target.

To me, a press release is a press release is a... doesn't matter how it gets to me. If someone wants to send a release I'd prefer to avoid the preliminary contact. Contact means I have to answer, and I don't always have time to want to do that. Who expects preliminary contact with a non-Internet press release? Who'd want it? This medium is supposed to make things easier, and if you get out of its way, it does.

Linda Richard is an author and journalist. She is the editor of January Magazine a monthly literary magazine bringing readers new book reviews, profiles and author interviews (http://www.januarymagazine.com).