The Wind Books Website

Below are some suggestions for writing a news release publicizing an autograph party, a book reading or some other event.

The sample news release included may be used, with modification, if you wish to announce a booksigning for any or all of the Wind Book anthologies.

If you do participate in a Wind Book event, send us your news release so we can help publicize the event here on the Wind Books website.

After your event is over, send us a brief note on who participated and how it turned out so that we may post a brief story on the Articles Page.

---

How to Write a News Release

A news release should be short, preferably one typed page with the lines double-spaced for ease of reading.

Include all the important facts -- location, time, fee to participate if any -- as early in the story as possible.

Construct the story in a pyramid: the most important information, briefly, at the top. Newspapers get thousands of releases, and editors with insufficient space usually cut stories from the bottom.

When writing your own news releases, double check factual information including the names of authors or editors, the publisher, the book's cost and contents -- all important for readers you want to turn into buyers.

Answer the following questions, usually in this order:

Who is the story about?

What is this person doing?

When is she doing it?

Where is she doing it?

Once you have provided this information, you may be able to add the Why? and How? if they are relevant to the story.

So, for example, a news release might read like this:

Four area writers (WHO) will read their stories and poems from Crazy Woman Creek, a new collection of nonfiction and poems by western women (WHAT) on Sunday, June 1st at 5 pm. (WHEN) The event, at the ABC Bookstore in the Community Shopping Center (WHERE) is free to the public. The contributors will
answer questions and sign books.

Contributors who will read include Rosanne R. Red, a secretary from Rapid City, Violet S. Blue, a Belle Fourche rancher, Sugar S. Sweet from Redig, a surveyor, and Sue R. Ewe of Deadwood, who drives a cab. (MORE DETAIL ON WHO)

The anthology, subtitled Women Rewrite the American West, was published by Houghton Mifflin in May (MORE ON WHAT, WHEN), and collects prose and poetry about how western women connect to their communities. At 300 pages, it contains a map of states represented in the book, and sells in paperback original for $14. Community groups celebrated include Buddhists in Nebraska, Hutterites in South Dakota, and rodeo moms instead of soccer moms. (MORE ON WHAT)

Coeditors of the book are Linda M. Hasselstrom, of Hermosa, SD, Nancy Curtis of Glendo, WY, and Gaydell Collier of Sundance, WY, all writers who help manage family ranches. Contributors include 153 women from west of the Mississippi River.

This is the third in a series of collections publishing the work of more than 500 western women; the editors' previous books, Leaning into the Wind and Woven on the Wind, both published by Houghton Mifflin, also celebrated the rigors, glories, and ironies of contemporary western life. All three books will be available for sale at the reading.


Back to top