I'm looking for advice on updating our press kit. Does anyone use a professional service? What does your press kit consist of?

Thanks
Al

Press kits are generally used for two purposes:

* To solicite work from promotors, club-owners, etc.

* To be used by the media for print.

For print, a glossy photo is needed, and the image also needs to be available electronically. Photos of one or two people need to be in a vertical format and should be slightly "right reading" (image, when printed on the left side of the sheet, should be oriented to lead the viewer to the right) or straight on. Worst case use, the image will be in one column (about 22 picas),
so background should be fairly stark.
It's probably good to spend the money to have images professionally shot. If done on the job, avoid using on camera strobes.

Copy should be written in a "T" form. That's because editors are often under tight deadlines and will choose the releases easiest to edit. The first paragraph should stand on it's own as a cutline for the photograph. Naturally, the copy should be available electronically as a text file.
For glossies, check out the back of Shutterbug magazine for houses that specialize in headshots and promo photos. They're really inexpensive.

For solicitation of work, it is appropriate to use images that have been offset printed.
Modern Postcard does a great job of reproducing photography on a normal size postcard stock for $125.00 for 500. You wouldn't want to try to reproduce a postcard image in a newspaper or magazine because it's laready been screened, and a dot patten would appear if it is rescreened.

The most impressive packages I have seen lately utilize either a two pocket folder (9"x12") with a die cut for a business card
or a custom printed 9"x12" envelope with a "teaser" in the lower left hand corner.

With the two pocket folder, you can put a personalized introductory letter in the left pocket and back-up materials on the right side. For mass solicitations, a postcard with contact info on the back is often sufficient.

Appropriate use of press releases sent to arts/entertainment editors of local newspapers and magazines is effective if the news is right for the publication.

The final product needs to be as professional as you are. In many cases, this is the one chance to make an impression.

Good Luck!

Russ

Thanks Russ,

Do you send a CD or a cassette demo with your press kit?

How about a video?

Regards,
Al

I've just completed a 'demo disk' which I will be distributing to local establishments ... I've used ACID Pro 5 to record 'snippets' of various songs to demonstrate the variety of music styles which I play... I also do a 'voice over' to 'introduce' the different styles ... The front cover insert is pretty generic, with a music theme (of course), and inside is a short bio ... What I feel it is missing is a photo, but that will come ... It is one track, about 16 minutes long, and I don't know if that's too long ... I am waiting for some feedback from fellow musicians whose opinions I trust ...
t.

kbrkr ...
With your new found success, you may want to consider a 'pro' to do your kit ... and if your act includes a lot of 'visuals' a demo definitely sounds like the way to go ...
t.

Al, we do publicity for large bank holding companies, manufacturers and retailers. I help many of the local groups and performers with publicity...BUT....I don't have a press
kit or any promotional materials. I have been on my current 4 night job for 14 years, and my corporate jobs are all repeats. I haven't had a publicity photo taken since 1973, and the world's a better place for not having done it.I have never had a demo of any kind, but do have samples of film scores, which are not really representative of what I play live.

Our business will top $15 million in sales of graphics, music, research, packaging and video this year, and we have no salesmen...no web site...not even a bold listing in the white pages.

Go figure...


Russ

Russ ... Obviously, what you DO have is a great product and even better customer service ...
t.

I think you'd be better off having seperate tracks on the demo. That way if someone wants to listen to a few seconds of a song, skip around or whatever, they can do it.

I originally had a demo with one track, but the more I thought about it, how people seem to have little time to mess around with anything, I thought if they don't want to listen to the 12 minute demo I started out with, and if they can't easily skip from one track to another, then they may not listen to it in part or in whole. So, I changed mine. I have over 20 minutes of demo songs, only because I play a very wide variety of sounds and songs, but I have seperate tracks so they can jump around at will.

Just my slant on it.

Scott Langholff
http://www.ScottLMusic.com

Tony, I like your voice over idea. That may work for us.

We are high energy and I want that to come out on the demo, so I'm thinking of have a professional Video shot. The problem now is money. We need CD's made and duplicated, press kits, licensing, T-shirts, hats, etc. Not to mention we upgraded our sound system and lighting. So I'm a little concerned about costs right now and I would like to spread the costs out over a period of time to let our revenue cover the expenses.

Scott, we definitely want to do snippets of tracks, since we also want to sell our CD's. I don't want to give our stuff away.

Thanks for all your input!!!!
REgards,
Al

Al,

I have a couple promo kits that I send out, however, every one of them always includes a CD with a half-dozen songs, and on seperate tracks.

The reason I include the CD is several years ago, when I did not send CDs with promo kits, the response was at best 5 percent, and that was with a follow-up phone call. Without the phone call it was less than 1 percent.

I decided to send out a small promo kit, one that is nothing more than a 6X9 folding card with the usual photo on the front, information inside, etc. This time, however, I added the CD and put it in a standard CD envelope that allows you to see the CD label through a clear celophone plastic window. Everything was done on high quality paper, including the CD label. The response was overwhelming.

The promo kits (20) were mailed on a Monday and by Thursday I had 9 phone calls from people wanting to book jobs. I didn't make any phone calls until the following Tuesday and booked 2 more jobs from the 11 people that didn't call me first.

The CD works--no question in my mind, however, when you put that CD together, be sure to target your audience accordingly by selecting appropriate songs for those demographics.

Good Luck,

Gary

Gary ... Who did you mail the promo kits to?
t.

Scott ... I had thought of that, and even received a similar comment from one of the guys I asked to listen to the demo ... I am thinking of re-doing the demo BUT, I screwed up on deleting some of the ACID Pro files, and lost the originals ... fortunately, I do have the original music files to go back to, and would then have to add the vocals and voice over ...
t.

Tony,

They went to senior centers and retirement communities. I also sent similar promo packages to nursing homes and assisted living centers and got similar results.

Ironically, many of the private parties I've done during the past couple years have been the result of someone visiting a person at one of the above locations, then asking for a card. Most of the time I just give them a complementry CD that has my phone number on the label--it works a lot better than a business card.

Gary

Gary did you use full songs or snippets of your songs?

Al,

I used full songs, and for a very good reason. The logic behind using full songs as opposed to snips was maybe the person with the CD would play it for their enjoyment, say while at home at a party, or while riding along in their car--hopefully in the company of others while the music is playing. This has happened, and it has resulted in obtaining a few jobs that I probably would not have been able to get. If you just have snippets of songs, it's unlikely that the CD will be used other than by the person you sent it to initially. Kinda' like spreading the word through your clients via a CD.

Good Luck,

Gary