If you’re a writer, musician, business owner or other content creator, people are going to want to interview you: journalists, podcasters and bloggers or potential collaborators. When that time comes, you don’t want to be searching for files, authoring bios or chasing a photo. You want to have it ready. Enter: the online press kit. So, what exactly is a press kit, why do you need one and how can you create a simple & clean version even if you think you’re not tech-smart.
A press kit, also known as a media kit is just a fancy way to say that it is one page or file that includes all of the relevant information someone would need to feature you, whether that’s in an article, podcast, blog post, interview or otherwise.
Think of it as a, starter pack that informs people:
A strong press kit also prepares you for interviews, is an incredibly professional touch that will ultimately save time and help the world share your story in the best way possible.
Here’s why having an online press kit is important:
When you have an online press kit, it makes you appear more organized and professional. It demonstrates that you’ve had the good grace of organizing everything someone would ever need to know about you. “Having a press kit also shows people that you’re serious about what you do and you’re prepared for opportunities when they come your way.
A press kit will save you from saying the same thing over and over. Without it, you’d likely get asked every five minutes for your bio, your photos or artwork or contact details. Which can occupy a lot of your time, and be annoying. But when everything’s already in one place, you can just throw a link and be done. Both you and the person asking will get there faster and with less drama.
It also streamlines things for people like journalists, bloggers or podcast hosts who might be inclined to write about you or interview you. They are also usually busy and don’t like to hunt around for details. When they have an easy time finding your information in one spot, that increases the chance they will feature you. It’s a sign that you’re considerate and easy to work with which is always a good thing.
At the end of the day, a press kit gives you more of an opportunity to be considered or included in media stories, interviews and partnerships. If what a person wants is already available and easy to reach, you’re saving them effort. That makes it more likely they’ll say yes to featuring you, which can in turn help you grow your audience, build your brand and open up new opportunities.
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It is not as difficult to set up an online press kit as it may sound. It’s honestly just a matter of putting all your vital information in one easy-to-find place usually on a web page. The idea is to support journalists, bloggers or anyone else interested in your work by giving them what they need as fast as possible without annoying you.
Your press kit should contain items like a short and long bio, professional photos, links to your work (such as books, videos or goods), past media coverage and clear contact information. If someone wants to showcase you, interview you or write a feature about you they can just go to this page and grab everything they need.
If you want bloggers (like me), journalists or anyone who would like to share your info with the world to have an easy job of it, stop sending us PDFs. Pasting text from a well-designed PDF into another program can be pretty annoying when people paste the text, it usually ends in a twist version that needs organization before you can even begin to read it. Images in PDFs tend to be low-quality when compressed, so they are also hard to extract. If someone wants to post your photo, they might have to screenshot it or crop it, which is inferior. It’s best to also take your info in a simple Word file. That makes it easier for folks to copy your text and grab your pictures, hassle-free.
The standard method for sharing your press kit is to create a straightforward page on your site. This page is your landing place for all information, photos and visitors can download what they need directly from there. You also could offer people the chance to download a zip file that has everything in it: your bio, pictures and other materials all organized in a folder. Keep the looks of this page simple, using plain text and no fancy fonts or colors. This will let people paste your info quickly and easily with weird formatting.
“Your press kit should include everything to aid a story, but not so much that it’s overpowering. Only put in things that are really relevant to your work or book, and which add to creating a professional image of you. For instance, if you author books about factual matters of life, sharing stories from your own life can help some people identify with you. But if you write fantasy or thrillers, your personal info might not go well with the work you produce.
Ask yourself: Is what I’m adding useful and relevant?
Journalists and bloggers are looking for good pictures they can use, so you should have a full gallery of high-quality images. This is where you should store your author photos, book covers and whatever other images represent your work. Provide both a medium version, quick to upload online, and a larger high-resolution one for print or video. Title each photo neatly so it’s simple to identify the correct image. You can also include a mood board that is an assortment of pictures representing the tone or style of your book authors can use for their posts or videos.
Be sure to include samples of your work, such as a chapter from your book or an audio clip. Including a link to ARCs if you’ve uploaded an Advanced Reader’s Copy (ARC) version on places like Netgalley is helpful as well. This enables people to read and review your work easily, potentially resulting in increased exposure.
Here’s a quick tip that’ll save you time: add copy buttons next to important sections of your press kit like your bio. So people can copy precisely the stuff they want with one click, which is more convenient for them! Reviewers and journalists are speedy workers, and they love anything that makes doing their job faster. The more that you make it easy for them to use your assets, the better chance they’re going to spread the word about who it came from.
Ultimately, you need to act like the person who will receive your press kit. Make sure everything is:
Once you have all that, you’re all set!
You don’t have to assemble your kit from scratch. If you don’t want to touch HTML or design, go for a press kit builder. These instruments might supply many templates to quickly plug in the information you have. Alternatively take a look at the type of clean, well-designed layouts provided by sites like Pressdeck to go get inspired with something that looks good and is easy to manage. Those of you who’ve been delaying creating your press kit can do so now. You never know when someone may ask you for information and quite frankly, a press kit helps your appearance and shows that you’re ready to receive big opportunities. Start simple. Build one section at a time. And don’t forget, any press kit is better than no press kit.
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