Tech Press Agents Vs Entertainment Press Agents

Press Agents

So recently I hired a press agent for my start up. It took me months to find a music industry press agent that had a clue about tech stuff. I was lucky enough to find one. Most music industry people are about as clueless about technology as a new born baby is to quantum physics. So why not just hire a press agent that specializes in technology and start ups? Because my start up is a music site first and a tech thing second. I would rather get press from Spin, Billboard, or Rolling Stone magazine instead of Tech Crunch, Mashable, or Read Write Web (say that ten times fast out loud). Now I want to make it clear that any press is great. As a fan I read those tech blogs more than the music publications I just listed. I would love press from all six of them! I am just more interested in coverage from the music press because this is a music site. So I found a press agent that could handle that.

Now I am able to say I have dealt with press agents both as the editor of a music publication and as a client. I have no problem with press agents. They have a job to do and there are many I think do it very well. But I come from the entertainment industry angle. In the entertainment industry press agents are “handlers”. Rock stars are not the most organized, punctual, or business savvy people around. So the press agent is part secretary, part manager, part assistant, and part guide. Without them my interviews would almost never be on time and that would be if I was lucky enough to get the interview scheduled in the first place. Not only that but their liaison role can sometimes keep the bigger celebrities from having their mobile and home numbers exposed to overly eager journalists. So add protector to that list above. In the entertainment industry press agents are very important. Journalists form a relationship with the press agents that tend to work the artists that fit their publications format.

This is not at all the case with the tech industry. When I mentioned I was getting a press agent I had some of my friends in the tech industry seriously wonder why I would do such a thing. In the tech industry press agents are looked at as spammers. They are considered to be almost parasites. They get zero respect. This is a total opposite from how they are treated in the entertainment industry. If my press agent tried to get one of the tech blogs I listed above to cover my start up, they would be treated like they were a phone solicitor. But if they tried to get coverage on a music blog they would probably have pretty good luck. So that leads me to wonder how press agents are looked at in different industries. Are they only given respect for their hard work when they are working humans? If they are working a website, gadget, tool, software, beverage, or any other non-organic entity are they treated with disdain? Does the press agent working the competitors of Makita get the brush off from carpenter magazines? Why are press agents with non-human clients treated with so little respect? I’m just curious.

So why the big divide? Can anyone answer me on this one?

In this era of the Internet many bands are trying to do their own everything. I think this is pretty awesome and I encourage it. Sure it’s great if you can afford a few grand a week to hire some powerhouse press agent. The biggest value they have is in relationships they have with journalists all over the place. There have been times that a press agent will forget to send the email to the BCC (blind carbon copy) and expose their entire email list. I can grab that info and use it to send out my next press release. This will not do me near as much good as if I pay to have the exact same press release, sent to the exact same list of people, with everything done exactly the same way. Those contacts do not have relationships with me. So I will not get the same results as Chipster, Mazur, HerPR, HelloWendy, or any of the dozens of PR firms I work with on a regular basis. But if you can’t afford the money, have the email lists, and really need to get a message out do it yourself (DIY)!

There are a few key things to remember though. First off, the very top should have “FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE”. Yeah, I know it looks silly to do that in all caps but it is one of the many music industry standards none of us seem to have the power to stop. Put the date directly underneath that. Both of those should be in standard size text.

Second thing is to put the headline in bold and in larger text than anything else. Keep it short, sensationalistic, but honest and factual.

Third, put the body of your message. Most press releases I read blow so many proverbial flowers up the artists butt that I can’t help but dismiss the entire press release. I only read about 10% of the ones sent to me at best. So try to keep yours interesting, but full of information about your band. Most of the press releases contain zero information about the band. It drives me nuts!

Fourth thing is to put three pound signs (the tic tac toe symbol that is on the number 3 key) at the end of the information you want made public.

Lastly you can put any other information you want only press people to see. Like if you have a website to download the cd, get high rez images, or anything else. Under all of that put your name, address, phone, fax (if you have one of your own), an email address they can contact you at for further questions.

Keep your press release short, but detailed. Make it clear right away what style of music you play. In the world of Internet journalism your press release will hit the trash bin quickly if you don’t make it clear right away that the artist fits their format. We don’t want to tread through a ton of weak adjectives to find out the band plays polka. Don’t just describe the sound! That makes us think you are trying to hide something…like they play polka. Don’t tell the band’s entire life story, but cram in the important facts so they fly rapid fire when the press release is being vetted. Add links to video, graphics, and whatever else that the press can use to “pretty” up the posting.

Good luck. You’re going to need it.

The art of a good press agent

Now I talk a lot of smack about how music industry press agents are about as clueless about technology as it gets, but this time I am going to talk about the non-tech side. This time it’s all about attitude! For the most part women kick the living crap out of guys in this line of work. Not sure why. No, it’s not because they are these sweet little lambs. In fact most of them are rather ruthless! However, they do it without the ego many guys have about it. Let’s face it, the artists are the ones who are cool. Us journalists and the press agents we work with are not the rockstars. We are not cool, but for some reason some male press agents seem to think they are the rockstars. It’s that confusion that makes them suck.

Recently there was a press agent that was offended that I called him on the phone to square away some interviews. We had been going back and forth for days and so I went down the line and made a few phone calls to nail some things down with several press agents I deal with. This guy (who will remain nameless) got a major attitude about how no one does anything over the phone and I needed to get with the times. Funny, he was the last in a morning full of phone calls both made and received. He also still does HTML emails. Does he not know how “ten years ago” that is? Security experts the world over have been preaching against HTML emails and the danger they cause for well over a decade now. I think he is the one who needs to get with the times. The phone isn’t dead, he just seems to think he is the rockstar instead of the bands he is paid to be pushing. Because of this he gets no favors. I will only cover the bands of his I want to.

Not all male press agents are this way though. I have one I deal with that is about as down to earth as it gets. This guy will do anything and everything to get a band press. He will email me, call me, and is even a friend on Facebook (unlike the guy above), to make sure I am pushing his artists. I have told this guy that I find a band down right annoying and he replies with “Yeah, but will you do an interview anyways?” Now that’s a press agent! I have told him that bands don’t fit our format and he will send me cuts from the cd that he thinks prove that thought wrong. He never goes over the line and if I tell him there is just no way he will back off. The point is that he has zero ego about it. He always takes my calls and he always answers my emails. He is always ready to deal with something when I call. That’s called organization people. In this business, if you don’t have that you are dead! Because of this I will cover a band of his that I have zero interest in. It’s all about attitude.

So what makes a good press agent? Same thing that makes for a good music journalist. Someone who knows their place. Sometimes I have to tell myself to just shut the hell up and do my job. It’s not about me. It’s about the artists. Same goes for the press agents I deal with. They need to know that we are not the cool ones. The artists are. Ok, some press agents are cool artists too, but that’s a whole ‘nuther blog post. Funny thing is that the cool rockstar press agents are the ones with the least ego problems!

The truth is that none of these people are friends. If I no longer was a music industry person I would not exist to any of them. If they have no bands I care about, I have no reason to contact them either. Both sides have a job to do. I care about the bands and they are paid to care about the bands. Sometimes they honestly do like the bands but there is no way to know. Will I work with someone I have no respect for? Sure, but it sucks. I would rather work with someone that is easy to work with. Male or female. So the art of a good press agent is one who keeps the ego in check. Same rule applies to music journalists, so feel free to remind me of that if you think I need it.

Ok, so many of you know that I am the editor and founder of RockMyMonkey.com. 99% of the news is posted by myself. So I go through the press releases and try to make something out of them. Most of the time they are a total mess and need to be cleaned up. There are a few things that the press agents do that annoy me to no end. Here is the top ten list of things that piss me off about press releases.

10. Don’t send me some fancy looking html document as a press release.

Do you want to me to post a link or put your info into my site? Why do they do this? Sure it looks pretty, but I have to work like hell to try and copy that info into my CMS and not make it look like crap. Keep it simple stupid! Plain text emails rule and make my life more easy. If you are a pain in the ass I am less likey to post your info. I will also be less excited about your band because you put me in a bad mood with your unnecessary HTML email.

In short, keep in mind what you want me to do with this info. Make that task easy.

9. Enough about how great the band is…just tell people what they sounds like.

The more adjectives you use to describe how great your artist is, the more desperate and pathetic you come off as. Just today I had a press agent describe an artist as ridiculous. All I could think of was the Family Guy episode where they did a parody of Pee Wee Herman. Just cut to the chase and tell people what they sound like. I had someone say the artist was the range of Mariah Carey with the attitude of Billie Joe from Green Day” and the songwriting skills of Jack White from The White Stripes. I have no clue what the artist sounds like. From that it could be anything from emo, goth, industrial, traditional metal, folk, or pop punk. So by this time I’m just annoyed and don’t care about the artist at all and will do nothing to support them at all. Just cut the BS and tell people what the artist sounds like.

8. Don’t try and help me by doing the HTML code for me
My CMS does this automatically for one. Second, never once has the code sent to me been correct. You are a press agent, not an HTML code monkey. You suck at doing html because that is not your job. So stop trying. Just send plain text and let me change what I need to from there. Using fancy software to create your press releases doesn’t make them better. it makes them less efficient.

7. Don’t over do it with the links.
I get press releases with no clear end in sight. It is just endless links to iTunes, Myspace, Facebook, Twitter, images, direct links to items on the labels store, direct links to songs on MySpace, and it just goes on and on. It’s so full of links it’s not clear what the actual message is that you are trying to get across. What if you just link to the band’s website and have them put all those links in? You ever think about that? Didn’t they teach you in school that you need to be short and to the point? Too many words and people don’t even read what you had me post. You waste my time, your time, and my readers time. If the website address is longer than 50 characters don’t put it in a press release!

6. For Immediate Release to start it and Three pounds to end it!
Ok, I know that is cheesy as hell and everyone does it, but it is called a standard. It let’s me know where the press release starts. Standards save everyone time. For those that don’t know what this is, it is how you start a press release. This goes at the very top. Don’t do any variations on this or you will look like a douchebag.

Do you know what a pound sign is? Put three of them where you want the end of the news piece to be. This saves everyone time and keeps me from posting information you don’t want out to the general public.

5. Pick a headline and stick with it!
Many of the press releases have 5 – 10 headlines to them. Pick the most important one and just use that. Now if I do get one headline it is either just the name of the band and the name of the cd or it’s this entire paragraph. If I’m lucky it’s just a really long run on sentence. I didn’t go to college and I know that is bad form! There is a balance between to much info and not enough. Have one point you want to get across and keep to it. Don’t loose focus by trying to sneak in something else. “Details on the new Bloody Eyeballs cd announced” is fine. You don’t need to add in the record company name, the bands they will be touring with, & the sponsor of the bassists colostomy bag. It’s just a headline. Not the entire article!

4. YOUR HEADLINE SHOULDN’T BE IN ALL CAPS YOU DOUCHEBAG!
Why do so many press agents send press releases with headlines in all caps? You force us to do things like automatically change all headlines to Title Case. Which of course makes a rare posting (acronyms for example) look kind of silly, but that it’s better than having a majority of them be unreadable. Most people on the internet have had their eyes trained to just skip over anything done in all caps. It’s hard on the eyes and is considered screaming on the internet. It is very bad form, but yet is done by some very high profile press agents in the music industry.

3. If you link to a YouTube video make sure we can embed it!
I have had press agents send the code to embed a YouTube video, but when you post the video as requested you find out the label has blocked it from being embedded. Remember that labels tell YouTube not to allow people to embed their videos because the last thing they want is for that video they spent thousands of dollars on to be seen by people. So before you send that YouTube embed code, make sure the label isn’t so retarded that they don’t allow videos to be embedded. Yes, labels are retarded. Accept that fact and you will survive.

2. Don’t tell me to hype someone else’s website!
Ok, to be honest I wouldn’t mind it if you want me to help promote an interview done on another website, but I now ignore press releases like this because press agents only pick a small handful of websites to do this with. Be fair and make sure everyone gets this treatment or most of us will just hit the delete button. Sure Blabbermouth is a news source everyone knows about and respects, but to send your press release with Blabbermouth as a source is just unprofessional. You send the press release so we can all be the source or why should we post it?

1. Remember that you can’t polish a turd.
If you try too hard you come off as fake. On the rare time I am forced to read the tripe that is most press releases, they are very lacking on actual info and full of forced “coolness”. Remember that nerd in high school that would try so hard to be cool that he came off as less cool than if he would have just shut the hell up? That is how most press releases sound. Stop trying to be cool, stop trying to be cute, and stop trying to show how cutting edge you are. You are not cool. You are a press agent and your job is to give info about the band. If the band is cool then your press release will be too. When you try too hard it actually makes people dismiss your band quicker. So stop trying to convince us that it will “rip our face off” and let the music do the talking!

Ok, I know I came off as pretty harsh here. Most of the press agents I deal with are pretty cool people. But they are in a dying industry that just doesn’t get it. There is a reason the industry is dying so quickly and what I wrote above might give you a few hints as to why. The industry doesn’t get it! I have had promos sent to me that came with the XCD rootkit. They did this on purpose even after Sony had to pay out for all those lawsuits! Another contact has to fight with her home office because they don’t do business with websites. As major print media outlets are dying, these people refuse to work with online publications! The music industry is killing itself with it’s own arrogance and stupidity. I’m just trying to help.