August, 2009
Press release writing template
As promised here’s my News Release template which you are welcome to use. It’s in Word format and you are welcome to download it. If you are still experiencing difficulties, we do offer a press release writing and copywriting service which is based on the number or press releases you would need.
The service is by return and the releases are written by Laurence Thompson who is an experienced copywiter and au fait with the need to write copy which is search engine optimised as well as appealing to busy journalists. A typical price would be $77 per press release and $147 for a campaign of three. Payment by Paypal on delivery.
Contact me at keith@effective-media.co.uk if you would like to take advantage of the service. But otherwise please feel free to browse my blog and load up on resources:-
Tools you might need to distribute your copy or develop your sales content:-
This is your completely automated email system for outgoing and incoming mail which includes an autoreponder and advanced list building function. Ideal for press release distribution!
Whether we write the copy for you or not, we use Ebook Pro for our own business and incredibly impressed with its ability to lock your book and distribute it using Mailloop above.
Having used submitters in the early days which were dreadful to use and largely ineffective, Viral Submitter Pro will allow you to submit your content on autopilot to all the crucial social bookmarking, article sites and Craig’s List without getting yourself banned.
Richard Thompson at the Seaside
Floral Pavilion, New Brighton: 13 August 2009
One of the reasons for going was my son had put a Richard Thompson album on his birthday list and was intrigued as to whether he had discovered a musical gem that I had missed out on.
With a strong folk tradition in the borough, this travelling troubadour was bound to get a decent audience in the refurbished Floral Pavilion.
But Thompson is more than a folk artist. In times past before the newspapers and TV, it would be the Richard Thompsons who would, through music, tell us about the trials and tribulations of the day. And this is why he is almost a household name.
Instead of droning on about fields of barley though, Thompson takes us to places we have known in our lives. He is the Jimmy McGovern of rock.
Who else in this over-crowded cauldron of X Factor wannabes, could get away with singing a sea shanty? Imagine Simon Cowell’s face for one moment. The difference between Thompson’s and anything you will find warbled diligently at the nearby Maritime Museum is that this guy is writing about now not then.
Johnny’s Far Away is a narrative on a muso who goes away to work with a Céilidh band on a themed Celtic cruise ship while his missus cops off back at home. The humour comes from the familiarity with this albeit bizarre take on modern infidelity.
Hots for the Smarts was another piece of observational humour revealing Thompson’s fetish for intelligent woman who wear glasses.
Relationships feature more highly in the set than I had ever imagined for one not completely with his back catalogue. The melodic lament I Misunderstood summed up the lack of communication between genders with the infectious hook, “I thought she was saying good luck but she was saying goodbye.”
Instead of a cabaret of hit singles that many artists of his generation rely upon for kicks, Thompson can instead take us down light fantasies and dark alley ways.
One minute we are seduced by the beautiful Sunset Song with the capo strapped half way to sound like a mandolin, and the next we are swung round by our ghoulies with the macabre anti war messages in Dad’s Going to Kill Me.
But Thompson is not just an insightful song writer, his guitar playing is vastly underrated. 1952 Vincent Black Lightning is endowed with the most accomplished rhythmical shredding this side of the pond bar none. No effects, no band to mask any errors in the fiddly bits, the song rattled along at a breathtaking pace.
Two schools of thought on the ticket price. I wouldn’t begrudge a talent like Richard Thompson his days at the seaside. But Asia were on at the same theatre for around the same money. Leonard Cohen wanted £50 for a show at the Liverpool Echo Arena so I guess it’s all relative.
Apart from that, it all goes to show that sons can teach their dads a thing or two about musical taste. Lesson learnt.
Sharing a stage with Brian May
I am not leading you up the garden path with some vague notion that I am going to replace Paul Rodgers in Queen, but yes I was three behind the great man at Liverpool John Moores University’s graduation ceremony. Yeah that’s me in the middle with my head cut off in fetching pink! If can get a better one, you will be the first to know.
Dr May is the university’s Chancellor and, apart from composing some of the most memorable rock songs ever, he is pretty nifty on the old calculator too with a PhD in Astrophysics. So now I have broken the illusion for you, what’s my point? It’s about celebrity.
You may have read my piece about Michael Jackson which was written at the time of his death. The problem is that some celebrities believe the hype. Once they believe the great things that are written about them, it becomes very difficult to come down from a high and do ordinary things like order a bag of chips, mow the lawn. And yet that’s where it’s at.
Basically, as human beings we need light, heat, food and love. That’s. We receive too much heat, spotlights and heaps of hedonistic fayre, the picture becomes extremely distorted. Metallica, my friend Glenn Hughes, David Coverdale, Robbie Williams all suffered the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, but noticed some time later that levitation alluded even them.
Dr Brian May is a shining example of someone who has always put the celebtrity baggage aside and carry on achieving. There is then a correlation between rock music and business. We are all in danger of believing our own hype. Grounding through study, reading and finding out about what other people have achieved past and present all help us to become better people. Achievement is one thing. Being a strong person to carry it all through, without treading on others, is another
This year seven of our students on the BA Business and Public Realtions degree received firsts. Many others achieved 2.s and 2.2s. Whatever the grade, the achievements are still to come the rewards are round the corner if you know where to look. Sometimes the answer is staring at you in the face. It was for me. Only last year I converted to teaching in higher education. It was the best move I have ever made and yet it took me six years to realise what I was really good at.
Sharing a stage with Dr May was an inspirational moment and one I am not shy of sharing.
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