Copywriter’s Guide: submitting events

Hello! There is this really cool fundraiser next month, it’s for a good cause and we should all go. I would love to have it listed in your events section. Here are the details:

• It’s really cool, but you have to guess why
• It’s for a good cause, but I’m not telling what that is
• It’s at a place and time, but I’m not saying where and which
• You have to buy tickets, but how and how much they cost are secret

Would you bother writing this up or even trying to go? Me, either.

As the events author/editor for a major publication, I am constantly amazed by how little copywriters feel they need to provide for their upcoming events. Day after day I spend hours hunting down things that should have been part of either the press release or the email request – silly things, such as URLs, venues, even actual dates, times, and ticket prices. Nuts!

If you are a copywriter or promoter and you want to see your event listed proudly in a publication or on a website – this includes newspapers! – then be a professional about it. It should not take the editor more than a minute to find everything she needs to do your event justice. The following is a list of the absolute bare minimum you should include in your press release – or better yet, your email directly to the (correct) editor:

1. Title of event
2. Date of event
3. Time of event
4. Ticket price
5. Where to purchase tickets
6. Name of venue
7. Address of venue
8. Web site or phone number for further information
9. A brief description of what the event is (why would our readers care to go?)

Believe it or not, every one of these items (sometimes several of them) have been left off of countless submissions. Many of us give you a time limit – mine is two minutes. If you are unwilling or unable to send me enough information to write up your event, then you really weren’t interested in seeing it in print. There are too many others that offered full submissions who deserve the limited space we have to offer.

One more thing, if you offer a web site, it had better be an actual web site with information about the event on it somewhere. We do look.

Next up in this series: Deadlines for submissions