Successfully Assembling And Using A Press Kit

By Lynn Maria Thompson

Great artists are fueled by a creative spirit, but that spirit usually doesn’t include knowledge about the nuts and bolts of promoting oneself. If you’re just starting your art career, how will you let people know about your marvelous talent and superb work? Don’t have a clue? Here’s one: an essential piece of your marketing plan is a press kit.

What is a press kit, and why do you need one? In its simplest form, a press kit is a folder of information about you and your work. The press kit gives media representatives, museum curators and gallery owners the information they need to feature your work in their publications and exhibit spaces. You need one as a new artist because people don’t yet know you. Even established artists use press kits to describe their latest work and tout their successes.

Most people enclose their press kits in a regular pocket folder that can be purchased at an office supply store. You may wish to personalize the cover by using a marker to write your distinctive signature across the front, or by gluing a printout of one of your works to it. If you have a large budget, you can even have a supply of folders printed with this information.

You can hire a publicist to put together a press kit, or you can do it yourself. If you have a reasonable ability to write, there’s no reason you can’t tackle this on your own. After all, who knows your work better than you? The elements to be included in your press kit are:

• Your bio
  
• A quality print of at least one of your pieces
  
• A catalog of your works available
  
• A list of questions and answers for interviewers
  
• Possibly a news release
  
• Possibly clips of reviews or other media coverage your work has received
  
• Your business card
  
• A CD that includes all the press kit information digitally.

Let’s examine each of these elements in more detail.

A bio is a brief description of your background and what brought you to where you are now. Where were you born and raised? What were your parents’ backgrounds? What early inspirations did you have that influenced your urge to become an artist? Where were you educated? Have you pursued other careers? When and how did you decide to become an artist? Who first discovered you, and how? Where have you exhibited before? Have you won any awards for your work? What is your particular vision for your work? What subjects and other artists are your greatest influences?

The bio should be written in a narrative style and should read like an interesting magazine article about you. Think about what you want people to know about you, and also about what they’d like to know about you. What would intrigue them and make them interested in seeing more of your work? You may also wish to include your photograph with the bio, especially a good action shot of you at work.

Your press kit should also contain a high-quality print of at least one of your pieces. Have this professionally printed, not photocopied at a nearby copy center. It should be on a high-quality, heavy paper stock and accurately represent your style. Include more than one, if you’d like. It’s also nice to include a brief description of each piece, including its title, size, medium, price and a little about your inspiration for it.

The catalog of available works should include, at minimum, each work’s title, size, medium and price. This may be done in the form of a simple list, or you can include a small graphic of each piece next to its description. Printing for color catalogs can be expensive, however, so you may want to limit this to the electronic version on your CD. A black-and-white page that can be photocopied is a more economical alternative for the printed version, and you can save even more by making it two-sided.

Make sure you include a list of questions and answers for interviewers. This will give media personalities who are unfamiliar with your work the ability to appear knowledgeable on the air when they interview you. If you help them look good, they will help you look good. This Q&A list may be unique for each recipient of your press kit, or it may remain the same. It all depends on the message you’re trying to communicate.

When deciding what questions to include on your Q&A list, think about what you want people to know about your work. Try to center this around a maximum of three key messages you want to leave with your viewers or listeners. For example, if you’re going to be interviewed on a local radio or TV show about an upcoming exhibit, you’ll want people to know where that exhibit is and when it runs. You’ll want them to know a little bit about your work so they’ll know what to expect when they see it. And you’ll probably want them to know a little bit about yourself to intrigue them enough to want to see your work. Those would be your three key messages. Try to word the questions as though someone would naturally be asking them, and in such a way that they lead naturally into your answers. If you’ve won awards, or if your work has been featured somewhere that would impress the general public, make sure to include questions about those things in your Q&A list. Remember that your ultimate goal is to get people interested in seeing and buying your work.

Some press kits include a news release about an upcoming event or a recent award. This is an optional piece, but if you have something newsworthy, by all means include it! To determine whether or not to put a news release in your press kit, ask yourself if the information is a) recent, and b) would be of interest to anyone other than your own immediate family.

When writing a release, there is a standard format for the header. You should always date it at the top, and you may want to include the words “FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE” under the date. Below that, put the word “CONTACT:” and list the name, phone number and e-mail of someone who can provide additional information or clarify any questions the reporter may have.

Write a catchy headline that captures the essence of your news release. Some examples:  “Artist Receives Grant from National Endowment for the Arts,”  “[Your Name Here] to Exhibit Locally,” or “Artist Receives Prestigious [Name of Award] Award.” This will give journalists a quick way to determine whether or not they can use your information to write a story that will appeal to their readers. Center the headline over the body of the release.

In the body, remember to answer the “Five W’s and the H”:  Who, What, Where, When, Why and How. If you like, you can even make each of these a separate section of the release. Try to keep the information brief, objective and to the point. An ideal length is one page, double-spaced, but if you have a lot of information it may take two pages. Try not to make the release any longer than that. At the bottom, there are two ways to indicate the ending of the release. Centered, show either “-30-“ or “###”.

If you’ve received positive news coverage in the past, you may wish to include clips of this in your press kit. Don’t include the originals; always make a clear, legible photocopy. Scan the articles and save them digitally to include on your CD.

Always include your business card in your press kit. A good design for an artist’s business card is the artist’s name, perhaps the distinctive signature, a colorful piece representative of the artist’s work or photograph of the artist at work, a phone number and website. That’s all, plain and simple. Buy the kind of pocket folders with perforations in one inside flap so you can insert your business card there.

On the CD in your press kit, include files of all the printed material in the kit, plus several high-resolution graphics of your best works. This will make it easier for journalists, curators and gallery owners to include the material in their printed publications and on their websites. If you think journalists would like to include a photograph of you with their stories, by all means include a high-resolution file separate from the photo in your bio file. Digital files should be JPG or TIFF format, at least 300 dpi, but preferably 600 dpi for high-quality print publications.

How should you use your press kit? You can mail it to journalists and on-air personalities where you’d like to get media coverage. Make a phone call first, rather than just mailing them out blindly, to make sure you’re not wasting one of your expensive press kits on somebody who had no intention of featuring your story. Address the mailing to the actual person who will be interviewing you, if possible. Never send press kits without a person’s name to include in the address.