Blog: Doing The Press

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After all the excitement of Jiffy Bag Day on Wednesday, Thursday brought another long-cherished aspect of putting out a new release: Doing The Press!

In olden tyme this used to involve even more Jiffy bags than Jiffy Bag day, as CDs would be packaged up to be sent out to magazines and radio shows a good couple of months before actual release day, with a press release and personal letter included in each. It was a LOT of work, especially when it was time to take most of them down to the post office to get sent. When I moved to London I could at least take quite a big batch to The Secret BBC Window round the corner from Broadcasting House and get them inserted into their internal post for free, but it was still a LOT of stamps!

A decade or so ago, when we were in our POMP, I always resented Doing The Press, as I was sending stuff out to people who I KNEW wouldn't even listen to what we'd sent, but felt I had to do it so that, if nothing else, I could righteously MOAN about it later. As time went by, however, my original Big List got smaller and smaller, as I stopped bothering with most of the Mainstream Outlets (having finally accepted that FOLK ROOTS were not likely to put us on the cover) and focussed instead on the people who actually DID like us.

As it happens, it turns out that the people who like us are also people that *I* like, and so it has become a PLEASURE to send stuff out to them! THUS I spent a very pleasant couple of hours EMAILING them all - it felt like getting in touch with PALS in ROCK who I'd not spoken to for a while! I've also just about got to grips with SOME of the aspects of modern promotion - we still do a press release, which, as ever, was rigorously edited by The Team In My Comms Department, but now instead of posting CDs I send a LINK to a private SOUNDCLOUD stream. SO modern!

With that all done the next step is to shuffle a tentative toe into the heady waters of BLOGS and all that. I have precisely NO clue as to how all this works, but some very kind/patient people have tried to explain it to me as "Blogs are fanzines", which does make a tiny bit more sense. The promotional PUSH in that direction commences next week - who knows? some of the LUCKY RECIPIENTS of my PROMO might still be getting emails from me in ten years' time!

(or possibly FUTURISTIC BRANE HOLOGRAMS)

posted 3/4/2020 by MJ Hibbett

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