How to write a press release: format, steps and a full example

To write a press release, put the news in the first sentence and stack everything else beneath it in order of importance. The standard format runs top to bottom: a release line (FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, or an embargo time), a headline, a one-sentence subhead, a dateline, a lead that says who did what, when, where and why, a few short paragraphs of detail with one or two quotes, a boilerplate paragraph about the organization, a media contact, and ### to mark the end. Keep it to about a page. A complete example, a book launch from a small press, is below.

Start with the news, not the company

A press release is a news story written by the people it is about, laid out so a journalist can check it, quote it and turn it into a piece of their own. The form is more than a century old. In October 1906 the publicist Ivy Lee put out a statement on a Pennsylvania Railroad accident in Atlantic City, and The New York Times printed it. The reader on the other end has not changed much since: an editor with more announcements than space, who looks at the headline and the first paragraph and decides.

So the first question is whether you have news. Something happened, or will happen on a date: a launch, an opening, a hire, a grant, a result, a book. A release about your values, or a feature nobody outside the company will notice, is a blog post wearing a dateline. Ask what a reader of the outlet you are sending it to would learn. If the answer is nothing, write the blog post instead.

News is also local and specialized. A bookstore's author event is news in its town; a new accounting feature is news in an accounting trade journal. Name the outlets before you write, and write for their readers. The rules are the same ones reporters use for a news article, because that is what you are drafting for them.

Press release format, part by part

The dateline trips people up. Most US newsrooms follow AP style, the style guide of the Associated Press: the city in capitals, then the state in AP's abbreviation rather than the postal code (DULUTH, Minn., not DULUTH, MN), then the date. AP spells out a few states, Texas and Ohio among them, and lets major cities such as NEW YORK and CHICAGO stand alone. With a date, only Jan., Feb., Aug., Sept., Oct., Nov. and Dec. are abbreviated, so it is Feb. 10 but March 2. Nobody requires AP style in a release, but every fix a reporter has to make is a small reason to cover someone else.

How to write a press release

1. Write the news as one sentence

   Before any formatting, finish this sentence: who is doing what, when, where, and why it matters to this outlet's readers. If you cannot, the news is not settled yet. Find out what is actually happening and on what date.

2. Turn it into a dateline and lead

   Open with the dateline, then answer the five Ws in one or two sentences. Lead with the person or organization and the action, not with history. A date, a price, a number or a place does more work than any adjective.

3. Compress the lead into a headline

   Keep the lead's subject and verb and cut the rest. Then give the subhead the most useful fact that did not fit: a date, a price, where it happens.

4. Build the body in descending order

   Each paragraph should matter less than the one before it, so an editor can cut from the bottom without losing the story. That is the inverted pyramid. A typical order: the facts a reader needs to act, the best quote, context and evidence, then what happens next.

5. Get quotes someone actually said

   Talk to the person you are quoting for five minutes and use their words, trimmed. Send the quote back to them and get approval in writing before the release goes anywhere.

6. Add the boilerplate, contact and end mark

   Reuse your standard About paragraph word for word. Name a person with a direct email and phone number, then close with ###.

7. Cut, check and read it aloud

   Delete the words a reporter would delete: innovative, leading, world-class, exciting. Check every name, title, date, time, price and spelling against its source. Read it aloud and split any sentence you stumble on.

Lead, headline and quote, rewritten

Three parts decide whether a release gets used. Here is each one in the version most people write first, and the version a reporter can use. All of the organizations are invented.

The lead

The first version spends 32 words and never names the author, the book or the date. The second answers who, what, when and where in two sentences, and gives a reporter a reason to keep reading: a nurse wrote a novel about a ship's kitchen. The same shape works for any kind of news.

The headline

A working headline has a subject, an active verb and one concrete detail. Skip "announces": everything in a press release is announced. Put the specific words at the front, because inboxes and search results cut long lines off. Title case and sentence case are both common; pick one and keep it. There is more on the craft in how to write a headline.

The quote

Everything else in a release is fact. The quote is the one place for a reason, a hope or a surprise, which is why reporters skip any quote that could be pasted into another company's release.

The quote is also where an organization's tone of voice shows, so it should sound like the person when read aloud. Attribute it to a named person with a title. A second quote from a customer, partner or author adds a point of view, but only with their permission and in their words.

A complete press release example

Here is the whole release, built from the steps above. It runs a little over 300 words, which is plenty for most news.

What makes it work:

• The headline names the person, the hook and the place, and the subhead carries both dates.
• The second paragraph holds what a books editor needs to run a listing: format, length, price and where to buy it.
• Both quotes give a reason and a concrete detail. Neither contains an adjective about the book.
• Event logistics come late. A reporter needs them, but they are not what makes the story.
• State names in the body are spelled out (Minnesota), as AP style asks; only the dateline abbreviates.

To start your own, the press release template has the same parts with placeholders, as a Word or Markdown file.

Sending it to journalists

A release does nothing in a folder. Send it to the specific people who cover the subject: the books editor at the local paper, the producer of the public radio arts show, the reporter at the trade site who wrote about your last product. A short list of the right names does more than a long list of strangers, and an email with a hundred addresses in the To: line ends the relationship before it starts.

• Paste the release into the email body under a note of two or three sentences written to that person. Many reporters will not open attachments from senders they do not know, so link to photos instead.
• Use the headline, or a shorter version of it, as the subject line.
• Embargo only by agreement. Send an embargoed release to reporters who have agreed to hold it, and state the date, time and time zone: EMBARGOED UNTIL 9 a.m. ET, March 2, 2027. An embargo is a courtesy, not a contract; a journalist who never agreed to it is not bound by it.
• Post it on your own site, on a news or press page, so reporters who search later find the facts on record. If they will want photos, bios and a fact sheet, gather them in a press kit and link to it.
• Use a wire service when reach matters. Paid wires such as PR Newswire and Business Wire push a release to newsrooms and news sites at scale. They suit public companies and national news; prices depend on reach, so check current rates.
• Follow up once, a few days later, and only with something new: an interview slot, a photo, a local angle.

If you want one outlet to run a feature, rather than many outlets to report the news, you need a pitch instead. See how to pitch an article to an editor.

Mistakes that sink a release

• Burying the news. Mission statements, history and "we are excited to announce" come before the news in a surprising number of releases. Cut until the first words are the news.
• Adjectives instead of facts. "Innovative" and "leading" are claims a reporter cannot print. A price, a date, a number or a name they can.
• Missing logistics. If a reporter has to email you to ask the time, the price or how a name is spelled, the story may go to someone who did not make them ask.
• Quotes that say nothing. If a quote could appear in anyone's release, cut it or ask the speaker why they did this.
• Jargon. Write for the outlet's readers, not your colleagues. Internal product names and acronyms mean nothing to a general-news editor.
• Two pages of detail. A long release usually has a fact sheet trapped inside it. Move the detail to a linked page.
• No one to call. A shared inbox, or a contact who is away the week of the launch, wastes the one moment a reporter is interested.

Drafting a release in Strokes

Strokes is a desktop editor that keeps documents as files on your machine, with an AI Assistant beside the page. Paste your notes into a document and ask the Assistant to draft a lead from them, then compare it with your own. Select a quote and press ⌘K to ask for a plainer version that still sounds like the speaker. Before you send, ask the Assistant to list every name, date, price and number in the release so you can check each one; it can also proofread the final draft. Version history shows exactly what changed since the speaker approved the quote, and the release exports to Word or PDF for anyone who has to sign off.