PR and Press Writing

OK. Let’s get this on the table: I don’t much care for public relations in general. It has all the makings of a woman undergoing regular Botox as in: let’s take a Hollywood starlet and make her just a little bit plastic.

But just as the starlet may need a nip and a tuck here and there to keep her career on track, so too does your public relations client. They need your words; your skills; your ability to put a nice “touch” on things; a nip and a tuck. And you need them, for steady work, and for the experience of filling a niche.

I’ve had some great public relations clients – a wonderful set of parents who devised a product to teach kids how to be financially responsible and needed to get the word out; a terrific small company in Brooklyn, NY that designed a way for high school students to virtually job shadow in different career fields; a marketing guy who wrote a how-to book and didn’t want to end up having to promote himself. Good people one and all, needing intermittent, periodic public relations that wouldn’t bankrupt them in the process. (Do you have any idea what a full service public relations firm charges their client? If not, find out).

Your wordsmithing skills, and your ability to recognize what makes a marketable story, can fill a much-needed niche. You might write a press release, pitch a story idea to a targeted publication, or simply come up with marketable ideas for your P.R. client. Your clients can range from small business to non-profit agencies that have limited funds for P.R. but are willing to spend it on a regular basis.

Look around: your neighborhood, your city, your region. Somebody out there needs you and your writing skills. If you don’t grab them, another writer will.