How to make an electronic press kit (EPK) people actually read

The press kit is what you send once someone is already interested: a promoter weighing up your project for next season, a journalist preparing a piece, an engineer who has to set up your show. It is called an EPK, an electronic press kit, because it stopped being a paper folder a long time ago.

A good press kit answers their questions before they ask them. A poor one leaves gaps, and each gap means an email back to you asking for what is missing. Not everyone bothers to send it.

Who reads it and what they want

Three people can open the same document and look for three different things. The promoter wants to hear you and to judge whether you fit their audience. The journalist wants a bio they can quote, a photo they can print and facts they can trust: names spelled right, the album title, the release date. The engineer skips all of that and goes straight to the rider.

So the order matters. What persuades goes at the top, while the promoter is still deciding. What people need to do their work goes at the bottom, where the journalist and the engineer will look for it anyway.

What goes in, in order

1. Who you are, in one line

Your name, a photo and one sentence about what you do: line-up, style, where you are from. If there is news, like an album, a tour or a premiere, give it a second line right below.

2. Your music

Two or three pieces at most, the best one first, and all of them playable without downloading anything. If you are presenting an album, link the whole record, then point to one track for the reader who will only listen to one.

3. A live video

For many promoters, this is the piece that decides. They are booking a concert, so show them what one of yours looks like. A music video can't tell them that.

4. The bio, in three lengths

A short one of one or two lines, a medium one of a paragraph and a long one for the press. Write all three in the third person so they can be copied as they are. The method is in how to write your musician bio.

5. Press photos

Several of them, landscape and portrait, in high resolution, downloadable and with the photographer’s name for the credit. One portrait and a few live shots. Name each file with your name and the photographer’s, so whoever downloads it does not have to guess where it came from.

6. What people have said about you

Short quotes from reviews or interviews, each with the outlet and, when you can, the link. Keep a few, and only good ones. A quote without a source helps nobody.

7. Track record

A selection of the venues, festivals and collaborations that matter. Leave out the full list. Add your upcoming dates if you have any.

8. The technical material

The tech rider and the stage plot, current and dated. We explain both in tech rider and stage plot.

9. Contact

Who handles bookings and who handles press, with an email for each and, if you like, a phone number. A phone number makes sense here, because the press kit is not public.

Web page or PDF

For years the press kit was a PDF. Some people still ask for one, usually to attach it to a file, print it or archive it with an application. As the main document, though, a web page has clear advantages:

• It is always current. Change a date and whoever opens the link sees the new one; no old versions go round.
• Music and video play right there, with nothing to download.
• Photos download one at a time, at the size each person needs.
• It reads well on a phone, which a multi-page PDF rarely does.

In practice, keep the web page as the original and export a PDF when someone asks for one. Put the date in the file name, and put links inside to the page, the music and the video. When that PDF goes out of date, it does no harm: it always leads back to the current version.

Keeping it current

An outdated press kit does more harm than having none at all. The "new" album turns out to be three years old, the line-up no longer exists, the email goes to an inbox you stopped checking. A simple calendar is enough to avoid it.

1. After each important concertKeep photos and video, and note the venue for your track record.
2. With each review or interviewAdd the quote with its source and its link.
3. With each new album or projectChange the top line, the featured music and the short bio.
4. Once a seasonGo over photos, contacts, rider and dates, and remove what is no longer true.

Sharing it only with the right people

A press kit holds things you would rather not leave out in the open: your phone number, a rider with everything you ask for, sometimes terms or production details. It doesn't need to show up in search either. Whoever needs it gets it from you.

There are two usual ways to protect a page like this:

• By link. The page is not linked from anywhere and does not appear in search. Only people who have the address can open it, which makes it the easiest option for whoever receives it.
• With a password. Besides having the link, they have to type a password. This makes sense when what is inside is more sensitive, or when you send the link to many people.

Either way, if the link travels further than it should, you change it and the old one stops working.

Press kit

/press-kit

Who can open it

PublicBy linkPassword

••••••••

The page has a password.

Search engines never see it.

yourname.page.tjp.app/press-kit

This page is private. Enter the password you were given.

Password

Open the page

The email that goes with it

The press kit never travels alone. It goes inside a short email that says who you are, why you are writing to that person and what you propose. The email carries the message, and the press kit is a link inside it.

Look at what it leaves out: no heavy attachments, no bio pasted into the body, no list of twenty links.

The press kit in Pages

In Pages, the press kit is a private page of your site, built from the same blocks as the rest: music, videos, bio, press, dates, and a documents block for linking the rider or the PDF. You choose whether it opens by link or with a password. Search engines never see it, and you can change the link or the password whenever you like. Private pages come with the Pro plan, which includes three, and the Max plan, which includes ten.