Make the most of a media kit
JK Rowling has one. Lee Child has one. You should have one too. Simon Whaley explains what to put in your media kit.
Simon Whaley
THE BUSINESS OF WRITING
Eric James is a children’s author, word tickler and champion asparagus thrower. He’s sold over 2.5 million books in the UK, USA, Canada and Australia. How do I know all of this? Because he’s put all this information, and more, in his media kit on his website (www.ericjames.co.uk).
When it comes to the business of writing, we need to make life easy for anyone who might promote us to a wider readership. Perhaps you’ve had an article published and the editor is looking for a short biography and head-and-shoulders photo of you to use in the ‘this month’s contributors’ slot. Or a journalist may have heard, via a press release, that you have a new book coming out, and they’ve got a thirty-minute deadline to write a short feature about you. Where can they find all they need to know about you and your writing?
This is where a media kit comes in. It gives any prospective journalist or public relations officer all the relevant and pertinent information about you and your work that they need. Include the right information and it will earn its keep many times over. So what should your media kit contain?
All about you
Firstly, it’s worth bearing in mind that a media kit is designed to help journalists and the media sector. It’s not written for your readers. So even if you have an About Me page on your website, where you reveal to your readers why you write, where you take your dog for a walk, who your favourite English teacher was at school and where you get your inspiration from, you still need to have a separate webpage to act as your media kit.