PR: What Not to Do: Announcing Non-News

Many publishers have glommed onto the fact that if you send out enough press releases, some sites will run them, and you will get easy coverage. Unfortunately, the result is that some companies send out PR announcing complete non-news. For example:

Masterpiece Comics places original series, Fireblast, with industry leader, Diamond Comics Distributors, Inc.

Masterpiece Comics announced today that its full-color, ongoing series, Fireblast, will be carried and distributed in the English-language world market by Diamond Comics Distributors, Inc., the world’s largest comic book distributor. The title, which originally appeared as an on-line comic, will launch in print in November of this year. Diamond will begin listing Fireblast in September in Previews, the industry standard order catalogue used by retailers and individual consumers alike.

“This is a huge step forward for a young company like ours,” says Ace Masters, owner and publisher of Masterpiece Comics, a division of the independent entertainment company Rebel Dawn Creative Forces, based in Glendale, AZ. “It gives us greater credibility and gives us a shot at playing the game at a whole new level.”

Credibility that you’ve just destroyed by trying to make “we got listed in Previews” newsworthy. That’s not news, that’s just the most basic step to printing and selling comics. Although there was talk about Diamond cutting publishers a while back, it’s not very hard at all to get a new book listed there. What matters is what you do once you’re in there, like getting promotional material out to retailers and end customers.

Simply being in the catalog isn’t enough, because there are way too many pages full of generic-looking comics that think “if we’re listed, they will order us.” And based on their website, this is one of those generic-looking comics. Nothing stands out, nothing seems interesting or creative.