Turning A Press Kit Into An EPK

Every artist needs a press kit, and while most are familiar with the major parts (bio, pictures, discography, upcoming gigs, fact sheet, press clippings, etc.), you set off into a different realm when you go to the next level - the electronic press kit, or EPK.

In the old days a press kit was all hard copy that you'd have to send in the mail or deliver personally, but today your kit can be delivered either via your website, in an email via a PDF, or even on a CD or DVD. That said, you can take your press kit to the next level and truly make it an EPK with some powerful additions that are outlined in one of my books, The Musician's Video Handbook. This covers how to create all the different types of videos that an artist or band might need, and there's an entire chapter dedicated just to EPKs. Here's a brief excerpt regarding of some useful additional EPK elements that you can add.
---------------------------------------
"An EPK is just a press kit in electronic form. All of the above documents (bio, press clippings, etc.) should be made available in PDF, Word or RTF files that can be placed either on a disc or a flash drive or made downloadable online. You can also consolidate them all into a single file if it’s not too long (more than 10 pages or so) and the individual details are easy to access. Here’s what should also be included:

Videos - You need multiple types of videos - interview elements with the artist or entire band, and if it’s a band, individual interviews as well (we’ll cover how to make these in a bit), your most recent music videos, any music video that you consider a “hit”, and a clip of a song from a show. It’s best to make two versions available - one with smaller web-ready files (we’ll go over how to do this in chapter 12), and if you’re an act that’s breaking nationally, another version that’s available in hi-res via FTP download.

Music - Your songs can probably be found online already, but make it easy for whomever is reading the kit by adding links to effortlessly find them. If you’re sending a hard-copy kit, include a CD of your latest releases, and a song or two from any previous releases as well. If you’ve done music for commercials or a soundtrack for a movie or television, include that as well but be sure that you have the right to do so before you include it.

Links to Interviews - If your EPK is on the web, include any links to interviews that you might have done, either audio, video or just text. This leaves it up to the discretion of the reader of the kit just how much she wants to listen to or read, and also keeps your kit lean.

Web-Ready Graphics and Banners - Be sure to include any graphic you might have of promo material or swag, including adverts, T-shirts graphics and the like.

Web Links - If the EPK is online but not on your site, or you’re delivering a hard copy kit, but sure to include a link to your website, as well as links to any social media presence that you have on the web such as Facebook fan page, Google+ page, blog, Twitter, Reverb Nation, etc.

Fan Endorsements - If you have rabid fans that do crazy things like paint themselves up with your logos, get tatoos of your likeness on their backs, or are just super enthusiastic, that could make for an interesting clip. Just make sure that the fans (3 or 4 is all you need) are completely enthusiastic and really special or this element isn’t worth pursuing."


You can read additional excerpts from this book and others at bobbyowsinski.com.

-----------------------------------

Help support this blog. Any purchases made through our Amazon links help support this website with no cost to you.

You should follow me on Twitter for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

Check out my Big Picture blog for discussion on common music, engineering and production tips and tricks.