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Life's A Pitch

For immediate release: the arts are marketable

Inspiration

February 25, 2009 by Amanda Ameer

You learn something new from other publicists every day. From here on out, I’m going to craft press releases with this in mind, from Gawker:

Our totally unsolicited press release of the day has arrived! “Hello, as Julie Henderson‘s
publicist, I’ve read some unflattering blogs calling her a ‘high
fallutin’ call girl’ and a ‘golddigger,'” it begins. There’s more!

Julie Henderson comes from a good family. Her grandfather Samuel
Henderson invented the Henderson grapefruit in the 1960’s and built an
empire in Texas . She has been modeling for the past 7 years and is an
accomplished Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue favorite appearing in
the issue 3 years in a row.

This arrived under the subject line “Further Clarification Regarding Russell Simmons and Julie Henderson.”

Think of how much attention a press release that started with, “I’ve read some unflattering blogs calling  __insert the most conservative male or female classical musician you can thing of’s name here___ a ‘high fallutin’ call girl’ and a ‘golddigger'” would get. And then we could go on to write the usual redundant praise phrases, so we still felt like we worked in classical music. A recent redundant favorite of mine from a release: “X artist is recognized worldwide for possessing a talent of uncommon ability and as an exceptionally gifted performer.”

Meanwhile, I wish one of my client’s grandfathers had invented the Henderson grapefruit. The Owens peach. The Lang strawberry?

Filed Under: Main

Amanda Ameer

is a publicist who started First Chair Promotion in July 2007. She currently represents Hilary Hahn, Gabriel Kahane, David Lang, Michael Gordon, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Sondra Radvanovsky, Julia Wolfe, Jean-Yves Thibaudet and Lawrence Brownlee. She thanks Chris Owyoung at One Louder Photo for taking the above photo very quickly and painlessly. Read More…

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