I'm actually pretty impressed by the ReverbNation set up; they have a lot of useful tools on top of the actual press pack type stuff.
I used to be a music reviewer so I've seen loads of press packs, the Wiki page pretty much sums them up. Oddly enough, it's something unsigned/small bands seem do much better than the big names - Motley Crue's one for their last album was terrible and full of spelling mistakes etc.
The thing to remember is they should be brief, simple and to the point, because basically anyone that reads it will be a lazy cunt - they want big snappy facts about your band, not your entire life story. I got one from a band called ASVA which was literally an entire side of A4, written by a journalist friend of the band, explaining the events that had influenced the writing - and as interesting as that may be, it's all fairly irrelevant to anyone listening to the music
critically rather than
emotionally.
The other thing to remember is it's probably going to be your first impression on the people that see it - they'll starting reading before the songs have started playing - so make it a good one. Think of it like a job interview: don't make jokes, don't just list things about the band; make it look like you're a professional outfit. If your spelling/punctuation/grammar sucks, get it checked over by someone. Hell, get them to write it if they've got a way with words.
As an example, with the link ^up there^, I don't know if English is your first language, but there are a couple of grammatical mistakes in your bio, and I'd say the list of influences isn't very clear either. Also, the fact you've got "
vokills" makes me want to gouge your eyes out with my bleeding, recently-sand-papered-and-freshly-salted cock, but that's just a personal thing.
Most of them seem to be third person ("
the band" and "
they" rather than first person, which would be "
we"), though that's presumably because they've been written by someone at the label - writing it first person makes it seem more personal to me, like you've taken the effort to write this stuff rather than having someone else just look up your MySpace page and bullshit about you.
Steve
