While we are constantly out looking for new products and projects to share with the readers of Green Builder magazine, we can’t be everywhere. We depend on the industry to alert us when they roll out innovative products or new processes. Lately we’ve found that with the surge of interest in green, our email in-boxes are getting bogged down with information that really isn’t relevant to our readers. So before you send a product to us to consider for publication, ask yourself a few simple questions and make sure the answers are in your release:
- Is it more durable than your typical competitors’ products?
- Does it require less maintenance?
- Does it save energy?
- Does it require less resource extraction than comperable products?
- Is there a plan for the end of life of this product?
- Is it recycled and recyclable?
- Is the transportation footprint lighter than competing materials and products?
PHOTOGRAPHY AND ILLUSTRATIONS
Our prefered way to receive information is via email with photos attached. We generally don’t like faxes or snail mail unless there is a compelling reason for you to send it in those formats. Follow these general guidelines:
- Images that are 266 dpi will print at the highest quality. Usually an image at that resolution only needs to be 5 inches.
- Save images as jpg or tiff, and keep the total size of the photos you send under 8 MB so you can send them in one email.
- Another option we like a lot is use of yousendit.com. But remember to send small preview images with email so we can see the photos before we download them. And leave us a decent amount of time to download them (say, a month).
Including good quality graphics such as the one above greatly increase your chances of making the pages of Green Builder. Even better would be this same image with pullout captions identifying various features, especially if those captions are located on a separate text layer in a Photoshop or Illustrator document.
Here’s a handy dos and don’ts list that will further increase your chances for getting your company’s information in print and online stories:
DOs
- Attach photos but keep total email size to under 8MB.
- Keep the release short and attach contacts for someone is not an employee of company third party contacts to help us expedite interviews.
- Make sure case studies of retrofit and new construction include photos and that show the product mentioned. If you have them, send both in-progress and completed photos.
- We are most interested in products that are made out of recycled materials and are recyclable—not products that are just recyclable. If you cite a product’s recycled content as one of its green features, make sure you are specific. For example, if you say your decking product has recycled content, let us know whether it is HDPE or PVC.
- Include illustrations. We are always looking for informational graphics that explain how a product works. Above, the house illustration by Daikin is an example of a great information graphic. If you’ve produced something like this in house and you can provide a photoshop version, your information is more likely to get published.
DON'Ts
- Don’t send in-house company notices about promotions or plant improvements unless these topics directly result in an end product or process that’s greener.
- Don’t send notices about commercial type products that are not available for residential construction. We don’t currently cover schools and office buildings.
- Don’t send notices about the fact that you are now in compliance with regulations that already exist. We are more interested in news about how you have gone above and beyond the current regs.
- Don’t send news about the adoption of a sustainability statement or mission for your company. Simply writing a sustainability statement is not newsworthy, because there's no evidence of follow-through. However, if you have measurable success to report after you have adopted a sustainability statement, that’s news!
Cheers--M. Power
Posted: 4/21/2011 8:12:53 AM by
Matt Power | with 0 comments