Offer HN: I'll research and write a free press release for you/your company
Hi HN,

Merry X-Mas.

I know a bit about PR and my interest in the field was recently re-awakened by this thread -

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1900352

So, I'm happy to take some time to write a press release for you, your startup, whatever. Free of charge. I'm not an expert, but I'm fairly skilled at marketing and writing, and I intend to apply myself diligently to this. Details -

What:

-I'll do a press release for you or your company.

-I'm going to spend 10-20 hours reading about press releases. I've already read two books on the topic a couple years ago, I learned a little from two PR people I knew, and I'm going to brush up on it again before starting.

-I'll spend whatever it takes to make yours look good. I'm thinking 2-3 hours for a release should be enough. In that time, I'll explore your positioning, what makes your company unique, try to figure out some good stories. Then I'll go and research the state of your industry/market/target customerbase and try to come up with some numbers and trends and stats. I'll pass this back and forth with you a couple times, and then you send it out.

Why:

1. For the hell of it.

2. No, really, this is the sort of thing I do instead of watching TV or playing games. I solve problems and hustle and help people make money. I'm pretty good at it, and I get kick out of it.

3. I want to learn more about PR. I'm likely to be doing some PR campaigns in 2-3 months, and I want some live fire practice beforehand. I don't have anything really noteworthy to launch right now on my own, so I'm pledging my blade to your cause.

4. I do my best work for other people on deadlines. I don't know why, but I hold external deadlines sacred and almost always meet them, whereas I kind of shrug off my internal deadlines far too often. I don't know why, can't explain it. But I do some of my best work when I'm accountable to other people. I think that'll serve as a good kick in the ass, I've been meaning to learn about this for a while.

5. The whole HN community has been awesome to me, and I like to give back a little bit when possible.

Who should sign on for this:

1. Business owner or operator of some kind of noteworthy project.

2. You know me and my general capabilities and the kind of work I do.

3. Alternatively, you don't know me, but you like my style and think, "Hey, this guy is kind of crazy, and what the heck, he's offering to do it for free. Worst-case scenario I burn a couple hours and throw his press release in the trash, best-case scenario I make friends/colleagues with this crazy bastard and whatever he cooks up makes some real money."

4. You have $80 to burn to send your release out on the wires. Like, you could set the money on fire and your life wouldn't be worse off. I think we'll be able to get it right, but I'm not making promises here. If you have employees, sign up. If you've ever bought print media, sign up. If you've bought Google Adwords, sign up. If you've never spent money on any kind of marketing/hiring/expansion ever, you probably shouldn't sign up. I mean, you can, but I'm really not making promises here. If you're on a ramen budget, maybe you don't want to burn two weeks of ramen to send a press release out that might not work.

I'm thinking I'll do five of these for people?

Contact info in my profile, email me. Merry Christmas! :)