writing to pc magazines

[gnznroses]

i'd like to email a few PC magazines and tell em about my software. i went to the websites of several magazines, and many encourage you to email the editors about your software. in what form should i write my email? at least one website mentioned sending a press release. so i'm just wondering how you all think i should start off the email and generally how to do it. i've written before but never got anything out of it (i've been contacted BY a magazine before tho)

some of the websites simply tell you to email the editors, and then go on to list a half dozen editors' email addrersses. i don't plan on sending emails to all of them, but i guess it'd be ok to email a couple of them.

[Harsh Gupta]

Search their site for similar articles and learn how they want you to compose. You would probably need to add about your software, some description, pros & cons etc., you could visit Download.com and see how companies / people describe their work.

[gnznroses]

thanks for the reply.
i have a description of the software ready, same one i use on my website and on shareware sites (not sure but i still may be listed on download.com myself. they started charging for it tho si i dunno). i just dunno if i send them just the description or if i write it as i would a normal letter, with an introduction before i start plugging the software. and i'm not sure if i should send it in html, with screenshots, or what.

[Hack]

some of the websites simply tell you to email the editors, and then go on to list a half dozen editors' email addrersses. i don't plan on sending emails to all of them,

Why not?

[gnznroses]

i dunno. just thought they might not like that. kinda spammish. but then again maybe it wouldn't matter.

[Al42]

Email the editor and ask for a press kit. That'll tell you exactly how they want a press release formatted. They also have written guidelines for articles, if you're going to write the program up as an article (usually only for open source - you show the source in the article, or they make it available for download from their site).