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Press release word count

A working press release is 400–600 words: headline, dek, first paragraph with the news, quote, boilerplate. Longer is a blog post.

Inverted pyramid

Sentence one: what happened, who, when. Sentence two: why it matters. Quotes after the facts. Boilerplate last. If the Word Counter shows 900 words, you are writing a feature.

Headline length

Keep the headline under ~70–90 characters so it survives email subject lines. Count the headline in the Character Counter separately from the body word count.

Steps

  1. Write the news in two sentences.
  2. Add one quote and boilerplate.
  3. Count words; stop around 400–600.

Frequently asked questions

Open the Word Counter

The guide is the rule. The tool does the count. No account.

More short guides: all Wordnio guides.