At some point, I really need to get around to writing a little book about how app and game devs can boost their chances of press coverage. But earlier today, I wrote a Twitter thread instead (which is just like a tiny book, right?) and so I figured I’d ‘reprint’ the tips here.

1. Tell me about your app. Seems obvious, right? But many app/game devs never contact the press. That makes it harder for us to find your amazing work!

2. Have a press kit. Said kit should outline what your app does, what its main points of interest are, and, if relevant, how it differentiates itself. Have the kit online or send it via email. Up to you. If emailing, ALWAYS include app store links.

3. Provide a promo code. You don’t necessarily need to send this right away, but at least offer a code and please be responsive when asked for one. Also: don’t send me ten of the things. They’ll just go to waste. One is fine!

4. Have images readily available. I reckon about 75% of devs do not have suitable images for press that journos can quickly access. If I have to quickly make a choice between two apps of equal quality, I’m going to go with the one that didn’t make my job harder.

On images, do not put them in a device frame—or at least provide unframed versions. What I need is several shots of your app at its best, in uncompressed PNG. Also: provide shots across all platforms (Android, iPhone, iPad, watchOS, etc.), not just one.

You might want to get clever with captions and shots of your app comped on to multiple devices. Or lifestyle shots. Or crops of a bit of the screen. Sure. But offer full-screen grabs too, or I cannot feature your app in most publications I write for.

5. Get a video on YouTube. This one isn’t mandatory—but video can be useful to embed into online articles and some publications require videos for mobile games (not apps). If one doesn’t exist, I might make one, but your game would have to be bloody great for me to do that.

6. NEVER offer money. OK, so most of you wouldn’t think of doing this anyway, but I am getting a lot of “how much would it cost to add our thing to your list” emails these days. No writer of any integrity will accept money for coverage. Ever. Do that with me and I will blacklist you.

7. Don’t be afraid. So you’re a tiny one-person indie? Great. I love tiny one-person indies! I feature stuff by them all the time! I wasn’t keen on something you previously made? OK, but I might like what you did this time. Worst case: I don’t feature your app. But if I like it, I will.

Other journos might have different thinking regarding some of the points I’ve mentioned here, but I’ll bet the majority of them are broadly universal in nature. As one dev put it when responding to my Twitter thread: “Main takeaway: make it easy for someone to cover you by giving them all the tools they need to do so.” That’s it exactly.

And good luck! Creating apps/games is tough. But many of you really are doing great things.