Submit your story
One form, no tiers, and a person reads every submission. Most are still declined — nearly always because what arrived was a description of a company rather than an account of something that happened.
The desk turns down more submissions than it runs, and the reason is almost always the same one. A founder sends a profile — what we do, who we are, why we are excited about it — when what a newspaper can print is an event: something that happened, to somebody, with a number attached.
You may well have a company that is about to matter enormously. That is not, by itself, a story. Tell the desk why it matters and it becomes one — and that is a writing problem, not a business problem, which means it is fixable in an afternoon.
The four questions a story has to answer
Answer these four and you have a story worth reading. Miss them and the submission will probably be declined, however good the company is.
- Why does it matter?If the company closed tonight, who would feel the gap by Friday? Name them. A story with no stakes is an advertisement, and the desk can tell within a sentence.
- Who does it affect?One real person, not a market. The warehouse manager who stopped counting stock on Sundays — not “small businesses across the UK”.
- How do you actually do it?The mechanism, in plain words: the thing you do that a competitor does not, and what it cost to build. This is the part most submissions leave out and the part an editor wants most.
- What makes it new?The part nobody has written before — the number that surprises, the decision that looks wrong until you explain it, the thing you tried that everyone said would fail.
The same startup, submitted twice
“Northwind is an innovative logistics platform on a mission to democratise supply-chain technology for small businesses. Founded in 2024 by a passionate team, we are excited to announce our latest product.”
Nothing happened, nobody is named, and there is not one number. Every sentence would still be true of a hundred other companies.
“Northwind moved 4,000 pallets last year with nine staff and no warehouse of its own. It rents depot space by the hour from supermarkets whose buildings stand empty overnight, which cut its customers’ storage bills by about a third. Two of the four chains it approached said yes. The founder’s own figures show £180,000 of storage billed since March.”
Something happened, the mechanism is explained, the numbers can be checked, and no other company could have sent it.
Two ways to arrive with a real story
If the four questions are hard to answer in your own words, do not guess at them in the box below. Either of these will get you further, and both cost nothing.
PressWhisper’s press-kit builder walks you through the same questions in order — why you exist, how you do it, who it is for, what the proof is — and hands you a finished kit. Copy what you need into the form below, and keep the kit: it is a live page you can send to any journalist, or share on LinkedIn.
How To Get Press is a four-page manual on writing a submission a desk will actually read. It is shorter than this page. If you have ten minutes before you fill the form in, spend them there rather than here.