http://pr.cannazine.co.uk : Welcome to the worlds first (and only) dedicated cannabis/hemp news agency.

Welcome to the PR.CannaZine press release portal. Since its inception at the end of 2007 we were, and still are today in 2009, the only Google News partner which specialises in cannabis/hemp related news and material.

If you would like to take advantage of what is a fantastic publicity and awareness tool, we have just a few rules, which are listed below.

To minimise the disappointment of not seeing your material published to Google News, please familiarise yourself with them, paying special attention to how your news is constructed.

With a concerted program of press releases, its possible to take your blog or website into the top league with consumate ease, so please read on below, sign up to the CannaZine press portal, and we'll do the rest.

As always, use of the CannaZine news portal is free of charge. 

BUT, if you would like to ensure your success, which includes publishing your news to your exacting time-table, and regardless of your time-zone or geographical location, you can pay £9.99 per press release, (about $15 US), which will see us working closely to ensure your press achieves what it was written to achieve, taking the word "failure" right out of the equation.

More "evolution" than revolution. CannaZine cannabis news is giving the global cannabis community a voice for the first time in history.

Now, its just down to you guys to use it.-)

Here come the rules;

What is PR.Canna Zine?
Its a website dedicated to publishing press releases and assorted editorial copy which is related to the global issues surrounding cannabis and hemp. Run by journalists with 15 years "traditional" press experience, we understand what makes a great story.

What does that mean exactly?
All of the news you will read on the web, such as on Google news, or MSN, has previously been released through specialist news agencies.

Sometimes called news wires, or just "the wires" these agencies distribute news stories from large and small organizations alike, and present them in a nice, easy to consume manner, so the worlds press can check out the hot stories of the day quickly, and conveniently.

Commercial news harvesters such as Google news, use a selection of these agencies (around 25000 at last count - but only one which specialises in cannabis news), and spider or "index" those news sites many times a day, displaying the results, as search results for the google surfers using the news service.

So when you search google news for the term "cannabis" (for instance), hopefully a cannazine sourced story won't be too far off the front page.

How long has the CannaZine operated in this field?
We set up the original CannaZine news portal in February 2007. In December 2007 the Canna Zine became a bona-fide Google news source in its own right, offering a louder "voice" to a demographic which quite literally, numbers millions around the world. About 230 million, to be exact.

Can anyone use PR.Canna Zine?
Yes they can.

Even with non-cannabis specific news releases?
Indeed!

How much does it cost?
To place a press release on the PR.Canna Zine website, is free of charge, but does require a membership. Which is also free.

Do you have an editorial policy?
Yes we do. News comes in many different guises, and is produced in a number of set formats, ie. hard news, soft news, publicity release etc and as such any material published on PR.Canna Zine must fit into a recognizable category, and be "constructed" accordingly.

There are many places across the net, which will give you the important points to bear in mind when constructing your press release.The 5 W's is a great place to start.

Rest assured any time spent getting this part right, will see a massive increase in your material appearing in the major news engines.

Can I post a press release which includes a video clip?
Sure you can so long as its originally either a YouTube! or Google Video originated clip.

Its very easy to do. Once you have written your PR.CannaZine press release, simply insert the view address within the text where you would like to display the clip, and we will insert some code once the press release is presented to us for editing and publishing.

When the press release goes out on PR.CannaZine, the video will be in place. As we are trying to keep PR.CannaZine only for original content, try to make sure a video is not already posted on google news, before you submit it as we won't submit a press release which we need to remove clips from. We simply don't have the time. Sorry!

I posted my press release. So what happens next?
Once your press release is posted it appears in a "press queue" within a secure area of the website, and soon afterwards it will be manually reviewed by one of our news editors, and either passed for submission, or deleted as unsuitable.

If passed, it appears on the PR.Canna Zine website soon afterwards, and also the Canna Zine news portal , which serves a secondary purpose as a great many websites carry an "aggragated" news feed from the Canna Zine, so your news will also be displayed on those sites too.

Can you tell me which sites regularly syndicate CannaZine material?
Sure thing. We regularly see our material appearing on globally renowned websites such as jackherer.com , hightimes.com , marijuana.com , cannabis.com , 420.com , stopthedrugwar.org as well as a geat many more we could mention.

Who uses PR.CannaZine?
Anyone and everyone, but some of the more prominent users include the Legalise Cannabis Alliance and the Marijuana Policy Project , to name but two.

My press was rejected. What now?
A press release can be rejected for a number of reasons. Unfortunately we don't have time to edit every piece of press we receive but a couple of points worth bearing in mind are as follows;

    * It just takes a few moments to run your press through a spell-checker. You would be surprised at the amount of common spelling mistakes which can stop a press release from being published so this is always the first thing to check.
    * Its a common misconception that titles need to be ALL IN CAPITOL LETTERS. Maybe "back in the day" but not anymore. Just use normal capitolization throughout.
    * Try not to make your press release sound like a flag waving exercise for your company. Its not called "news"for nothing. Don't worry about banging the company drum within the "body" of the article, as there's room for that later in the "boilerplate".
    * Anything that comes after the final three hash's (###), which denotes the end of a press release, will not be published. Period.

If like, writing "press" isn't really my thing, can you write a press release for me?
Yes we can. From a single press release to a full on "brand awareness" campaign. Drop us a line via the "Contact Us " form, with an outline of what it is you have in mind, and a news editor will get right back to you.