Eons ago i was listening to a Jason Calacanis podcast and he gave an amazing insight: You should always do your own PR. At first I thought this was unfair as Jason is a genius at self promotion which is a gift few geeks have, but then he spelled out his technique which I actually wrote down:
1. Make friends in the press BEFORE you pitch
2. Is your story better than anything on techmeme?
3. ...then look for writers in your space
4. Leave a smart comment on a story (i.e. linkbait)
5. Do a blog to linkbait (take your comment and blow it up to a post) this is because journalists obsess over the comments
6. ...do the same with twitter
7. Learn from cluetrain manefesto, it's about a conversation
8. Journalists hate PR people
9. Obsess about your market, know EVERYTHING about your space with anything less is more (don't do a long press release), use a casual tone and just write 5 words (i.e. a ping mail)