The secret to massive press (and I've gotten a lot of it): be really, really interesting - Guy Kawasaki's version is "if you're not getting press, get better reality" - and then convince just two influential bloggers. Media cascades: each outlet watches the next. For print, focus on freelancers rather than staff writers, because freelancers have to find and pitch their own stories, so become a cause a freelancer would personally care about.

For Magnatune, the cascade ran Creative Commons and Boing Boing → The Inquirer → Fark → Slashdot → USA Today / NPR → the New York Times → the BBC, Le Monde, Die Zeit and Nikkei. My elevator pitch was simply "We are not evil." BookMooch's was "Give a book away for free, and you can ask someone to send you a book for free."

The whole point: don't borrow money - because if you fail, you can just start again next week.