I have been a freelance magazine writer for 20 years and was the managing editor at a Victoria BC magazine for five. I am offering this insider information about how to be a successful freelance writer to help struggling writers everywhere.  And I am doing it to help beleaguered editors receive higher quality pitches from writers with more skill and less ego.

Part Two: The Art of the Pitch

Editors want the classic three to four paragraph pitch. It is not because we are stodgy old farts, it is because we don’t know you and we are taking a HUGE risk if we assign to a writer we don’t know. We are keeping two to three pages of our precious magazine open for someone who must be able to come through with a story that is accurate, well-researched, well-written and right for our magazine. If we make a mistake and back the wrong writer with the wrong idea, we are hooped. We don’t have a lot of inventory. The better the pitch, the more confident we feel about taking a risk.

How to write a winning pitch

1. Open with how it might open in our mag. (This shows us you know our style and what will fly in our pages.)

2. The second paragraph details what the story is all about— what it will cover, who it will interview and what style it will be ( profile, investigative feature) (This tells us you have a good handle on the subject matter and have a general workable approach for the story.) Be succinct: make it visual, so we can “see” the characters, the place, the scene.

3. The third paragraph tell us why the story is right for the magazine and its readers. Why our audience? Why now? Why do we care? (This tells us you know our audience and why they will read this.) Ask yourself, would you read it?

4. The fourth paragraph tells us why you are the person to write it. Summarize your experience, give us a brief précis of your CV or expertise, your publishing track record, your clips. If you haven’t yet got a magazine track record, still let us why you are a good risk for this story. (This tells us we can rely on you to come through with the story, that you are a good risk for us and we are not going to be left with a gaping hole in our magazine or a piece of dreck.)

How to send the pitch

Send the pitch as an email, with “Pitch” and a short description in the subject line (e.g Pitch -- Profile of Joe Smith.) Put the four paragraph pitch both in the body of the email and as an attachment in a Word document. Some editors want it in the email, some as an attachment. Give it to them both ways. (Or better yet, give it to them the way they have asked for it on their website or in The Writer's Market.)

 One pitch per email. Sometimes writers pile in three or four pitches in one email. Editors need to file pitches into the best months or by priorities (we are not going to assign three stories to one writer in one month. That is too many eggs in one risky basket.) Or we like two and hate two, so we want to kill off the two we hate and file the two we like. So keep them separate. You may make three pitches at once, but keep them all in separate emails so the editor can read and decide quickly and file accordingly.

How to follow up

It is important to follow up on a pitch, but do it in a way that does not piss the editor off. Here are a few tips:

• Follow up nicely in about two weeks: Editors are very busy. In the monthly publishing cycle we can be dealing with any number of fires. If I have been so busy not to have read and filed your pitch, it can get buried under emails. (An editor can get 200+ emails a day.) If I don’t know your name, if you didn’t put pitch in the subject line, I may never find it again. If you don’t hear, it may be that the editor has not rejected it, or even read it, but has no way to find it in the huge volume of material we get. Email and say: “About 2 weeks ago, I sent you this pitch (and send the pitch again) and I wondered if you had time to consider it. Let me know if there is anything more you need.” Be nice!! Be understanding, be patient, but be persistent. We like persistence. It is a good quality in a journalist.

• If they get back to you and reject the pitch, thank them for their consideration, ask if there was anything that you could have done to make it better, and very soon (a week or two) send another completely different pitch. (Don’t keep pitching a story that was rejected, unless you have a different angle or are fixing up and presenting more of what they said they needed.)

• If you don’t hear, or they don’t outright reject the pitch, follow up a month later – freshen the pitch if new information has come in (the interview subject is up for an award, a new book will be released.)

• And follow up again. Even write something on spec to show your talents. (But be damn sure it is good.) A bad spec article will close doors. A good one will open doors. If you think they are not giving you a chance and you really can do it, show us you can. But make it fantastic. No factual errors, no name errors, no typos, make it a story we can see in our magazine.

•  Pleasant persistence will eventually be rewarded because it shows you are dogged and we want that in a writer.  So we will finally give in and take a chance on you, if not on one of your ideas, on one that we have kicking around that we are looking for someone to do. For writers new to us it will likely be a brief.

• Do not pitch the same story to another magazine in the same market at the same time. This will seriously harm, if not destroy, your reputation. If you want to take it elsewhere and the editor has not yet responded, ask (nicely!) whether they have decided so that the idea can be released. This will often make the editor decide. Do not say that you have another magazine interested in the idea as that will tell us you sent the idea to another magazine while we were considering it. That is very bad form.

• If your story is rejected, do not take it personally, Many reasons keep editors from buying stories, including a lack of money to do so, lack of space in the magazine. The story is not your baby and it may not be fantastic just because you wrote it. At all times in this process, “get over yourself.”

Next up, Part Three: Writing the story.

I have been a freelance magazine writer for 20 years and was the managing editor at a Victoria BC magazine for five. I am offering this insider information about how to be a successful freelance writer to help struggling writers everywhere.  And I am doing it to help beleaguered editors receive higher quality pitches from writers with more skill and less ego.

Part One: Before you pitch

Study the magazine

• Get as many back copies as you can. Read the departments, note how many features they have, see which ones have regular designated writers, which ones seem open to freelancers. What is the tone, the timing, the balance of articles?
• Check out the magazine's website. Writers’ guidelines or back copies are often posted on their site. Books like The Writers Market also detail the magazine's requirements and pitch processes. The Writer's Market  is also online now for a subscription fee. See writersmarket.com
• Check the masthead and find out which person is the assigning editor, but these days it may just be the editor in chief or managing editor. If you have not found pitch information on the magazine's website or in The Writer's Market...email that editor for writers’ guidelines and pitch cycles – but keep email short and to the point and don’t send your resume yet. The editors only want to know about you if you have a story to pitch.  Just ask about how to pitch to the magazine and what sort of pitches the editor is looking for, how and when the editor would like to get them. (After you have made sure that info is NOT on the website.) Some editors take pitches monthly, some quarterly, some just annually. Ask if they will consider spec submissions. Find out how far in advance you need to pitch for seasonal stories. It could be six months to a year ahead.
• Try to go back at least two to three years. Libraries will often have back copies. You do not want to pitch an idea they have already done. You will be forgiven if it was more than 18 months ago, but if it was within the last year, we know you have not looked at our magazine. We will frown and be disappointed with you. If it is an idea that we already have in the hopper but not yet published we will think you are prescient and in tune with our needs.
• Who is the magazine's audience, the demographic? Then think about all the ways to interest them that fall within that audience. Magazines differ from newspapers: this kind of writing must not only be newsy, it must also be a pleasant experience for the reader to take the time to read it. Magazines are also a visual medium. What will your story look like illustrated, or with photos and/or graphics?

Come up with a great idea

Do your research to know that there really is a good story there that you can bring to life for that magazine's audience. Some don’ts:

• Don’t pitch a profile of some big celebrity if you have no idea whether the celebrity will consent. Don’t pitch an insider scoop on some industry, if you have not yet established insider status.
• Don’t pitch a topic. Pitch a theme and an angle. Be FOCUSED. Zero in on some new aspect of a story.
• Don’t pitch a story geared for parents of young children when your research shows the magazine demographic is 35+; or don’t pitch how to find deals at Value Village or stretch the food dollar when the magazine is aimed at the affluent reader. Don’t pitch a 3,000 word feature when the magazine’s longest feature is 1,500 words.
• Don’t pitch a whole new section of the magazine, or a series of articles (when the mag doesn’t do series) or that you write a new column. The magazine is not going to remake itself for you no matter how great the idea!! Mags have templates and structures. Pitch within the structure — different enough that we haven’t yet done it, but not so different that we can’t imagine doing it. Once we know and love you and we will do anything for you, then you can pitch the column, series or new section…
• Don’t pitch a story with a short time line. If you have done your research in point one, you will know how far in advance the magazine plans stories. Most national magazines work six to eight months ahead at least.  Local or city magazines work four to five months in advance.
•  But if you have a seasonal story that can be done now, that will stand up for publication a year from now do pitch it. Say: we can get colour, details and pictures right now and let us know why the story will stand up for a year. That is thinking ahead! We love that.
•  Don’t pitch the predictable. See things that others don’t see. Take a new angle. Find the hidden story. Tell us something about the region we cover that we have never heard before, something that is sitting there under our noses that we have never thought about.
• Don’t forget to talk about what kind of art might work, and let us know if you can take pictures. Most magazines will assign photographers, but some want research photos to help plan layout or to get photos in a pinch.

For new writers wanting to break in, the best “starter” articles are short briefs or quirky "evergreen” stories that can run anytime. Editors always need a few flex stories – stories that we can drop in if we suddenly get more pages or if another assigned story falls apart. If it is an evergreen we can take time to work with a new writer to polish it to get it right rather than assign a story with a strict time frame or seasonality that makes it unusable if it doesn’t run in that month.

Next up: The Art of the Pitch.