Join Me for a Spring Pitch Challenge!
Can you hit 60 this month?
Happy Tuesday, Substackers! It’s the beginning of a new month, which means I’ve laid out some fresh goals for myself over the next four weeks.
My writing-related goals this month:
Get a pitch accepted by a top-tier publication I’ve worked with in the past.
Get a pitch accepted by a top-tier publication I’ve never worked with before.
Get a pitch accepted by a new-to-me publication.
Get a pitch accepted by a publication I’ve worked with in the past.
THE BIG ONE: Send 60 pitches out in the month of April.
My average pitch acceptance rate is between 30% and 40% for cold (first-time) pitches. I think it’s a bit higher for editors I’ve worked with before that know they can expect organized, quality, and timely work from me.
If I send 60 pitches this month and have a 30% acceptance rate, that results in almost 20 new assignments for me. This doesn’t count the work I’m doing that is already regularly assigned to me.
If getting 20 assignments accepted sounds scary, consider that it typically takes a couple of weeks to hear back from an editor and after your idea is accepted, you’ll still have a month or more to write and submit your story, so you should be able to space out your deadlines and workload.
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You can also try to look at this from an income perspective—I know I can rely on a certain amount of income from my regular gigs every month, and additional assignments are either icing on the cake or required to make up the income I need to make ends meet. It’s important in freelancing to fill that pipeline since payments often take time to go through, so between pitching, acceptance, writing and submitting, and being paid, it takes a few months.
If I’m aiming to send 60 pitches this month, that’s 15 pitches a week or three pitches a day during a five-day work week. (If I want to take a day off, I’d make that four pitches a day.)
I’m thinking of this like a Pitching Bootcamp. It will be an intense month, but then I’ll be able to scale back and maintain a more comfortable and reasonable pitching level for me (something more like 20 pitches a month).
I’ll be honest—there have been many, many months where I haven’t pitched at all. Sometimes because I’ve had enough reliable and regular work, but often times just not getting it done, being disorganized, being burned out and uninspired, having imposter syndrome and avoiding pitching because I am sure my ideas will be rejected and it seems like too much work for no results.
Along with that have been periods of not having enough work coming in, of feeling like every idea I write gets rejected, of occasionally being totally ghosted by an editor, of feeling like I have no good ideas, of being totally broke, and of not having enough to do.
I plan to turn all of that around this month! Will you join me? Leave a comment to tell me if you’re IN to submit 60 pitches in the month of April. At the end of the month (and at the end of May) we can share our results!
Have a great and productive week!
All the best,
Rebecca
Do you have a pitch that needs a little oomph? Send it to me — the PITCH WITCH!
Paid subscribers can send me up to three pitches they’re working on that they think would benefit from my feedback. I’ll work my magic on it, give constructive edits and make the pitch better—and more likely to get accepted.
To read all the details of how to send me your ideas for PITCH WITCH, read this post.
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Did You Catch Me On The Media in Minutes Podcast?
Earlier this month, I was a guest on the Media in Minutes podcast hosted by Angela Tuell. We talked about how I got into freelance writing, how PR professionals can best work with writers, how to become a successful freelance writing, and my coaching sessions.
Check it out on the Media in Minutes site or on Spotify (below)
Wow! That's a lot of pitches. Hope you reach your goal for this month: )