Greetings, Substackers! I hope you’re having a great and productive week!
In my last post, I encouraged you to not feel discouraged if you get a pass on a story idea you send to an editor but rather to send it elsewhere until it finds a home. Now I want to tell you exactly how to rework your pitches.
So often, we spend our valuable time and energy on pitches only to get a “sorry, but this isn’t a fit for us” reply (or no reply at all). I’d guess that about two-thirds of my pitches meet this fate (though some will get picked up after a follow up). But instead of letting them languish in a “rejected once” pile, I’ve started reworking my ideas to find them homes.
Side note—if you hear back from an editor and get a rejection, you can reply immediately with an email thanking them for considering your idea, including a fresh idea you think could be a fit (this has worked for me numerous times), and/or a request for their upcoming editorial needs/editorial calendar and let them know you’re available for assigned stories, too.
Please Share This Newsletter With Your Colleagues!
If you enjoy reading, please share Breaking Into Freelance Writing with your fellow freelancers or others you think might find it interesting!
The time you put into finding a home for your story is just as significant as the time you put into crafting a pitch! It may take time, but if you send it out to enough outlets, chances are, it will find a place.
Now, while it’s important to familiarize yourself with a publication’s tone and the type of stories they run, most pitches aren’t so dialed in that they can’t be pitched someplace else. We spend so much time tailoring our pitches to a specific publication and digging into every vertical and column they publish to get our pitches “perfect” enough to be accepted. But the idea of a pitch is that it’s a short blurb that intrigues your editor and piques their interest to learn more, to ask questions, and visualize where and how the story might fit into their editorial content. Don’t kill yourself trying to make your pitch so tailor made.
I promise, if the first publication you pitch doesn’t accept your idea, there is another publication that will be a fit for your idea. There are literally hundreds of publications out there and many of them have a similar thread of content—think genre rather than the specific niche the magazine covers.
I know it can be intimidating to pitch a publication—even one you’ve worked with before, get your idea rejected, then turn around and pitch the idea elsewhere, but more often than not, it will find a home—this is something that has played out for me over and over.
Let’s be real—if you want to earn a living as a freelance writer, you can’t afford not to place your stories after you spend time crafting a pitch and researching a publication. Efficiency is important to keep stories in the pipeline.
Here are the steps:
*Story is rejected by Publication One.
*Make a short list of other publications where your story could potentially work.
*Read or scroll through the online versions of the alternative publications. Pay close attention to the sections where your stories could be a fit, the type of stories they run that are similar to your idea, and how they phrase their headlines.
*Rework your idea slightly for the new publication. I find starting with a headline to be one helpful way to do this.
*Find the correct editor and send off your pitch!
I hope you find this useful and that it’s a tool to increase your productivity and publication rate!
Please leave me a comment and let me know about your ideas that have been repitched elsewhere and found a home!
Recently Published Work:
*Eater: Where to Drink the Cocktail that Tastes like Friday in Denver
*Shop TODAY: Comfortable, flattering and versatile, this Amazon top is my new summer staple
*AARP: These Travel Dupes Offer Bucket-List Experiences for Multigenerational Trips
*BBC Travel: Trail Ridge Road: The US’ Inspiring “Highway to the Sky”
One last thing:
I’m launching a once-monthly As A Writer Zoom session for paid subscribers. Stay tuned for more details including dates and registration, next week.
*Some sessions will be open-forum (you can ask anything) and others might have a theme. Topics might include pitching advice, outlets for freelancers, best practices, the financial side of freelancing, and more.
*Sessions will be recorded so if you miss one, you can go back and get valuable information about the freelance writing business.
*This is for paid subscribers only—but once you subscribe, you’ll get access to all paid content and previously recorded Zoom sessions that will be in my Ask A Writer library.
*Before the call, I’ll ask people to RSVP and to send a question in advance on a Google form so we have a great jumping off point.
*You can subscribe below!