this woman’s work

I think the internet broke newbie writers

Mar 1, 2007 Writing

I used to edit for ePregnancy.com and I’m thinking it was three-ish years ago that I was putting out calls for submission for them. This is pretty much the same audience, pay-wise (experienced writers who can toss off the content pretty easily and don’t mind the low pay and new writers who are excited about getting more than a byline) but the submissions I’m getting are substantially worse. I think this has to do with more writing opportunities on-line. On the one hand, this is great for the pocketbook of new writers but on the other hand it means that the writing they’re doing doesn’t benefit them career-wise. A lot of these sites, like Associated Content, don’t ask writers to query and I don’t think there’s any editorial give-and-take so writers never need to learn how to target a pitch or direct content for a specific audience. (Hey, I paid my dues on Suite101 writing absolute crap — truly, and google will prove it much to my dismay — for fifteen bucks a month and I counted myself lucky! I know how it is.) And then it looks like a lot of the writers I’m hearing from seem to have done (from scanning their clips) a lot of work for search engine optimization sites where quality is secondary to getting the right search terms embedded in the content.

Now just in case any writers are coming in here after seeing my call for submissions (and personally if I don’t know anything about an editor or a publication, I look at the publication and then I google the editor), I’m going to give them some tips:

• Pitch a topic and make it specific. I’ve gotten, I don’t know, a hundred queries so far? And about 75 of them don’t have a pitch. They just say, “I’m a writer, hire me.” Or “I’m a woman so I am your demographic and I’m a writer, hire me.” Or “I’m a woman, I’m a writer and I’m interested in fitness. Please hire me to write about fitness.” Now sometimes an intro is all it takes to get an assignment but generally not for a consumer pub. A pitch tells me that you’ve bothered to look at the publication and make a reasonable guess to the kind of content we want. You might be wrong but if your pitch speaks well of your thoughtful nature and writerly talent, I’ll work with you. I’ll say, “I’m not really interested in a pitch about sock puppets but I’d love to see what you can do with an article about marionettes.”
• Did I mention the pitch should be specific? Don’t say, “I’d love to write about food.” Well, who wouldn’t? But what about food? You mean cooking it? Great. Get more specific. Cooking dinner? Not specific enough. Cooking dinner on a tight budget? Close but not close enough. Cooking a romantic dinner on a tight budget? Now we’re getting somewhere. (Plus our stories average like 500 words so there isn’t room to do a whole frugal gourmet bit. Think small.)
• I don’t care where you went to school. Don’t lead with yourself — frankly I don’t care about your hobbies, pets, family make-up, or even your writing experience yet. I’m scanning these hundred or so submissions looking for an idea that pops out of my inbox. You’re selling your idea, not yourself (yet). The place to talk about your creds is at the bottom when you’ve already convinced me that this is a story our audience must have. And make sure the “about you” is relevant. I honestly don’t care that you majored in journalism but I do care that you built your own boat IF you’re pitching me a story about boat buildling.
• Don’t offer me a column before I even know who you are. You wouldn’t believe the number of people who lead (who LEAD!) their pitch with, “I would like to write a column for you.” Folks, there is chutzpah and then there’s n00bieness that makes you look bad. Columns are hard to get; you have to earn them. You earn them by either writing something so fabulous that readers beg the editor for more of you OR by doing a lot of homework about the column. You pitch the column with more careful attention to detail, audience and market than a regular old query AND you offer a sample of column ideas as proof that you’ve thought this thing out AND you have the writing creds to prove you can do it.
• Don’t tell me I’m wrong. If I say your idea or approach aren’t for us, don’t tell me I’m mistaken. No I’m not because I’m the boss. Besides that’s what a writer group is for — bitching about editors who don’t get your brilliance. Arguing with me just tells me that I don’t want to work with you because if you can’t let go of a pitch, how am I ever going to get you to edit your article down to our word count specs?

It’s kinda shocking to me when I say, “I would need to see a specific query” and mroe than one writer replies with, “What’s a query?” Truly, it’s happening in higher numbers than I ever got at ePregnancy. Specifically I’m dismayed for these writers who are surely (at least some of them) talented and dedicated and excited about having a writing career. All it takes is a little preparation — and my gosh, writing sites are out there by the dozens so the research just isn’t that hard.

Take home lesson in this: I am hungry for decent queries that showcase good writing. And if you’re a friend of mine — i.e., blog reader — you don’t even need to be all that formal. Like I said, I’ll work with someone whose email shows thoughtful talent even if the pitch is slightly off-base. (Frankly, we’re revamping the content so much that we’re not even quite sure what we’re looking for but it’s not, “I’m not just a writer. I am also a woman who loves to read so I would like to offer you my weekly book column pasted below.”)

Oh and in the most — ahem — confident writer category: The person who pitched me a dozen ideas, all of them too broad to be written effectively at our word count, and responded to my rejection with, “I can deliver them at 500 words. So do you want them all then?” Ummm, no.

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