Pitching from the Trenches

There is a lot more to being a writer than simply stringing words and sentences together. The secret to writing for professional markets--the sort of markets where you could conceivably drop your day job and pay your way through life by tapping stories out on your keyboard--isn't only developing a strong command of the English language, it's learning that writing is a business. In order to write for the big markets you need to realize that some of the most widely read writers aren't the necessarily the best writers, they're merely the one's who have developed the best relationships with editors and successfully marketed their work. They're the one's who have perfected the art of pitching.

There are a number of websites devoted to helping freelancers break into paying markets. Writers Weekly and Absolute Write are good places to start learning about the trade. But these websites don't always emphasize how important pitching is.

On a day-to-day basis, I spend more time talking to editors about the stories that I could write than I do actually writing and researching stories that I have already been assigned. Many people think that when you are working for a magazine or newspaper you walk around in the world, happen upon a cool story idea, immediately write it up and publish it. Unfortunately, my experience is that it is the exact opposite.

Assuming that you have an idea, the first step to any published piece is writing up a short evocative "pitch" that explains to an editor the sort of story you want to write. It can vary in length from a couple sentences to a thousand words but needs to include what the story is about, why it is a good fit for their publication, how long it should be, and why you are the best person to write it.

If the editor you are contacting doesn't know you, the pitch has to be a work of art in itself to even stand a chance of being noticed. The first time I ever wrote for Wired News the editor got back to me and said something to the effect of "We could almost run this as a story. You just need a few quotes."

My first attempt at being a freelancer in 2000 I used to write about 300 pitches for every one that was accepted. Now I'm about 1 in 3.

But even with one in three the chances that any particular pitch eventually winds up into a magazine is still too slim to spend a lot of time researching the topic. When I am writing a story I usually have to interview about a dozen sources, go to one or two locations and revise the piece several times. Every story requires a lot of energy, and when you aren't sure it will make it to publication, pitching is the only way to go.

So when writing the pitch you need to tell the editor what you are likely to encounter when you actually report on the subject. Often times you have heard a contact talk about a topic, or read something in a newspaper that you think you can expand on. There is also a ton of great background information that you can pick up on wikipedia and google. Don't worry too much about getting every fact correct on the pitch; you will have time to perfect it in the story itself.

It can take anywhere from a few minutes to a couple weeks for an editor to get back to you. In that time there is almost nothing to do but wait since giving the editor a bunch of updates is almost sure to turn him or her off to the story.

In the coming weeks I will include some links to some pitches I've written that have been successful, and to a few that I though should have made it, but didn't.

In the mean time I am still pitching from the trenches. It's Saturday afternoon and I just had an idea. There is no time to waste.