What’s on the iPod: I See Fire by Ed Sheeran
Busy, busy week thanks to three clients getting in touch with projects.
A friend and I were talking about querying magazines. She’s a pro at it, and we were comparing notes. Turns out we do pretty much the same thing. We were also talking about how we know the magazine is a fit for what we do. I was relating a frustrating situation in which every idea but one was turned down by the editor. I was giving him my best ideas, but they weren’t quite right.
Getting published in any magazine not guesswork, as you well know. Your idea, no matter how fantastic, has to fit with the magazine. But how do you know what fits and what won’t?
You study the publication. And you study more than one issue.
Yes, everyone says that. But if you don’t know how to do that, what good is it? Exactly why I’m writing this post — to show you what to look for when you’re going through that magazine.
Advertisements. Advertisements are more than just ways for the magazine to make money. They can tell you a lot about the people who read the magazine. Are they wealthy? Middle class? Blue collar? White collar? Male? Female? What age are they? The advertisements alone can give you the answers. For example, you won’t see an advertisement for Jaguar in a magazine like Parenting or Humpty Dumpty. Nor will you see ads for cereal or floor cleaner in The Atlantic.
Cover stories. How the editors frame the articles featured – and even the articles they choose to feature – are all clues to how you can win over the editors. How sensationalized are the titles? Look at the language they’re using. Is it more scholarly, more of a warning, or more how-to in nature? Also, what are they featuring?
Titles. Different magazines will frame the same topic in different ways. The best clue to a magazine’s particular slant is through the titles. For example, Home and Garden may want an article on Building a Perennial Garden, whereas Organic Gardening may need an article on how to reduce soil integrity damage caused by perennials (totally made-up ideas and needs). Read each title with an eye toward how they’re handling the topic.
Front-of-the-book articles. Even the small stuff counts. Those short articles in front of the magazine hold strong clues to what the magazine’s tone is. Pithy? Intelligent? Accusatory? Investigative? It’s all there.
Images. Your article on Five Ways to Tell if Your Neighbor is a Stalker may not fly if the magazine images are more friendly, such as smiling families on outings or what I call rainbow-and-sunshine shots of people in cars, on beaches, etc. If the magazine’s images have a lighter feel, keep the tone of your query light to match it.
Past articles. There’s no better clue to what they’ll publish than by understanding what they’ve already published. In fact, there are plenty of ideas in those published pieces — find the questions that haven’t been answered and formulate your query to keep the theme going or to bring new information to the topic (just don’t expect them to leap on the idea if the article you’re referencing is just a few months old).
Writers, how do you determine if the magazine you’re querying is a good match for your article?
5 responses to “Free Advice Friday: Attracting Magazine Editors”
Thanks for this post Lori, it's really useful! Part of my plan for 2015 is to really break into magazines, it's going well so far. Since my first published article in a national magazine (December), I've got two more published, two about to be published and four that I'm writing at the moment. I've been given carte blanche with the editorial calendars of two of the magazines I've written for, and while that will keep me relatively busy I still want to branch out and get more print work. Currently it's consumer cat magazines and pet trade magazines, but I'm going to use your advice when I start looking to use my fabulous feline knowledge to start pitching other types of mag (how to teach your child to look after a kitten for a parenting mag maybe? That's just off the top of my head, ha ha!)
I study pretty much the way you outlined it Lori.
I love your tips about magazine tones and titles. There are a couple of entertainment magazines I have never queried simply because I can't stand their breathy, gossipy tones.
Even when you know a magazine inside and out, some great ideas miss still the mark. I've written for one magazine for 18 years, and even ideas I think are perfect are passed over. The editor is usually quick to say they ideas are good, but the timing is bad. Either they just assigned something too similar, or they've covered that topic too much, or it's a scheduling issue.
Occasionally articles are killed over internal issues or industry politics. It happened to me about 10 years ago when a story was killed after it was written – they even sent me to New York for the feature – because the top dog overseeing the magazine (who was usually hands off) had a beef with the parent company of the place featured in the story.
That's sort of my way of saying sometimes even perfectly matched ideas never see print. Thankfully it's a very rare thing.
Emily, I'm glad to hear you're having some success. Good for you! And yes, your fabulous feline knowledge is working quite well — great idea! Go for it, and let us know how it goes.
Anne, I knew you did. 🙂
Paula, there are those queries that never hit the mark, I agree. Had a few myself fall flat because the timing was bad (no more budget, just covered in an upcoming issue, or a topic they're tired of). Amen that it's rare!
I think your first point about advertisements says it all. Who is reading the magazine? Where does the money come from? That's a lot of work doing all that research like that but there's probably no other way around it. Good luck!