Sometimes there are less traditional ways to pitch then firing off a query letter. Unconventional pitching methods may work, especially if you’ve already established a connection with an editor.
About Freelance Writing was honored to chat on the phone with WOW- Women on Writing editor and published author Annette Fix. Annette and WOW EIC Angela Mackintosh held a PitchFest for their popular writer’s ezine. However, this PitchFest was only open to members of their Premium Green group, a subscription-based writing group that this site has highly recommended in the past.
This PitchFest consisted of a private web session in which PG members were given the editorial calendar ahead of time, and then were encouraged to informally present their ideas to the editors, who then hammered out specifics and accepted or passed on the ideas. If you’re interested in learning more about unconventional pitching methods, be sure to read Non-traditional Pitching.
Check out Annette’s advice for some insight into the mind of an editor- then, start pitching!
About.com: Did you feel that the PitchFest was successful?
WOW- Women on Writing: It was fairly successful. Since this was a private group, we kind of put it out to them, and gave them all the tools to pitch ahead of time.
A: Did you accept a majority of the pitches?
W: There were a few (writers) that we knew, and that were established (contributors), so we didn’t ask them to send a full query, we took their idea through the pitch. But there were some we were unfamiliar with, as far as who the writers were. We asked (them) for fully fleshed out pitches, (and sometimes) a sample to see how they put it together, to see if they knew how to format for the web with subheads, bullets, and sidebars.
A: Did the pitches tend to stay on target, and tend to be what you were looking for?
W: Yes, (since) we gave them the editorial calendar. The (pitches) that tended to stand out the most were the ones that really gave you an idea of what (the article) was. There were some where we liked the pitch, but we weren’t sure where it was going, so we asked them to do a full query. The kernel of the idea was good, but we needed them to expand it to see how they can use that particular idea and turn it into an entire article.
A: Do you have any pitch pet peeves in general?
W: We just talked about this on our blog, The Muffin. The biggest one is: Know who you’re querying! Know who you’re addressing it to, as opposed to sending it to “Dear Sir” (This recently happened to Annette and Angela, which is really sad, considering their ezine is obviously written by, for and about women writers.)
A: How many pitches does the WOW ‘zine get in general?
W: It really depends. For the journaling and memoir issue, we received tons. But we haven’t got as many for our finance issue that’s coming up. Sometimes we’re just flooded with ideas, and they’re all pretty much the same ideas. When you’re sending in something that’s likely to be a topic that’s done over and over, like “how to get an agent,” you’ve got to have something that’s a bit different from the last “how to get an agent” article that we’ve put out. Make something about it unique.
A: You’ve mentioned in the past that many pitches tend to be self-focused … what did you mean?
W: A lot of times in pitches, one of the mistakes that the freelancers make is that they want to tell their story. It’s something that I see often. When they’re querying, they’re almost wanting to tell more about their experiences than the topics.
A: So, they lose focus on the audience?
W: I think they’re trying to make what they’ve experienced a universal occurrence, and they use that as a pitch. There are some (pitches) that we have accepted that do this, (but they) also pitch with the focus on the steps and the “take away.”
A: So, you’re saying that they start with their own experience, but then generalize it?
W: It’s a little more than that. They not so much generalize, but they dig around in their own experience to find tips or “take aways” that someone would replicate in their own situation. If you’re going to use something from your own experience that you have some sort of expertise in, you need to find a way to take what you’ve learned and turn it into something that a reader can take away.
