So hard.
Last week when I had a brief slow period, I decided to send a query in to a new national magazine called Cottage Living. I really love it and I figure I’ve lived in cottages all my life, so it’s perfect match.
But it’s always a pain to pitch national mags because it’s so time-consuming: I have to 1) think about and write up the proposed ideas (3), 2) go through all my samples to figure out which ones are best for this particular query, 3) drive into town to get color copies made, 4) get everything together, and 5) go to the post office and mail it all in. (It’s also expensive – color copies and mail came to almost $20. As soon as I recover from paying my taxes, I’m going to purchase a scanner, which will eliminate a lot of this.)
And to what end? Most likely a rejection letter. But you never know, and that’s why I every once in awhile I try, especially when I run across a pub, like this one, that really appeals to me.
I have had some luck with national magazines – I once sold a 2-part article to Writer’s Digest on how to be a copywriter, and I also sold a piece to Woman’s Day on how to be a good houseguest over the holidays – recycled from an article I’d written years ago for Metropolitan Parent. (Although I got paid $250 for that one, they never actually ran it; knowing what I do about magazines, it probably got stuck in a “filler” file somewhere and that was the end of it.)
There were a couple of other close sales, but I was too inexperienced and naïve to know that with a little push I might have broken through, so I let them go…
Breaking into the national market is really hard. It takes time and perseverance, neither of which I have. But in June, I’m taking a week off and, in fact, am going out to our family cottage in Grand Haven to zero in on all the ideas I’ve had in the last year and just send out a bunch of queries to see what happens. Who knows, maybe I’ll get lucky. I really want to kick my writing up a notch, and it will never happen unless I make it a goal and take the steps necessary to get there.
So, we’ll see.
But it’s always a pain to pitch national mags because it’s so time-consuming: I have to 1) think about and write up the proposed ideas (3), 2) go through all my samples to figure out which ones are best for this particular query, 3) drive into town to get color copies made, 4) get everything together, and 5) go to the post office and mail it all in. (It’s also expensive – color copies and mail came to almost $20. As soon as I recover from paying my taxes, I’m going to purchase a scanner, which will eliminate a lot of this.)
And to what end? Most likely a rejection letter. But you never know, and that’s why I every once in awhile I try, especially when I run across a pub, like this one, that really appeals to me.
I have had some luck with national magazines – I once sold a 2-part article to Writer’s Digest on how to be a copywriter, and I also sold a piece to Woman’s Day on how to be a good houseguest over the holidays – recycled from an article I’d written years ago for Metropolitan Parent. (Although I got paid $250 for that one, they never actually ran it; knowing what I do about magazines, it probably got stuck in a “filler” file somewhere and that was the end of it.)
There were a couple of other close sales, but I was too inexperienced and naïve to know that with a little push I might have broken through, so I let them go…
Breaking into the national market is really hard. It takes time and perseverance, neither of which I have. But in June, I’m taking a week off and, in fact, am going out to our family cottage in Grand Haven to zero in on all the ideas I’ve had in the last year and just send out a bunch of queries to see what happens. Who knows, maybe I’ll get lucky. I really want to kick my writing up a notch, and it will never happen unless I make it a goal and take the steps necessary to get there.
So, we’ll see.
posted by Keash at 4:44 AM
1 Comments:
Yes, it's grim, seeing that self-addessed stamped envelope come back to you in the mail. Me, I don't mind so much, because I'm not depending on it for groceries. It might go better for you if you did it regularly, say, submitting something once a month or once every two months. That might help you streamline the whole process a bit.
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