Pitching
When you have an article or idea that seems ready to go, the first and perhaps main obstacle authors face in getting published is to
- Have the relevant editor read your piece, and
- Have them read it with optimism, curiosity or an open mind (such that they are predisposed to accept)
The pitch is the main tool you have to accomplish these tasks. The editor should want to read more by the time they finish. If the pitch doesn’t leave them with that feeling, your article is basically dead-on-arrival.
Here we’ll go over some basics for what makes a good (and not so good) pitch.
Elements of a (not so) good pitch
The most important thing to understand about editors is that they are very busy and fairly protective of their time. They get low-quality submissions all the time, and many other essays that are not terrible, but also are not a good fit for the publication. And they try to minimize their investments in work they can’t use – because they also get many more potentially viable pieces than they can realistically commission, and so their goal is to wade through everything else as efficiently as possible.
To render their gatekeeping task manageable, most editors either don’t read most articles with much care or at all. Instead, they use the pitch as a synecdoche for the article itself. And the first thing they look for in their initial scan is for a reason to stop reading, to pass on the piece, and to move on to the next (likely ill-fated) submission. So the most important thing to do in a pitch is avoid giving editors a reason to toss your piece. Some signals that often lead to rejection include:
- The piece seems outdated or disconnected from “the conversation” at the moment
- The argument, data and findings are not much different from what many others have said (including, potentially, in that very publication).
- The argument and topic is niche and unlikely to gain others’ interests or get much engagement
- The piece is out of synch with the focus, mission, and editorial line of the outlet itself – it’s a bad fit – it’d be better to publish it elsewhere.
- The idea doesn’t seem to be fully developed. The pitch seems incoherent or rambling. The research seems slapdash and preliminary.
- The piece seems like it would take a lot of work (many rounds of edits, lots of factchecking, etc.) to get it up to snuff.
- The piece seems likely to generate significant blowback or other headaches (corrections, etc.) for the organization.
If the editor walks away from the pitch with any of those vibes, they’ll go into reading the piece (if they decide to read it at all) with a sense that it probably won’t work – and looking for confirmation that it’s a piece that it’d be better to pass on.
To convince the editors that it’s the kind of piece that is actually worth investing in, it’s important for editors to feel that the essay is:
- High quality prose, research and argumentation that is also
- A good fit for the publication and its audience, and
- Something different than what everyone else is saying and doing (a novel voice and data/ arguments/ findings they haven’t seen a million times before).
The more confidence the pitch gives them on each of these premises, the more likely they will be to read the article with care and in a positive mindset – and ultimately, accept it.
Pitch structure
In order to be successful, a pitch needs to be concise and compelling – and it should include a few core pieces of information:
- A couple sentences (2-3 max) detailing the core argument
- An explanation of why the essay is interesting/ important/ speaks to the moment (also super concise – a sentence or two), and is a good fit for the publication.
- As relevant, it can be helpful to add an additional sentence or two explaining why you are an ideal person to write this essay (if you have unique and relevant life experience, professional experience, or expertise that informs the essay).
- If they haven’t worked with you before, a quick 2-line bio detailing your primary affiliation/ position and some other places you’ve published (knowing that other good places have taken your work is a signal that your work might be suitable for them as well).
All of these together should be just about a paragraph in length. If you’re over 5-7 sentences, you’re too long. Editors don’t want to read an essay about your essay, and they don’t want your life story. Mostly, they just want to know whether they should bother investing much into reading the piece to begin with.
When to pitch
Some publications would rather people just send them ideas for pieces instead of finished pieces – because they want to help authors shape their piece from the outset to conform to the editorial vision of the place and the preferences of the audience.
Other times, it makes sense to pitch a piece somewhat early in the process – for instance, if bringing it to fruition would require an enormous investment of time and resources, and might even require support from the publication itself – as is sometimes the case for deep investigative pieces or profiles that require travel or professional photography, etc.
Mostly, however, this is not the case. Most places, most of the time, prefer you to have a finished piece that they can evaluate immediately if they find the pitch compelling (especially for think-pieces, etc.). They’d prefer that you pitch the article when it’s completely finished, and to be presented with tight, refined prose (that will not require a lot of work on their part, assuming the arguments and findings are worth publishing and a good fit).
So if you have an idea that might have legs, draft out and refine the article, and then shop it out, and attach the full article alongside the pitch.
Who to pitch
Selecting an ideal outlet for your article is a slightly different topic that will be addressed elsewhere. Let’s just assume that you have a target publication, and you’ve done basic diligence to confirm that the type of article you wrote is a type of article they’d run. Who should you email with your pitch?
Most outlets have a general submission form or inbox that they try to direct people to. The people who check these forms are largely low-level folks (who don’t have the power to commission pieces, just to kick things higher up the decision-making chain). And their primary job is to waste-basket most things they come across, and only send up things that really seem extraordinary. And then it will face still another round of gatekeeping (from someone with slightly different tastes and preferences) when it reaches an editor who can actually give the piece as “yes.”
If you submit something through these channels, the likelihood is really, really high that you’ll get a “no” (if you get a response at all). And the whole process will likely take a long time, because there is a big pile of stuff these junior people need to work through, and then it has to proceed through more layers of gatekeeping than if you just messaged a more senior editor directly.
All to say, most of the time, rather than sending to the general inbox, what you’d want to do is directly message the editor of the section you are trying to publish in. Most publications have a masthead somewhere on their website. Look at that to see who overseas the most relevant “beat” (education, crime, politics, foreign affairs) or section (e.g. opinion). Then find their contact info. Sometimes it’s on the website itself. Sometimes you have to do a little research (such as looking them up on social media or googling them). Either way, all else equal, it will considerably increase your odds of a “yes” if you can directly message someone with the authority to authorize the piece instead of working through many layers of gatekeeping (including many layers that are explicitly designed to thin out the herd by rejecting as much as possible).
Pitching by proxy
When editors get a submission from someone whose work they know and like and/or someone they’ve worked with before, they are more likely to take the pitch seriously, and will go into it with a higher predisposition towards accepting the piece (rather than assuming it’s a bad fit and looking for confirmatory evidence for that).
If you have a friend or colleague who
- Has published at a venue you’re trying to get into before, and
- Has a positive relationship with the relevant editors already
Sometimes it can be helpful to have that contact reach out on your behalf, introducing you and the work (CCing you), and encouraging the editor to take a look.
Critically, it is important not to ask others to do this unless the piece actually is a good fit. And you should ask for your friend or colleague’s honest opinion on this before trying to proceed (and assure them that you’ll take no offense if they think it could use some work or might be a better fit elsewhere). Because if your friend ends up spamming editors with unusable work from other people (for instance, because they don’t feel comfortable telling their friends “no” when they ask for a favor), this will lead editors to hold that friend in less esteem, and will undermine any perceptions editors might have that the person in question has a good sense of what counts as quality work, and work that might be a good fit for their publication. That’d be bad for them and wouldn’t help you at all.
So, if you have a piece you’re genuinely confident about, that you think would be an excellent fit for a particular venue, and you don’t personally have any ties there but someone else in your network does – it can sometimes be a good move to have someone else pitch on your behalf (although you should generally write a pitch for them to minimize the amount of work they’d have to do to help you out).
But, again, this is an approach that should be used sparingly, and for pieces that are actually a good fit. Most of the time you should pitch an article yourself, directly to the relevant editors, and after the essay has been composed and refined.