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How to Pitch Top Publications in 2022
Anyone can pitch any publication and it’s not annoying.
When I started freelance writing, I never considered pitching publications directly.
“Why would Real Simple want to hear from me? I’d just be annoying them!” I thought.
So, I kept writing for small places, responding to ads, and assumed that people only wrote for magazines or places like The New York Times if they were on staff or super fancy.
Years later, I learned that anyone can pitch any publication. Anyone. Will everyone get a pitch accepted by the Washington Post? No. But it’s not annoying or rude to try. And sometimes, even without a lot of published samples, you’ll get a yes.
A student of mine published an op-ed in the New York Times with no previously published samples. This doesn’t happen all the time, but it happens. Here’s how you can pitch top publications in 2021.
Write a Pitch
Have you looked at the internet? It has a lot of content. And editors need to keep pumping out content on a near constant basis. That’s where your pitch comes in!
Instead of pitching yourself as a writer (“Hello. I’m a writer. Can I write for Cosmo now?”), you want to pitch a specific story idea. Not an umbrella topic (“Falcon and the Winter Soldier, what’s the deal with that show?”), but a specific angle (“Falcon and the Winter Soldier, a Deep Dive into the Comics History Behind This Non-Dynamic Duo”).
The pitch should only be 2–3 paragraphs with a short paragraph (1–2 sentences) about your background at the end.
When describing the story, get to the point quickly! You don’t need to dazzle with a clever preamble, just state the story, why it’s important, and why you’d be a great person to write it up.
For your mini-bio at the end, include a bit about your writing background (if you don’t have any, just don’t bring it up!) and link to a couple of your stories that best fit the pitch.
If you don’t have samples, that’s okay. If you have one sample and it’s totally different than your pitch — that’s fine too! This sample gives the editor a chance to see your writing. If you happen to have a clip that closely relates to what you’re…
