Readers!
Sometimes publications put out calls for pitches, where they are looking for writers and there ideas. These can come from a client you already work with, or someone you don’t know. So how do you answer them? Lucky for you I just went through a few calls for pitches recently and needed something to write about this week (Do you have a question you’d like me to answer? Hit the mail bag!)
- If you already work for the client. You don’t have to go through the rigamarole of proving who you are, but you still need to give them a clean pitch and show why it’s right for their audience. That’s how I got the assignment for a recent Independent Banker article about remote work. They send their contributing writers a list of what they’re looking for for the next few issues, and ask us to pitch them. I sent in seven ideas, with each pitch about 150 words. I wouldn’t be surprised if I get a few more assignments from that list. I always pitch something, every single time they ask. I want the work of course but I also want to be kept on that list! I am still on lists for some clients I don’t write for much anymore, but I stay on them because you never know when I might have something.
- If you don’t already work for the client. This can be a bit trickier because you do have to put on a song and dance to show them you’re qualified, and unless you’ve been given a special invite to pitch, you’re up against every other person who saw the call in a newsletter, on social media, or the publication posting about it on their website (and many of those responding will be are dummies who use AI). It’s not a waste of time to send in a pitch — I just got a response from one I’d seen on LinkedIn! — but just know that you’re part of a herd, and even if you have the best pitch on the planet, it might not land. But still: put your best foot forward as you would whenever you cold pitch, cross your fingers, and hope but don’t get your hopes up. I’ve also noticed recently that editors are using online forms for writers to fill out, which I appreciate since I don’t need to guess the format they want information about you and your idea. One I answered recently with a form also included a disclaimer that they would not accept any AI-written pitches. I’m seeing this more and more, and even had some clients make us sign new contracts with clauses that we won’t use AI. Will you look at that.
Since I always call out bad editors, I want to give one more example of the dumbest pitch call format I’ve ever been subjected to. This was for a medical school I’d been writing for, to mixed results. The topics were interesting (and I didn’t have to pitch) but the editor was grating. Instead of asking for a change to a story, they’d instead say things like why did you do that and this is lazy. I was about to quit when they started regular freelancer pitch meetings, where if you wanted work, you had to virtually attend, pitch your idea, and then the editor would assign the ideas to whoever was both in the meeting and they thought as most qualified to write that story. Excuse me? Not only do I now have to attend mandatory if you want to write for us meetings, but now I have to magically guess what topics are important to a medical school, and then they might give my idea to someone else? This is “treating our independent contractors like employees” nonsense, and I was having none of that. Then the editor told me my draft was worthless (I’m paraphrasing because I am not going to look up those emails), and I told her to never contact me again. It was one of those times where I know they wrote a screed back, but I deleted it and never opened the email. AND YES I AM STILL ON THE PITCH MEETING INVITES. JFC.
There is wanting more work and then there is letting someone walk all over you and then asking you why there’s scuff marks on your face. No thank you!
Anyway. You also may be asking what a Donald Duck gif has to do with this. Nothing! I have six articles to write before I leave for vacation, and I liked it. So there you are.
Recent Bylines
“Remote work helps community banks recruit top talent,” HR Dive
What I’m Reading
- The Postal Paths: Rediscovering Britain’s Forgotten Trails and the People Who Walked Them by Alan Cleaver. Is this the most British looking book you’ve ever seen? Yes. Did I love it? Also yes. In 1887, the Royal Mail decided to celebrate Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee by “promising to deliver to every home in Britain, no matter how remote,” Cleaver writes, which then became a law saying that mail must be delivered six days a week to every household in the UK. Many of these places were only reachable by foot, so “rural posties” were walking up to 20 miles a day, six days a week, to get people their mail. Cleaver seeks to walk a lot of those routes, which yes is why this makes it a very English book. Walking through the countryside is something I love to do when I’m in England — and he even calls this out at the end of the book, writing that Americans and Australians find their footpaths “cute.” Well, have you ever encountered French tourists walking trails Arches National Park? I have! They’re awestruck, so it goes both ways. I found this at the Postal Museum in London (which has a MAIL TRAIN YOU CAN RIDE WHICH YES I DID), and really debated buying it since I’m a backpack only traveler and a hardcover book was going to take up a lot of space, but I’m glad I did — not just because it’s not sold in the U.S. but because I really enjoyed following along with Cleaver’s journey. I can also recommend the vast trove of British documentaries about walking around, which I watched a lot of in 2020. Martin Clunes aka Doc Martin, has done a bunch, and the BBC is full of them.
- Set Piece by Lana Schwartz. A shortish romance about a guy and a gal who have a one night stand, then are thrown back together five years later when their jobs overlap — except in this one he is a Hollywood star and she’s a set designer. It’s fine even if I thought the pacing was a little weird, maybe because it’s so short. I know I complain that romances are too long, but there has to be a happy medium between 208 pages and 350 pages. The most notable thing is it’s a modern day romance where the cover is NOT an illustration, which seems to be the publisher’s thing.
What I’m Watching
- The RealInfowars (season 1?) I put a question mark after that because I’m not sure if it counts as a season, but I watched all eight episodes that the new Onion-run RealInfowars put out this summer, and they plan to come back this fall. What a ride. I don’t think you need to know a lot about the right wing moron corner of the internet to know what they’re spoofing. It’s very funny, often crude and sometimes even gross, but a parody of this would have to be. Onion CEO Ben Collins said that they’re going to make this a spot for people to do comedy, and it sure seems like they’ve set it up to do that whenever they come back. They also had “callers” voiced by Tim Robinson, Edi Patterson and SPOILER ALERT Bob Odenkirk, who is playing the station manager. I was really nervous about this, but they’re pulling it off so far.
- 72 Hours. An ad exec named Joe (Kevin Hart) accidentally gets added to the group chat of a bunch of 20-somethings, about to embark on a bachelor party and decides, you know what? Let’s roll with it. As you can guess, shenanigans ensue. It’s not quite a Hangover knock off, but it shares a lot of DNA without being quite as good, but I didn’t mind it especially for a Netflix movie. Good for Marcello Hernández, who plays one of the 20-somethings (and yes this is a very SNL heavy flick).
Nail Polish of the Week
Soft Mimosa by Sephora. Yup, another one you cannot buy in the U.S. boo! So if you’re a nail polish person traveling abroad and that country has Sephora, make sure you check them out, especially this vibrant yellow.
Until next time!
Jen A. Miller (she/her)
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