The story must be an exclusive. No publication will publish a story that has appeared in another magazine or newspaper.
You must also show that you have access to who you will be interviewing or what the feature is about. The best position to be in is having the interviews already done.
You have to be specific about who the interviewees are and how the article will be structured,
for example if you are proposing an idea about the lives of young racing
drivers who didn’t ‘make it’ to the editor of motoring magazine, make sure you
know exactly what failed drivers you want to interview, even better, have the
interviews done.
You must have the article well thought out before pitching, not just the words but also the pictures that will complement the words.
When writing a pitch, follow this basic structure:
1: The first paragraph should get the attention of the
editor straight away, it should be a summary of what the piece is about.
2: The next paragraph or two are for telling the editor why
the readers of the publication will be interested in what you are proposing. If
the editor doesn’t think that it will be of interest to the readers, it will be
rejected as magazines won’t be sold.
3: Give details of who you are interviewing or have
interviewed as well as why. The editor will want to know why the interviewee is
going to be important for the article. Coming back to my previous example,
there is no point interviewing someone who had a mildly successful career, or even
a young driver who had a couple of races at a good level, because it is about
those who were never picked in the first place.
4: You should say why the story would get the attention of
the reader and how it would suit the magazine.
5: Finish with information about yourself, including work
you have done previously and references from editors at publications you have done
work for in the past.
No comments:
Post a Comment