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How do you get in?
Write. Read the magazines. Write. Pitch. Write some more. Pitch some more. Get published somewhere, anywhere. Get reimbursed in copies. This is a clip. Write some more. Pitch some more. Exploit any friend-of-a-friend connection you can muster. Mention your clips. Read some more. Write some more. Repeat the cycle until rich and famous.
What helps the most: Be a hero.
Firstly, be good. Turn in work that requires little or no editing. Honestly: my editors and friends in the biz have confided in me that much of the work that crosses their desks needs major surgery before publication. If you can turn in decent work the first time around, you have made the editor's life easier, and s/he will be more likely to think of you next time.
Be available. Take the jobs that nobody else wants. Meet or beat your deadlines. This, too, makes an editor's life easier. Don't be precious. If your editor asks for a major rewrite on hir desk by noon tomorrow, suck it up, cancel your dinner party, and do the fucking work. S/he'll remember that, too.
Master the art of the query letter, a/k/a the pitch. Always query first. Always.
Learn to think in subheads.
Learn to outline before you write.
Learn to work within word counts.
Know the market—not just the kind of articles they run (i.e., don't waste your time sending sex tips to Better Homes & Gardens or crockpot recipes to Cosmopolitan: you'd think this would be a no-brainer, but people do this all the time, as a glance at any magazine's slush pile will show you), but the tone of a magazine as well. Some magazines have a distinct, homogenous "voice" across all their content. A National Geographic article about winter sports in Aspen will read very differently than an Outside article on the same subject. Notice the differences, and write accordingly.
Always be writing. Always have two or three projects going at once, minimum.
Rates? Depends on who you're writing for, and what the position in the magazine is.
I've scored $3.25 a word for a back-page essay in a major mainstream magazine, and $1.00 a word for a facts & figures sidebar in the same magazine: As with real estate, it's all about location. Last week I knocked off an informational article for a smaller, specialty magazine for 25 cents a word and a chance at additional, higher-paying work. And this week I wrote a thousand-word essay for a well-regarded pop-culture website for no money at all—but the clip will look good on my CV.
Different means, different ends. |
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