Pitches should go out to the editor of the section (or genre) you are pitching to. Do not write an email that starts “To Whom It May Concern,” because it won’t concern anyone. Spell the editor’s name correctly, identify who you are and where you live, and pitch: Share your story idea and angle on this particular topic, then add why this story is timely and important. Include three relevant bylines with links, as well as an author site if you have one, and thank the editor for their time. Then wait. If you Google “how to pitch” and you come upon a Guardian article from 2014 that tells you to call the editor an hour after you’ve sent your pitch to verify their receipt of it, please do not do that. This was unsound advice in 2014, and it’s still suspect now. I think that article might have been hacked.
What makes a good pitch? In short, a good story. But here are some things to consider when you’re readying to pitch:
Have you avoided the duh factor?
When he was senior editor at GQ, Kevin Nguyen received a lot of pitches from people who wanted to interview Rihanna. “I’d like to interview Rihanna,” says Kevin. “This is a relatable desire. This is not a pitch.”
One way to get around the duh factor is to think niche, not big. We know which books to read before the apocalypse, but do we know which authors secretly believe in the apocalypse? Hmmm . . .
Does it pass the so-what test?
Building off of the above, a lot of people would like to interview a celebrity, review a new hotel, critique a hot new book. But “Because I want to” is not the answer to why you should write a piece. Since she joined Electric Literature as an editor in 2017, Jess Zimmerman attests that pitches usually fail because the only urgency writers convey about the piece is their desire to write it.
Accordingly, Jess uses exigence to judge pitches: “a rhetorical concept that basically means ‘the thing that makes this feel urgent and immediately important.’ ” Says Jess, “Exigence is of crucial importance in a pitch, and yet I get so many that fail to establish it! Don’t just tell me what you want to write—tell me why I want to publish it, and why people want to read it, and more to the point why we urgently need to.”
When asked for examples of a nonurgent pitch, Jess was rich in precedents: “Anything that’s just like ‘Here’s my personal journey or experience’ with no indication of how it might connect to a broader audience,” she says. “We get ‘Here are the books I read in order to write my book’ pitches surprisingly often, which only flies if you’re megafamous (built-in exigence there!). And people love to pitch me some variation on ‘I’d like to examine how x influences y,’ to which I always respond, ‘Okay, well, how does x influence y?’ In short, it’s not enough to have a subject; you also need to have a point.”
Are you considering the reader’s pleasure?
With so much content migrating online, the reader’s reading experience has started to matter just as much as the story itself. For nearly twenty years in her position as the beauty director at W Magazine, Jane Larkworthy was the person being pitched. Now she’s the pitcher: in addition to having columns for The Cut and Covoteur, Jane writes frequently for other high-profile outlets in the food and lifestyle space. “After a while, it’s about crying wolf,” Jane says. “You know, ‘This project will change your life,’ or, ‘You’ll never need to read another interview again.’ When I’m thinking about my profiles, I consider what would be a great intro to write, who would make for a funny conversation that would give answers that would make people laugh out loud,” she says. “It’s less now, for me, about having the hot new intel as it is about providing the reader with a good experience.”
Do you sound human in your pitch?
Your pitch should sound professional, but it shouldn’t sound like it’s coming from a bot. “I get a lot of pitches that are very formal,” remembers Kevin Nguyen from his time at GQ. “ ‘Dear Sir,’ ‘Dear Madame.’ If we’re going to have a rapport, I want to know that you can write! The pitch is your opportunity to set a scene, set the stakes, say why the story matters, and all this in a way that proves your writing chops.”
On the flip side, a pitch that is too casual or familiar can come off as offensive. On the Minorities in Publishing podcast, the writer and editor Morgan Jerkins admitted that she gets a lot of pitches from white women using “colloquial black-woman speak and African American slang” in their communications to her. For a hundred reasons: no. Write as if you know the publication you are pitching to, not the editor.
Can you be vouched for?
“There’s this idea of the perfect pitch making the story,” continues Kevin. “I don’t buy into that. Fifty percent of it is a great pitch that a writer has thought through, and 50 percent is a working relationship. I have to be able to trust you. Like everyone else, editors are resource-strapped—if you fuck up your reporting or plagiarize, if you don’t file on time, if I send someone out and they are really weird to a talent or celebrity, this all reflects badly on me and the magazine.”
Although he recognizes that all writers need to start somewhere, Kevin doesn’t think a renowned magazine like GQ is the place to start pitching when you don’t have publications under your belt. “If you’ve got clips from somewhere I know the editor and the standard is very high, that’s a signal for me. I need a certain level of professionalism,” Kevin says. “If you file late and you don’t let me know ahead of time, I’ll never work with you again.”
Editors are more likely to give your pitch consideration if they know you, so find a way for them to know you. Lots of magazines host readings and lectures, their editors attend panels, their editors attend AWP. I’m not saying to stalk people (please don’t), but if you’re in a geographical situation that allows it, it’s worth forging cordial relationships with editors before pitching. It’s a small world, and people will ask around about you when you start to pitch them. If you’ve got an editor who can say, “I haven’t had the opportunity to work with them, but we had a nice chat at a reading the other day and they’re not a megalomaniac,” this can convince someone to give your pitch a second look.
What to expect when you’re not expecting virality
For writers, “going viral” means that you have a piece of writing (most likely something that was either initially published online, or at least accessible there) that has been rampantly shared in a short amount of time.
If you’re expecting an exact number of views that delineates the border between “viral” and “nonviral,” we must disappoint you. Virality is relative to different platforms and publications: it means you got a lot of reads. If that happens, you will know. The retweets and shares will start a-piling, the comment section will grow. You’ll receive both wanted and unwanted comments through your email and various social media platforms. Your article, essay, or op-ed could become a trending topic on Twitter, and part of the cultural conversation at large. In a world in which you go super viral, the literary elite will discuss your publication with insidery succinctness: they’ll talk of “Cat Person,” “That Op-Ed,” your work will be a meme.
Knowing that your writing has been read and shared by thousands of people is exciting, but even more important is the fact that your work has hit a nerve. For Electric Literature’s executive director, Halimah Marcus, “virality means a piece of writing has crossed a threshold of readership well beyond our regular audience. One person shares, then two, four, sixteen, etc. Sometimes it’s because a piece has struck a chord in the zeitgeist, sometimes it’s because Iron Maiden shared our list of the ‘Eleven Best Metal Songs about Literature’ on their Facebook page. Viral pieces on Electric Literature