How Much to Charge for a Reprint

I just received an offer from a magazine editor who wants to print an article that was first published last year. Since it’s a reprint, what should I charge?
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As much as you can OR as much as they’re willing to pay.

Sometimes, I’ve ended up earning more from a reprint than I did for the original piece. If you can, check out the pay rates of the magazine online or by asking their other writers and quote accordingly.

If you’re really stuck though, 50% of the original amount that you were paid would be fair.

Tips for Students

I was asked recently to give advice to college students who are working towards a career in writing. I compiled a list of tips for them. I share them with you here.

1. Don’t chase the money, the power, or the fame. Chase the story. Find stories that speak to you, and go after them.

2. Trust your instinct. When things seem impossible, everything goes wrong, and you begin to question if you’ll ever make it, find the answers in your gut.

3. Don’t compete with others. Only be better today than you were yesterday.

4. Read. But read good books. Don’t fill your head with junk. Learn only from the best.

5. Resist temptations. Being in the media can give you power, it can also give you money, fame, and opportunity. Take the opportunity, but don’t get too attached to the rest. The lure of power can be great, but remember the Spiderman movie? “With great power comes great responsibility.” (And yes, you’ll get free parking everywhere. But no, you should not take advantage of it.)

6. Try not to mix your personal and professional life. If you have to, do so responsibly.

7. Know the rules. Practice them. And know when to break them.

8. Build a community outside of work. Life is beautiful. Explore. Take risks. See the world. Experience it. Take time off to enjoy life, and you’ll be a better writer for it.

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

Rating: ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼

Comments: Mesmerizing. I loved the ending– there is no happy ending, no sad ending. In life, there is no ending. The book is a fascinating story of friendship and betrayal, and how the past always seems to catch up with you.

I have to admit though: reading this book was very weird for me, because I once knew someone exactly like the narrator. I felt like I was reading about him. Eerie, but a testament to excellent characterization.

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From the Book:

That was a long time ago, but it’s wrong what they say about the past, I’ve learned, about how you can bury it. Because the past claws its way out.

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A part of me was hoping someone would wake up and hear, so I wouldn’t have to live with this lie anymore. But no one woke up and in the silence that followed, I understood the nature of my new curse: I was going to get away with it.

***

He knew I had betrayed him and yet he was rescuing me once again, maybe for the last time. I loved him in that moment, loved him more than I’d ever loved anyone, and I wanted to tell them all that I was the snake in the grass, the monster in the lake. I wasn’t worthy of this sacrifice; I was a liar, a cheat, and a thief. And I would have told, except that a part of me was glad. Glad that this would all be over with soon. Baba would dismiss them, there would be some pain, but life would move on. I wanted that, to move on, to forget, to start with a clean slate. I wanted to be able to breathe again.

***

When you kill a man, you steal a life. You steal his wife’s right to a husband, rob his children of a father. When you tell a lie, you steal someone’s right to the truth. When you cheat, you steal the right to fairness. There is no act more wretched than stealing.

***

As it turned out, Baba and I were more alike than I’d ever known. We had both betrayed the people who would have given their lives for us.

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Sometimes, I think everything he did, feeding the poor on the streets, building the orphanage, giving money to friends in need, it was all his way of redeeming himself. And that, I believe, is what true redemption is, Amir jan, when guilt leads to good.

***

I wondered if that was how forgiveness budded, not with the fanfare of epiphany, but with pain gathering its things, packing up, and slipping away unannounced in the middle of the night.

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QLTS: 3.2 – Deciphering the Demographics

The kind of people who read the publication is the most vital component of your study. But just figuring out that a magazine is targeted towards parents isn’t enough. Delve deeper. What kind of parents? Are they parents of toddlers, teenagers, or adults? Are they high-income parents who can afford nannies or do they look after their kids themselves? Do these parents work outside the house (in which case an article on day-care for a regional magazine might work), or do they work from home (how to balance work and life)?

An easy way to figure all this out is to find the publication’s media kit. While the media kit is actually designed for advertisers of the publication to let them decipher whether the magazine’s readers will be interested in their product, it’s a great tool for the prospective writer, too. You.

In it, you’ll find information on who the readers are, including important details such as their age groups, percentages that tell you how many are married, where they live, the gender ratio, as well as any geographic majorities. You’ll also find information on the magazine itself—the circulation and frequency, most-loved topics, subjects of interest, and sometimes, future editorial plans.

Some of the demographic details you need to keep in mind, and why they’re important:

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Age

Make it a point to note the average age of the reader. If you discover, for instance, that the average age of the reader is 55, articles on planning your first wedding, choosing the right career, or taking care of small kids, may not be relevant. Instead, you’ll be more successful pitching topics like taking care of ill or aging parents, handling your teens, or starting a business.

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Gender

A publication can be targeted towards men, women, or both. But interests vary widely when it comes to different genders. If a magazine is marketed clearly towards women, such as Redbook or Marie Claire, you need to address different health, relationship, and financial issues than you would if you were writing for, say, Men’s Health or GQ. For magazines that have a mixed readership, aim for topics that apply to both genders, and avoid any gender-specific references or assumptions.

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Household Income

Another factor that may need to be considered. How much money the average reader makes decides what kind of articles he or she may be interested in. This is not true across the board, of course, and depends on the magazine itself, but it’s a good guideline at times. A person making six figures a year, for instance, may not be interested in as many saving tips, as she may be in investing tips.

Similarly, you’ll need to figure out whether your reader needs information on buying a home or renting it.

A businessperson and student backpacker, while both interested in foreign trips, may have very different expectations from their foreign trips, and hence from the travel magazine they read. Know which one you’re writing for.

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Also see: Let’s Talk Editorial Calendars.

QLTS: 3.1 – Know The Market

Would you wage a war without knowing what lies in enemy territory? Head off to a job interview without any background research on the company? Propose a teddy bear line to Burger King? Nope? That’s because you know Burger King sells hamburgers and isn’t likely to show interest in your talking teddy idea. Why then would you assume that Bride’s will buy your “How to access Internet on your mobile” piece or PC World your fiction?

Dumb, isn’t it?

And yet, many writers do the same thing every single day. Editors are bombarded with query letters day after day that would never fit into their editorial line-up. And after a while, they become tired of looking at letters from writers who never bothered to check out their publication. That’s why it’s so important to research a publication.

That doesn’t just mean reading through the content, but really getting to know the audience. You have to know the reader’s motivations, what he or she aims to get out of the magazine, what age group he belongs to, and how much she earns.

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Zoning In

Studying a magazine isn’t all that it’s made out to be. You don’t have to make extensive tables, check the names of contributors or spend hours coming up with reasons why the magazine is “different.” That’s the editor’s job, and if she’s doing it well, you’ll immediately be able to see the similarities and dissimilarities in competing magazines.

Try to focus on those differences.

Most publications in the same category tend to cover similar material. The advice is usually the same, it’s the packaging that’s different. So that’s where your focus should lie, too. On how to present the material.

Answer the following questions to get started.

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Which departments are open to freelancers?

There are some sections in every publication that aren’t open to freelance submissions. Querying for those sections can be a huge waste of time, so it’s best to know before you take the plunge.

Product and book reviews are usually done in-house. Frequently, the news sections, short pieces and profiles, and most of the celebrity interviews are handled by magazine editors. If this information is not mentioned in the writers’ guidelines, look at the contributor’s bylines. If there’s no byline, it’s likely a section that you won’t be getting into. The same goes for sections that regularly feature editor bylines.

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How long are the articles?

There’s no point in researching and proposing a 1,000-word fitness piece to an editor who accepts only 500-word shorts in her health and fitness department. Keep in mind how long the articles run before you pitch for that section.

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Which type of articles are reader favorites?

Each magazine has one kind of article it gives preference to over others. For instance, even among magazines that love lists, some like them longer, and others like them shorter and in-depth. This may seem unimportant, but it’s what helps you decide whether to pitch “9 Ways to Keep Your Home Organized,” or “45 Quick Tips for an Organized Home.”

Some magazines love long drawn-out scientific detail pieces with no sidebars, hardly any subheads and zero pull quotes. Others will run one page articles that are accompanied by two sidebars, a short quiz, a large graphic display, and an important quote prominently placed in the middle of the page.

What you propose, and how you propose it, should depend on the kind of magazine you’re writing for and the format they prefer. If you know a magazine likes quizzes and sidebars, make sure to suggest some in your query letter.

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How does the magazine read?

Some magazines are informal, relaxed, even bordering on eccentric. There are others that read like college textbooks. Even among similar target audiences, you’ll find varying styles.

Read the magazine. Really read it. Pay special attention to the tone of the articles. Do they read like a formal lecture or a conversation with a friend? Are the articles straightforward and to-the-point or do they take amusing twists and turns? Are their undertones of sarcasm or humor?

Having your query letter read in the same style and voice as the magazine will help the editor see that you understand his target audience, and are a good fit.

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What topics do readers love?

There are some evergreen topics that publications feature month after month. In women’s magazines, you’ll often find weight loss tips given in many variations. Dating, friendships, and fashion are high on the teen magazine agenda. No personal finance magazine would be complete without a reference to credit cards somewhere on its pages, and career magazines will regularly print article on how to smarten up your resume.

The reason these magazines keep commissioning articles on these topics is not because they’ve run out of original ideas (hardly!), but because they know these subjects tend to be popular among their readers. They probably get the most response, or the most questions.

Editors will often want to feature new developments and trends in these topic areas before their competitors do.

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How do the articles begin?

This is very important. Taking the time to read articles in the publication and how they begin will help you tremendously in securing an assignment. That’s because by starting your own query letter in a similar format, you have the opportunity to show the editor not only that you’ve read her publication, but how your own article will begin.

Some publications like to begin with scene-setting. Some like first-person. Others begin with facts. Read several of the articles in the magazine to figure out which leads are the most popular.

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The Woods by Harlan Coben

Rating: ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼

Comments: Just when I think Coben can’t top himself, he does. Excellent read.

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From the Book:

Most people believe death is the cruelest thing. Not so. After a while, hope is a far more abusive mistress. When you live with it as long as I have, your neck constantly on the chopping block, the axe raised above you for days, then months, then years, you long for it to fall and lop off your head.

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How? How could I be so awful and worthless if a creature this magnificent loved me?

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There were some people who were bad to the bone, who would always be cruel and nasty and hurt others. There were others, maybe most that came through my office, who just messed up. It is not my job to differentiate.

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You don’t worry about happiness and fulfillment when you’re starving.

It is good to remember that.

You live among this ridiculous wealth and you get lost. You worry about nonsense like spirituality and inner health and satisfaction and relationships. You have no idea how lucky you are. You have no idea what it is like to starve, to watch yourself turn to bones, to sit by hopelessly while someone you love, someone otherwise young and healthy slowly dies, and a part of you, some horrible instinctive part of you, is almost happy because now you will get a bite-and-a-half-size sliver of bread today instead of just a bite size.

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