Too Much on Offer?

Many of us are so desperate when we’re starting out, we’ll promise the world for an unpaid byline in a local newspaper with a circulation of fifty. I’ve been guilty of over-hyping my queries, too. One of my first pitches to Woman’s Day (via e-mail, no less) promised a brilliant new twist on cancer prevention.

Foolish, I know.

I did some research online, located a few high-profile experts, and sent off my neatly-crafted query with the promise of interviewing a prominent author (who never responded to my four e-mails), tips that had never been featured in the magazine before (I’d never once seen the magazine), and quotes from people who’d used these techniques. Okay, you can laugh now.

Boy, was I glad that query never pulled through.

The first sign of danger is when you’re praying the assignment doesn’t come your way rather than the other way around. But more importantly, here’s why mine didn’t: the editor probably knew right away that I was new to the game. I had no similar clips, no major publications in my resume, and yet, here I was proposing not only a tough article, but one that had every challenge possible in an assignment. Ambitious maybe. But I wasn’t giving any evidence that I was actually equipped to be handling such a tough idea (no expert quotes, no actual tips, no real interviews, not even statistics.) The editor was wise. She never responded.

That’s not to say I’m unprofessional. If that editor had taken her chances, she’d get an impeccable article with quotes and tips on her desk at 9 a.m. two days before deadline even if I had to travel to the other end of the world to get them. But she had no reason to believe that based on my query letter.

Editors know how to distinguish hype from fact. If she’s working in the health department of a magazine, there’s no way you’re going to give her health advice she hasn’t heard before. If you’ve just received a press release on the best foods to eat during pregnancy, she probably got it, too. Keep the over-sell out. Pitch your topic and your idea, but don’t promise the world. You sure as heck can’t deliver it.

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It’s Not a Grocery List

Being enthusiastic and having a notebook full of wonderful ideas is one thing. Irritating the crap out of an editor by sending her a laundry list of thirty is quite another. While you may think you’re giving her a good choice of articles that she can file away for later use, she’s probably thinking you have no clue which ideas will fit into her publication. While you may happily assume she’s going to think you’re capable of coming up with several good ideas at a time, she’s probably wondering, “Why is this writer wasting my time?”

Not good.

In fact, even if an editor does like most of your ideas, chances are, she can’t assign all of them right away. She’ll probably pick her favorite, reject the rest and send them back to you. The next time you’re querying, you’ll need to come up with more ideas because you don’t know whether she rejected them because she didn’t like them or because she couldn’t afford to buy them. What a waste of effort!

I advocate sending one, maximum two ideas at a time. Exceptions to this rule, however, would be when the editor has requested that you send her a list or if you have a regular working relationship with her. Unless you’ve worked with someone before, they have no way of knowing whether you’re really capable of writing the article, or you’ve just bought a freelance writing book and copied query formats from there. Sure, you have some good ideas, and yes, you’ve even managed to write two coherent paragraphs. But will you stick to the deadline? Will you provide references and phone numbers for the fact-checker? How much editing will your piece need? An editor might take a chance on a new writer with one assignment, but she’s unlikely to give you another one until you’ve proven beyond doubt that you’ll be an asset and not a pain in the ass.

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Simultaneous Queries = Simultaneous Frustration

The first time I heard a writer say that simultaneous queries weren’t going to come back and haunt you, I was relieved. The next time, I felt like heading across the oceans and strangling her.

My worst fears came true when after sending out a query to a national magazine and not receiving a response, I decided to try my luck with a smaller market. I was lucky all right. The idea sold immediately, I quickly wrote up the piece, filled it with humorous anecdotes and clever zingers, and sent it off to the assigning editor, who loved it. The piece was to be published three months later.

Then I heard from the national magazine. They wanted it too.

I cursed the writer who’d said that simultaneous submissions rarely got accepted at both places, decided I must be an outstanding one-of-a-kind writer and then freaked out. Big time. There was just no way I was going back to that editor telling her I wasn’t going to come through and killing any future chances with that magazine. I told her I’d do it, and with bated breath, waited for the contact to arrive. In the meantime, I pictured the two magazines coming out in the same month, the editors of each red with fury, and me lying by the roadside mourning the death of yet another career choice.

Thankfully for me, the contract came bearing good news. The editors at both magazines wanted completely different things, and the article I wrote for the national magazine wound up being half the size of the first, focusing more on expert quotes than my own experiences. It also ran almost a year later. Phew!

However, you may not always be this lucky. If you’ve been following my advice so far, you’ve been very specific with your ideas, you’ve given names of experts, offered photos, maybe even described a couple of points. How can you suddenly decide to change the focus of the article if the editor has liked what you’ve shown her? Nope. Doesn’t work.

So should you stop sending simultaneous submissions? Absolutely not! Just get a little creative with them, so that if two magazines come back with acceptances, you don’t have to think about saying yes.

This is what you need to keep in mind:

* Don’t offer the same idea to competing magazines. If both of them like it (which is unlikely, but possible) you’ll be in a very unenviable position. Instead, reslant your ideas. Sending a cancer-fighting foods query to Woman’s Day while you propose a libido-enhancing foods idea to Redbook works for everyone.

* If you’ve worked with an editor before, it’s only decent that you give her the first right of refusal. So if you’ve written for The Writer, let the editor reject your query before asking Writer’ s Digest to give it a look. It’s just a matter of building good relationships. If you’re sending the same idea to both, your editor at The Writer will not be pleased if she’s interested and it has already been picked up by her competitor.

* Send simultaneous submissions to markets with different target audiences. For instance, I recently sent a “Fun with Digital Pictures” idea to a parenting magazine (”Fun Photo Gifts for Christmas”), a women’s magazine (”Snap it up for Romance”), a technology magazine (”What’s the Fate of your Digital Pictures?”), and a teen magazine (”Picture Perfect for Friendship Day”). Not only is the research the same, the ideas in all the above articles will be the same as well. If I can teach parents how to make a cartoon strip featuring their kids, I can certainly teach a teenager to do it for her best friend, too. Of course, I’ll present the same idea to all editors as perfect for their audience, but if you think about it, such gifts are great for just about anybody!

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To Follow up or Not to Follow up

It isn’t enough that we get rejected a gazillion times before an acceptance, write and rewrite articles and essays to perfection, deal with the loneliness of the profession, and work with editors who disappear just when we’re getting close. But now we have to send e-mail to stingy editors to remind them of our queries when they don’t have the decency to send a simple “No thank you”? Why should you be bothered?

Because you’re the one trying to make a sale.

Sorry, but that’s just the way it works. You’re providing a service, you’re trying to make a sale, so you’re the one who needs to follow up. If it increases the chances of making a sale by even one percent, do you really want to miss out?

I’ve received word on a number of queries simply by e-mailing and asking their status. I’d rather have the satisfaction of knowing whether my proposal is in or out. Even if it’s a rejection, at least I know.

Maybe the editor just misplaced your letter or accidentally deleted your e-mail and has no way of contacting you. By following up, you’ll get another shot at acceptance.