Mridu, can I ask you a question about being a contributing editor? Do you still primarily pitch your own ideas, or does another editor assign articles or reports based on your area of expertise? I expect this varies from pub to pub, but I wondered what your experience has been like in that regard.

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My experience so far has been that being a contributing editor rocks. Regular assignments, monthly paychecks, your name on the masthead, what’s not to love?

It does, however, as you’ve rightly pointed out, come down to the publication. I love Elle’s editors (and I do think they love me back) and I go back a long long way with this publication. Even before I was contributing regularly, my editor was sending me advances to cover my rent and more than once, she raised my rates on her own without my ever asking. They’ve been exceptionally good to me, so it was a no-brainer to me that when they offered that I get on board regularly, I immediately said yes.

A few things to understand about contributing editor agreements however: One, you’re expected to produce a certain number of pieces a year (for me, that’s 10 articles each year) and if you don’t meet this number, you’ll owe them the pieces that you haven’t finished before you can get paid again or have your contract renewed. Two, you can’t write for their competitors. Because I’m now on Elle’s masthead, I can no longer write for the Indian women’s magazines. I’m absolutely fine with this because I didn’t anyway, but if you’re getting the bulk of your income from a certain kind of magazine or publication, then signing a contract with just one could actually potentially cut your income. And three, you and the editor are both in charge of figuring out what you’ll write but at the end of the day, if you haven’t met your yearly quota, you’re the one left without the renewed agreement and income. So it’s in your best interest to make sure that you’re continuously pitching stories and meeting your deadlines. I’ve mentioned before that I actually prefer finding my own stories, but if that weren’t the case, I could easily e-mail my editor and ask that she give me something to do.

My deal with Elle is a bit of both. Sometimes they send me story ideas that they think will work for me, but most of the time, I’m the one who suggests what I’d like to do. This year, I’ve already sent them a list of eight stories that I’ll be doing over the course of the year, with a deadline for each. But there are still two spare slots, so they might come to me with ideas, or I might come up with my own. We’ll see. Elle‘s fairly easy to work with and the editors are very low-maintenance, so it’s more of a conversation than anything else, but with other publications, you might be pitching stories on a month-to-month basis.

All that said, it’s a very different experience being a contributing editor at Elle or the Writer Magazine or Spirituality & Health than it would be for, say the New Yorker or the Atlantic. If I don’t meet my yearly quota, which is what happened last year, I can spend a month just finishing up the two or three stories that I owe them (which, as it turns out, is what I did). But if you owe the New Yorker four stories a year (obviously, they’re much more thorough and researched so you’re not likely to do one monthly) and you didn’t do two, that’s six months of work ahead of you, for which you’ve already been paid (and have likely spent the money). Talk about backlog!

You’re not likely to get offered a contributing editor position by a magazine you’ve never worked with, so your past experience with the publication will go a long way in showing you what the future relationship is likely to look like. And if it doesn’t go well, there’s always the option to cut your losses and move on.

For the most part though, I think contributing editor relationships are a great way of forming bonds with a magazine and editor and ensuring yourself some regular work and income each month.