Coaching Corner: A New Feature

Tips for Targeting Publications and Editors

As we all know, writers today also need to be…promoters, social media experts, marketing mavens, video- and audio- and Zoom-ready speakers, interviewers of other authors, interview subjects, entertainers, newsletter producers, podcast producers, oftentimes professors, aware of culturally sensitive debates (J.K. Rowling! Elizabeth Gilbert!), etc., etc. It can feel overwhelming!

Photo by Julien L on Unsplash

My former career was in public relations and marketing communications, so for me researching the marketplace, identifying publications and editors, writing query letters, and crafting book proposals, etc. is weirdly fun.

But I’ve noticed that most writers and authors are put off by these aspects of the biz. And so I’m introducing this Coaching Corner column to share some incredibly useful tips with you. They’re based on my success (humble brag alert!) at pitching articles, opinion pieces, and columns to editors of newspapers, magazines, and online sites, including Boston Globe, Salon, Chicago Tribune, PopMatters, HuffPost, etc., and book ideas to literary agents and publishers. These tips will hopefully de-stress you and set you up for success, too!

To kick things off, here’s some advice on:

Finding Just the Right Places for Your Articles and Essays - Part One

Here are some super effective ways of doing it:

-Search publications’ websites for:

• Their mastheads, which include key editors and (often) their email addresses

• Their submissions guidelines and whether or not they’re currently accepting freelance submissions. Believe it or not, they’re sometimes hard to find, so in those cases, just Google them instead

• Open calls for a pitch packet (pitches for multiple articles) or a new column (that’s how I started a column at PopMatters that ran for 6 years!)

-Buy the current edition of Writer’s Market for a comprehensive listing of publications and editors. It’s a fantastic resource, but since it was last published in 2021, you’ll still need to double-check the accuracy of the info

There’s plenty more where that came from, so check out the next Coaching Corner article (coming soon).

Important reminder: Summer’s here at last! That means it’s nearly time for the start of my 8-week workshop (on Zoom), “Writing from Personal Experience.” Spots are already filling up, so if you’re interested here’s where you can find out more info and register. Also feel free to email me at meta@metawagner.com if you have any questions about my writing workshops. Hope to see you there!

Which aspects of pitching editors do you want to know more about? Please share your answers in the Comments section, below. I’m eager to see what you have to say!