Quick Tip: Schedule Your Sending

Yesterday I wrote about the fact that I have a whole lot of queries sitting around that really need to be sent. I’m sure I’m not the only one.

What I — and, maybe, you — need to do is to actually put some time into my schedule that’s just for writing, refining and sending queries. As it is right now I’ll get an idea, write a draft of a query on a piece of paper while I keep an eye on the little one, and then it usually never makes it onto the computer or into the inbox of an editor who might be interested.

This could even have a cute name like Work Out Wednesday (getting the work out of the house) or Finish it Up Friday, or it could just be Tuesdays because you have more time on Tuesdays. Whatever.

The point is that if you work getting queries out into your schedule, you’ll get more queries out (surprise!) and have more success.

Know Your Market

One of the most important tips I know for successful article writing is to have as deep an understanding as possible of the market you are writing for.

Whether the publication is an online magazine, a print newsletter or a national glossy, knowing the publication’s style, its mission and its readers can help guide how you approach your article and how you write it.

Getting to Know You

Most writer’s guidelines suggest that you take a look at a few back issues of a magazine before querying in order to gain such an understanding of the publication. It’s good advice, because reading the text that the editor has chosen to be in the publication gives you a great idea of what the editor likes — and therefore what the reader likes — in terms of tone, vocabulary and content.

All writers have a particular voice that they are most comfortable writing in — mine’s all informational, relatively informal, a little chatty — and though we can sometimes switch it up to be more or less formal, our best writing will happen when we strive to work within that comfort zone.

That means, for example, that I’d probably be a lot more comfortable writing for, say Good Housekeeping than the Economist. (In terms of subject matter, too!) That’s good to know before I, or you, send a query. If you read a magazine and don’t think you can replicate the style, don’t send a query thinking the editor will love your idea anyway and accept the way you present it.

If you can’t mold yourself to the way the magazine speaks, you won’t get an assignment.

What to Look for When Looking at a Magazine

So how do you learn what you need to learn about a magazine by looking through it? Here are a few ideas:

• Look at the ads and think about what they tell you about who reads the magazine. Are they for upscale products (BMW and Gucci) or more middle-of-the-road fare (Ford and the Gap)?
• What sort of language is used in stories? Are there lots of contractions, interjections and slang, or is it more formal? Do the articles talk directly to the reader? Are stories full of personal anecdotes, or is the author of the story absent from the telling of the story?
• Are there lots of sidebars, subheds and other “ways into the story,” as we called attention-grabbers in my newspaper days? You’ll want to use (and offer in your query) the same sorts of content.
• Read the letter from the editor. What tone does she set for her magazine?

A Sample Reader

You might even want to go so far as to make up a “sample reader” of the magazine who you can think about while you’re writing your query and your article. Maybe the magazine gives you the impression that it’s read by a 30-something mom of two who stays at home with the kids, or maybe you think of a 50ish businessman who loves to travel.

Whatever you see in your mind’s eye, this ideal reader can be a big help if you get stuck when you’re trying to write. What would that one particular person want to know about your topic? If you write to them, rather than to the whole mass of magazine readers out there, you’ll stay a lot more focused in terms of content and voice, which is sure to make your editor happy.

Quick Tip: Let it Sit

It’s easy to get excited about a project, query or finished article. We want to send it out while that enthusiasm for the project is still there, but in our haste we might not describe a project as fully as we could or we might make sloppy grammatical or other errors that could easily be caught if we’d given our work a chance to percolate.

Even just a couple of hours away from a query up to a couple of days away from a big article can make a difference in how you judge the finished product. That time spent not really thinking about the project can give you insights you didn’t have when you were conscious of thinking about it, which can improve your writing considerably.

So if you’re thinking about sending out a query in a hurry, give it a break. You’ll be glad you did.

Quick Tip: Keep on Querying

How many queries should you have out at once? It depends on the time you have for query writing and what your income goals (and current work level) is. While C. Hope Clark famously keeps “13 in play,” that level of production probably won’t work for you if you already have a full-time job.

Start out by trying to write one new query a day and keep going from there.

Quick Tip: Remember to Reslant

Whenever you write an article or query, practice coming up with ways to reslant the piece for other markets. The same research that goes into an interview piece for one publication might work as a how-to for another (noncompeting, of course!). Or a similar idea to one pitched for a women’s magazine might also work for a garden or cooking publication.

Reusing your research — with some fresh material and quotes — means you’re spending a lot less time on the subsequent story or stories so you’re making more money with less effort, which is what we all want.

Quick Tip: Don’t Give Up!

Remember that a rejection doesn’t have to be the end of the story. Have a backup market or two in mind and try to revise and resend your query on the same day you get a rejection — you’ll feel better because you’re keeping the momentum and still giving the story a chance to be told.

Quick Tip: Keep Up with Your Markets

Try to devote an hour — or an afternoon — once or twice a week to market research. This can be done with a market book, the market listings in writing magazines, an online markets database, the listings in writing newsletters or ezines, even just doing web searches or browsing the magazines at your local bookstore or library (or your coffeetable).

Challenge yourself to come up with at least four ideas you could pitch to each market, then follow through with queries as soon as possible.

Stop Putting it Off

Have you ever written a query with great enthusiasm only to leave it languish on your hard drive unsent for weeks or months?

I’m sad to admit I do this all the time. Last year I wrote this great query for Sierra magazine about how my city, which had just endured a devastating ice storm, was planning to recover from the loss of thousands of trees in a town known for its greenery.

I was so excited about the potential for this story. I envisioned the interviews I would do, the tours of parks full of fallen trees.

But I never sent the query. It’s now been more than a year since the storm, and though there’s probably still a story in there somewhere, I probably should have been reporting it all year if I really wanted to tell it properly.

On Not Letting Go

That’s one of the more egregious examples, but it’s certainly not isolated. I’ve read editorial calendars, come up with great ideas and never queried them. Or I’ll write a query, find a market and still never send it.

I do this for all the reasons every writer procrastinates: perfectionism (as if there is such a thing as a perfect pitch sent to the perfect market at the perfect time), fear of failure (what if I really do suck at this writing thing?), fear of success (you mean now I have to write that great article?), fear of no response at all.

A Different Approach

This time I’m going to try something different. This morning I wrote a query for a market I know is looking for stories like mine. I know I have to hurry because the lead time on the publication’s editorial calendar basically coincides with now. And I’d really like to see this article — a personal essay actually — get published.

While I’d never advocate myself or anyone else sending a query right after writing it, it is important to get queries out the door as soon as you can after writing them. So my goal is to let this query rest overnight and send it tomorrow.

Of course I have no guarantee of success, just like any other writer. But I also know that there’s no way this article or any other will ever get published if I never query. The same is true of your great ideas.

A Challenge

This week, is there a query you’ve been sitting on that you could send out? Stop putting it off. There’s no harm at all in seeing what will happen. You just might end up with a sale and a clip to be really proud of.

If you take this challenge, I’d love to hear what you sent or simply that you sent. Let’s get these stories out into the light!

Action Step: Drafting a Query

I mentioned earlier this week that writing a query is similar to writing an article in that you need to write a compelling lede and tell a story that the prospective editor wants to buy. Writing a query is also like writing an article in that it shouldn’t ever be done in a single draft or written and sent in one sitting.

Like any other quality piece of writing, you need time away from your query before you reread and send it to make sure that you included all the most important relevant information and shared it in the most interesting way that you can.

You don’t want to spend so much time ruminating on a query that it never gets sent (believe me, I’ve been there, and the most brilliant query own’t get you a story if the opportunity to write about it has passed), but if you can give it overnight to steep before a final edit and send, you’ll be better off for it.

First off, you’ll catch gramatical errors, missing words and other problems more easily when the writing isn’t as fresh. It will also give you more distance from the writing to see if you’re saying everything you need to say in the way you mean to say it.

If you were the editor, would you give yourself this assignment based just on this query? If not, you’ve got more work to do.

So take some time to write up a draft of your query, but remember to give it time to percolate before you print it out to mail or hit send. You’ll be glad you did, and probably more successful as you spend more time really paying attention to your queries.

Query Writing Workshop: The Lede’s the Thing

Just as in article writing, the most important part of your query is the first sentence or two, known in newspaper parlance as “the lede” (sometimes also spelled lead, but old-school folks go with the strange spelling).

And just as it takes practice and maybe a few rounds of writing to get the lede of an article just right, it also takes some time to get the beginning of your query just right, but it is no doubt worth all the time that it takes.

As with the article itself, you’re looking to hook a reader (in this case the editor) with your query. You want to interest her or him enough to keep reading long enough to learn more about your proposed story and about you such that she or he will want to work with you.

Classic Lede Ideas

There are many different ways to write an effective lede for a query and for an article; in fact, it’s a great idea to think of the beginning of your query as if it were the beginning of your story. If you were writing the article itself, what would be the most important fact that you would want to share.

In some cases you can start a query as you would a story with a surprising fact or a “did you know…” sort of question that immediately engages the reader. Or you can tell a short story about a person involved in your story or that somehow brings readers into the story.

I’ve started queries with almost newsy ledes (for example one on local ice storm recovery efforts began with something along the lines of “On January 27, 2009, a powerful ice storm swept through Northwest Arkansas, leaving hundreds of thousands of people without power for days and knocking down an estimated 500,000 cubic yards of debris in one city alone.” The idea of the article was to look at how a region that is well known for its natural beauty recovers from a storm that’s so devastating to the scenery.

Another Way to Consider

I’ve read that some people who have a particular experience that’s important to selling a story will start their queries with a bit of personal information rather than a taste of what the story will be about. That might work in some cases, but I think you’ve really got to do all you can to get the editor hooked into your story as quickly as possible.

If the person reading your query doesn’t care about your credentials or thinks leading off with why you’re the perfect person to write a story is conceited, you’ve lost the assignment before the editor even knows what you were proposing.

The only exception I might see is if you were proposing a first-person story in which it mattered that you had gone through the experience you’re talking about. But even then I might start with an anecdote rather than a list of credentials.

Take Your Time

The point of all this is just to say that query writing takes time. Beyond that first paragraph, you’ve got to put together a compelling argument for your story and you as the author of that article without ever explicitly saying “I’m the perfect person to tell this story to your readers.”

It’s a balancing act that takes practice, but like article writing itself, it gets easier the more you do it. So get out there and write some queries!

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