Freelancing
Oct. 25th, 2021 12:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rynlingWhat makes a good pitch? NPR editors weigh in
https://training.npr.org/2017/01/24/what-makes-a-good-pitch-npr-editors-weigh-in/
How to Write a Pitch That Will Make Editors Say YES
https://thewritelife.com/how-to-write-a-good-pitch/
How to successfully pitch The New York Times (or, well, anyone else)
https://www.niemanlab.org/2018/10/how-to-successfully-pitch-the-new-york-times-or-well-anyone-else/
How to stop pitching ideas and start pitching stories
https://freelancingwithtim.substack.com/p/stop-pitching-ideas-start-pitching
I think that, in addition to everything described in these articles, it also helps to be normcore. In my experience, what I personally think is "interesting" is often perceived by other people to be "too niche." There are all sorts of niche venues, of course, but they tend not to pay their contributors.
In any case, one of the big hang-ups for me is the strong insistence on "story." You really have to be selling some sort of narrative, which goes a long way toward explaining the lukewarm takes I've read in mainstream publications. Like, it would have been interesting and worthwhile simply to describe what's happening, but the journalist is forced to offer some sort of guiding perspective that is, in probably 49 out of 50 cases, completely unnecessary.
I guess we have the same thing in academic writing. You have to lead with a thesis statement, and your work probably isn't going to get published if your conclusion is "we found no correlation in these data sets" or "these archival manuscripts are interesting but don't contribute much new information to our understanding of the subject." Still, in academic writing, you at least do the research before you write the article so you're not going into the project trying to prove that like avocado toast killed the housing market.
https://training.npr.org/2017/01/24/what-makes-a-good-pitch-npr-editors-weigh-in/
How to Write a Pitch That Will Make Editors Say YES
https://thewritelife.com/how-to-write-a-good-pitch/
How to successfully pitch The New York Times (or, well, anyone else)
https://www.niemanlab.org/2018/10/how-to-successfully-pitch-the-new-york-times-or-well-anyone-else/
How to stop pitching ideas and start pitching stories
https://freelancingwithtim.substack.com/p/stop-pitching-ideas-start-pitching
I think that, in addition to everything described in these articles, it also helps to be normcore. In my experience, what I personally think is "interesting" is often perceived by other people to be "too niche." There are all sorts of niche venues, of course, but they tend not to pay their contributors.
In any case, one of the big hang-ups for me is the strong insistence on "story." You really have to be selling some sort of narrative, which goes a long way toward explaining the lukewarm takes I've read in mainstream publications. Like, it would have been interesting and worthwhile simply to describe what's happening, but the journalist is forced to offer some sort of guiding perspective that is, in probably 49 out of 50 cases, completely unnecessary.
I guess we have the same thing in academic writing. You have to lead with a thesis statement, and your work probably isn't going to get published if your conclusion is "we found no correlation in these data sets" or "these archival manuscripts are interesting but don't contribute much new information to our understanding of the subject." Still, in academic writing, you at least do the research before you write the article so you're not going into the project trying to prove that like avocado toast killed the housing market.
