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Topic: For Me magazine?
| Author | Message |
| nycflxer | Posted – 2/25/2006 9:20:11 AM | show profile Has anyone worked with them before? Experiences, good, bad? |
| lenagrove | Posted – 2/25/2006 11:07:35 AM | show profile I've written four pieces for them. They're nice! I did hear that they were backlogged on personal essays, though, so you might want to hold off on submitting those for a while. |
| fake.it.til.you.make.it | Posted – 2/25/2006 11:56:28 AM | show profile lenagrove, can I ask how you were able to successfully pitch For Me? I sent them one via snail-mail as it said on their writer's guidelines on the website, but it seemed to have been sucked into the great black hole of queries that never get responded to. And that was quite a few months ago. Did you snail-mail yours or e-mail an editor? ------ http://writerwannabehack.blogspot.com |
| nycflxer | Posted – 2/25/2006 1:12:51 PM | show profile thanx for the info on the personal essays, lenagrove. i guess i should wait a while before sending mine in if they are backlogged. do you know if any of their other departments are new-writer-friendly? |
| TeuscherTruffe | Posted – 2/25/2006 1:36:04 PM | show profile I wrote my first piece for them in January; it'll run in the May issue. They were extremely easy to work with--but my editor left the week my piece was turned in. |
| melvotaw | Posted – 2/25/2006 3:45:49 PM | show profile Snail mail I haven't written for For Me, but I've written for Woman's Day. One of the editors I'd corresponded with is now at For Me. I wouldn't snail mail them regardless of what the guidelines say. I'd email the proper editor. That's my two cents, unless someone else has more firsthand info. -Melanie ------ Author of five non-fiction books currently on the market. |
| lenagrove | Posted – 2/25/2006 5:45:56 PM | show profile TeuscherTruffe, I'm betting we worked with the same editor! I was really sorry to see her leave. My original pitch was via email, but I will say that since she's been gone, I haven't had as much success pitching there...I think they're just swamped right now, though, what with being down one editor. |
| leftcoaster | Posted – 2/25/2006 8:02:05 PM | show profile I wrote one short piece for them. The editor was very pleasant and helpful. I wasn't asked to do any revisions, but the article hasn't run yet, so I don't know what kind of edits may have been made. I actually sent the piece on spec by e-mail and a couple of months later the editor wrote back and asked me to make a few changes to it. (I had followed up once by e-mail as well.) It took a little over three months to get paid after submitting the article. I'm not sure how that compares to other pubs as I'm new to writing for magazines. I've since pitched them a couple of other ideas. They were both rejected, but I got the responses pretty quickly, including the reason why they were rejected, which I thought was very nice. I wouldn't hesitate to write for them again (if they'll have me! :) |
| glitz_girl | Posted – 2/25/2006 9:14:34 PM | show profile | email poster It took over three months to be paid? eek! For others who have written for this mag, was it about the same? I'm working on my first piece for them and would like to know what to expect. |
| TeuscherTruffe | Posted – 2/25/2006 9:40:32 PM | show profile Three months? Wow. Then again, I sent in my article in early January and haven't seen a check yet. I did get messages from the Accounts Payable people so I know I'm in the system. It's only a matter of time, I'm sure. My editor was Jennifer Conrad, who's defected to Teen Vogue. I'm talking with several others now, but haven't quite connected for another piece. Yet. |
| glitz_girl | Posted – 3/10/2006 10:48:05 AM | show profile For those of you who have written for For Me and had to do minor editing (or revisions), about how long did it take for your editor to get back to you to let you know? Basically what was the timeframe from you turning the article and them getting back to you to let you know it was accepted or they'll need a little bit of editing? |
| leftcoaster | Posted – 3/10/2006 11:56:53 AM | show profile After I submitted it, it took a couple of months (and a couple of follow-up e-mails from me) to find out that my payment was being processed. At that point, it was still going to be several months before the piece was expected to run, so I was told that I might be asked to do a little editing closer to that date. A couple of months after that I was asked for my research notes, then never heard anything else until the article was published. It turns out there were only a couple of minor copy edits to what I had submitted. Hope that helps. |
| lenagrove | Posted – 3/10/2006 1:56:24 PM | show profile I heard they were taking personal essays again, by the way. |
| ItsAMysteryNY | Posted – 3/15/2006 9:04:15 AM | show profile Really good news about the personal essays, thanks, because I emailed them one last night and didn't even KNOW they were backlogged. I might try to pitch articles to them too. |
| ItsAMysteryNY | Posted – 3/15/2006 9:11:27 AM | show profile Oops, almost forgot, could anyone tell me how long it generally takes to hear back from them on essays (or anything else, really) Thanks! |
| FMDesign | Posted – 3/26/2006 11:14:32 AM | show profile | email poster Working with For Me Hi everyone, As an insider, I can tell you that For Me is seriously understaffed and our bill processing methods have changed. So, without any editorial assistants or interns to open your querries and process your invoices, it might be a while... Please bear with us. In regards to personal essays, everyone has one. Your biggest competition is actually the staffers. The areas where I think we're lacking some fresh ideas are in the travel, Cash Flow and Working Girl sections. Holly Corbet, a WD editor, wrote an essay about her experience at surf camp for the March issue. More first-person travel pieces could be a good thing. It's an idea that could be carried over effectively to Cash Flow and Working Girl features, too, but just hasn't been done yet in our magazine. Also, email editors directly. ------ --M |
| leftcoaster | Posted – 3/26/2006 11:20:51 AM | show profile FMDesign, thanks for the insider info. When you're talking about the need for travel, Working Girl, and Cash Flow stories, do you mean essays in particular, or service pieces as well? Also, I read in the market guide on Freelance Success that the magazine won't accept essays from anyone over 35 (I assume because they print your picture and want you to look like your target audience). Can you confirm if that's accurate? Thanks again. This kind of info is really valuable. |
| FMDesign | Posted – 3/27/2006 10:50:15 AM | show profile ''A Young Looking 40'' Our readers want to see real people, but we want to continue to look like our target range of 28. On one hand, women in their 30s and 40s have more to offer than some of the 25-year-olds we quote, but on the other hand we want to show the age we're targeting. So, personal essays are probably not what you should be trying for if you're over 35 because we'll want a picture and then we'll debate how old you really look. However, if you write a more servicey first-person piece we can get away with using a model for the art. That's what we did for the travel story in March and the cooking feature coming up in June. The same debate goes on with sources, too, because we like to show everyone. Not the expert sources, but the real people who started their own businesses or took a mental sebatical and so on. It gets to be a problem when everyone quoted is 38. I hope that helps... ------ --M |
| leftcoaster | Posted – 3/27/2006 11:38:41 AM | show profile Thanks again. |
| redsocks | Posted – 3/27/2006 8:48:44 PM | show profile Any advice on how long to wait before following up with an editor? |
| nik123 | Posted – 3/27/2006 10:38:10 PM | show profile Who to contact I'm interested in sending a query to For Me. Does anyone have a name I should specifically contact? An e-mail address? Thanks! |
| ItsAMysteryNY | Posted – 3/28/2006 9:05:30 AM | show profile Does that mean you could like an essay and want to publish it, but reject it because the writer looks ''too old''? |
| curiouscat003 | Posted – 3/31/2006 9:55:51 AM | show profile interesting... but how much does For Me pay for these type of personal essays? can anybody provide a number? |
| Daisy Chestnut | Posted – 3/31/2006 10:01:56 AM | show profile $1/word I sold an essay a few weeks ago and was paid $1/word--FYI. |
| curiouscat003 | Posted – 3/31/2006 11:20:08 AM | show profile hmmm... what's the typical word count? |
