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Topic: What Comes First, the Idea or the Pub?
| Author | Message |
| clairezulkey | Posted – 6/20/2006 3:49:09 PM | show profile | email poster When you pitch to publications, do you tend to come up with an idea first and find places to fit it, or, do you study a publication and then try to come up with ideas to match?" ------ Editor of MBToolBox |
| Astera | Posted – 6/20/2006 5:13:27 PM | show profile My brain is not working properly today...when I saw this headline, I thought it meant, "Do you come up with an idea first, or do you go to the pub (bar) to drink first to come up with the idea?" Well, it was funny to me. |
| newyorker | Posted – 6/20/2006 5:46:20 PM | show profile Both actually. |
| clairezulkey | Posted – 6/20/2006 6:07:00 PM | show profile | email poster I was just curious b/c one of these days I hope to go to freelancing full-time. Currently, I pitch as ideas come to me although I imagine you'd have to be more urgent when it's your only source of income. ------ Editor of MBToolBox |
| keepitanonymous | Posted – 6/21/2006 2:13:49 AM | show profile How about extending that idea? Perhaps there's another way of looking at the question, Claire: When starting a NEW pub, do you first decide you want to start a publication, and then find the most timely market space? Or do you realize the market's need, and build a publication to fill the gap (in the appropriate format, of course)? I'd be interested to hear people's thoughts on that.... ==================== Jonathon S. Feit Chief Editor & Publisher WITH THIS RING Magazine "For Every Kind of Wedding" www.withthisring-magazine.com |
| A. Shaw | Posted – 6/21/2006 10:23:38 AM | show profile That may be a topic all its own..... to start or not to start a pub(lication). (I, too, thought pub as in pint 'o Guinness - *chuckle*). Back to the topic - I wonder if it is a bit of both. I write for a nonprofit (grants, marketing materials, and newsletter articles), but I find that when I'm working on grant narratives I come up with at least one article idea about the project that I could pitch to a publication. On the other hand, inspiration could be had when you research a publication market (fresher take on the same old, same old, or an angle a pub hasn't covered, etc.). Someone once said/wrote about commercial writing(possibly in a MB forum) that it is not good to depend on one source of income, meaning long term and short term clients. I wonder if the same logic could apply to freelance article writing - to use a combination approaches (idea first - then shop for a publication and vice versa). I, too, aspire to freelance work, so I find your opinions interesting. |
| dribbledrive1 | Posted – 6/21/2006 10:57:49 AM | show profile I'll tell you what I do. I've been a full-time freelancer for many years, and written lots of magazine articles, but rarely pitch ideas. I started off on staff at a weekly magazine and then got a writingh job at a health magazine. After I went into freelancing, I sent those clips to business and trade magazines, technology magazines, and women magazines, asking for assignments. I can't imagine how someone makes a living pitching ideas to editors, especially editors they don't know. I can see how you could get assignments that way, but not how you could build a dependable and decent income stream. To me, that's something you do to build clips. When I get an assignment from a new magazine, I can't say I really study it. I might read a couple of articles to get a sense of it, but that's pretty much it. (And over the years, I've written dozens and dozens of articles for magazines that I never read myself). |
| clairezulkey | Posted – 6/21/2006 11:08:02 AM | show profile | email poster I've been lucky enough to stumble into some good assignments based on contacts. I'm miserable at pitching and it scares me because one of these days I'll have to really rely on it. ------ Editor of MBToolBox |
| sparky_fuego | Posted – 6/21/2006 4:08:22 PM | show profile you really have to do both. you have to always be thinking of interesting story ideas and angles. i keep a folder on my desktop imaginitively called PITCH IDEAS. any time i see a news story, someone sends me an idea or i spot a trend, i drop it in there -- without worrying at that time if i have an publication in mind for it. similarly, i keep a running list of publications i like and often build tailored pitch banks (sometimes using ideas from the folder). one thing's crucial, though, and that's knowing the pub before you pitch. study the target audience, monitor the section you think you fit in for a couple months and gut check your idea and style to make sure you're right for the pub. |
| jasonboog | Posted – 6/22/2006 10:45:22 AM | show profile I spend about half my time thinking about good ideas and trying to figure out where to send them. 95% of those ideas never get placed. If I think of ideas for specific publications, especially the ones that know me, about 95% of those ideas end up getting published. I think as a business model, it's a better idea to choose a publication and start finding ideas to match. As a writer/beatnik or whatever it is I am in my artistic imagination, that kind of selling out makes me a little bit queasy, but at this stage in the game, I need to eat too... |
| fake.it.til.you.make.it | Posted – 6/23/2006 1:38:21 AM | show profile In my experience, I typically find an idea or trend first and then find a publication I think would publish it. As mentioned above, a good freelancer would know how to angle these ideas. Ideally, you should come up with one idea and then slice and dice it into several different ones that fit several different publications, which I am still learning to do myself. If you've already got clips, it's so much easier to continue relationships with your assigning editors so they can hook you up with more assignments. I love it when you can randomly send them a brief email, point out something cool you want to write on and then you've got an assignment. I'd also like to learn more about how dribbledrive approaches these pubs saying you're available for assignments rather than pitching ideas... :) ------ http://writerwannabehack.blogspot.com |
| mailbag | Posted – 6/29/2006 8:51:48 AM | show profile | email poster Depends? I'm finding the answers here a bit confusing... I thought the topic meant what comes first "Idea" or "Magazine" pub/paper etc. So, under that description....maybe you can ask me in 2 years. :D I just published an "idea" for a global warming topics publication on 26 June - online. I bought two domains to go with the idea, globalwarmingmonthly.com and globalwarmingweekly.com. From my POV I had a choice...try to make a public record of my "idea" which only took about 3 hours and $80, or waste my very valuable time trying to find a financial backer/ publisher to pitch ONLY for them to steal the idea anyway leaving me without the job I want. Yeah... many here may conclude I've wasted my time. But (a big but) what if this idea flows into the right hands and we begin negotiating that "dream job" I want -- which is to be the editor of a global warming topics publication? So, I sit and wait and continue my day job until further notice. I think the answer to this topic is 'it depends.' Madison Ave execs launch pubs for no real editorial reason, I'd say editors/journalists/content experts have the ideas, which can build into a publication. |
