📧👤📑 how to pitch 📑👤📧

The latest in the How To Be A Creative™ series, we take a look at the world of pitching and getting a story published.

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There was a time when I was pitching multiple articles a day, multiple articles a week, a month, getting them placed regularly in publications like Playboy and Los Angeles, Popsugar and Cool Hunting — and many other myriad publications that no longer exist, or that transformed between 2014 and 2024, in ways that you would have a hard time understanding given the complicated dynamics of modern journalism. There is an alternate universe where I make a living from pitching and writing for outlets, perhaps one where I stayed in New York instead of going to Los Angeles, one where I studied a specialized subject instead of fiction and theater.

But every path has a reason and, with the path I took, I ended up here working myriad media jobs with a parallel path in journalism that rises and falls with the world’s interest in the format. For better or worse, this newsletter has filled the gap of my pitching and is why my name isn’t “in print” as much anymore because…who has time to pitch when you’re writing three newsletters a week atop of work? I don’t! Or at least this timeline of “me” doesn’t have that time. One day I will pitch more! We shall see.

All this is to say: I have pitched a lot. Whether in 2014 or 2024, the act remains unchanged, although I am sure there are more tools and better success rates by those who are more dogged in this work. For writers starting out, pitching and getting a story published can feel like the most important thing in the world, that you are only worth as much as your name “in print,” which is a similar trap that actors and aspiring film people have, that they won’t do YouTube or TikTok or anything online because it’s not The Movies™. The good news is it’s 2024 and, for journalists and writers, you can define your own path by writing for yourself, establishing an independent, captive audience that an outlet may never give you. The bad news is that you and everyone else in the world still remembers the original path and turn to it before they’ll turn to you. Traditional media is dead! Long live traditional media!

I don’t say this to reassure you, but instead hope that this gives you hope. My “career” as a writer is proof that all of this can work, inside and outside of the Journalism™ machine, inside and outside of the New York™ machine, inside and outside the Traditional Publishing™ machine. Thus: How To Pitch, the latest in the How To Be A Creative™ series, where I offer my guide for getting your writing placed in publications that aren’t your own.

First: there are many ways to pitch, which ultimately boil down to two. First, there are pitches where you don’t know an editor, where you are “cold calling” someone. This is the majority of pitches when you are outside the system and don’t have any publishing connections. These we will call Cold Pitches™. Second, there are pitches where you personally know an editor or have a personal connection or have a bit of a mutuality and awareness of each other that makes your pitching not entirely “unknown.” These are what we’ll Warm Pitches™.

Let’s start with Cold Pitches™ — but first we have to explain what a pitch is.

A pitch is an idea that you have for a story. Technically, a pitch is an email where you’re sending along your story idea along with some context to an editor at a publication who might be looking for new stories and or looking to publish certain types of stories or certain types of voices.

Who can pitch? Are certain people allowed to pitch?

Anyone can! That’s the pleasure and pain of this. The pleasure is that literally anyone reading this can find an editor’s email (More on how to find those in a moment.) and send an email with an idea. You don’t “have” to be a writer, but you should have either an expertise or proof that you can write. This is why when you pitch you may never hear back, thus the pain of this process: it’s hard to get things placed because editors get so many emails, so many pitches. Pitching is the least fun part of the job on both ends but a necessary evil that both brings down gates and gets more voices heard. Pitching is a stamina game too: if you are someone who cannot handle rejection or who doesn’t like uncertainties, you’re going to struggle with this.

What does a Cold Pitch™ look like?

There are a few different ways pitches look, which should reflect the length and breadth of your story. If your story is for a digital publication, that is likely going to be shorter than 1000 words, a short pitch will do. But if your story is going to be a big investigative item? You’ll want to write a longer pitch, which may need to include sources and contacts you already have made contact with. All pitches should reflect your writing and offer an idea of what your story will feel like.

If you’re first starting out, you’ll want to do short pitches. Let’s look at that! Note that this example pitch was not successful, meaning the story was never written. This was from 2017 too.