How to Take Your Magazine Writing and Journalism to the Next Level
I've LOVED writing for magazines and publications for the last 10 years, but I rarely talk about how I do it, how I evolved, and what I do now to make my stories, from cover to back-of-book, shine.
This livestream is going over what to look for in magazines and publications to start getting a writing edge, steps to improve your writing, how to make your interviews and research better, and the one story to remember about getting started with writing journalistic stories for top-tier publications.
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How to Take Your Magazine Writing and Journalism to the Next Level
Have you ever tried to figure out how to take your magazine writing or your journalism to the next level? That's what we're talking about today. So we're gonna talk about how I've been working as a journalist and working in magazines for the last 10 years, and we're gonna talk about some tips and tricks about how to take your magazine, sorry, magazine writing and journalism to like the upper level basically, and apologizing for my cough.
I'm still a little sick, . And by a little, I guess I'd mean a lot, but I'm still sick. But we'll have cough break. Okay, so let's talk about the first thing. So number one, and we've got our friends here, they're all snugly, they're all hanging out there. They are looking super cute. Oh, quick, don't talk about them.
1) What to look for in magazines and publications to start getting a writing edge
They'll want something. All right, let's talk about number one. So number one, what we have is, where's the number one there? Okay, so number one, what we're talking about is what are we looking for, um, to get kind of a writing edge. So this was something that I think is, um, really important when I think about getting to the next level.
So there's a couple things. When we're reading a magazine, we want to read greets. greet, we wanna read far and wide. So that means you wanna read a lot of different types of articles. Um, what I see from writers when they send me stuff often is that they don't read the magazine like at all. Like they read two articles and they're like, I did it.
No, you have to read the magazine far and wide, like all of this sections. All of the articles, not all, but like 20 articles or so, maybe even 50. And I know that this sounds like a lot, but what we're doing is we're reading enough to kind of ingrain the magazine's tone and style and word choices, right?
And how they write their content, Hey, Vesna. Um, and how they put things together into our brains, right? We're trying to read enough so that we, when we write, it becomes more automatic so we don't have to do as much heavy lifting. Reading between the magazine and what we're writing, and a lot of times I hear this stuff around writers where they're like, well, why don't I just write it?
And then they'll just write, change it to their tone and style. No, that's really hard to do. You need to adapt to the magazine, and as a good journalist, you need to read far and wide so that when you send something in and if you really want more work from that magazine or that publication, , you have enough stuff where they're like, wow, you knocked it out of the park.
And then you get more work from them, especially from top magazines. Like you don't wanna just send something in without reading widely. So the first thing is you wanna make sure, Ooh, look, I have a new hole in this super old hoodie. . Um, the first thing you wanna do is make sure you read really widely.
Like this will help you, um, really kind of get that writing edge and it'll make you kind of more ingrained into the magazine in terms of like knowing what's there. Um, it also helps you learn like the different kinds of styles that there are. So like for certain magazines, um, there's some parts of the magazine that are maybe a little bit more, um, like, like they're a little bit more.
like, what's the word? Like I always say spicy, but they're like a little bit more like out there. And then there's some parts of the magazine that might be a little bit more like conservative or some parts, like certain stories that are more descriptive. Um, and other stories that might be a little bit more like short and to the point.
So, hello Bear. So we wanna make sure that we know kind of where our sections are and what's kind of going on. And when you're kind of looking at these magazines. The other thing to think about here in number. Is that you have to understand the difference between sponsored content and like SEO driven content and like the content that you would work on.
This is a mistake that I see a lot of writers make is like they read through the magazine and they don't distinguish, they don't understand like you're not writing sponsored content. So don't read that. Like read it as like kind of reference material, I guess. Like read two or three of 'em, but that's not really what you're gonna be writing.
You're gonna be writing like different types of articles. So when I see. Um, like someone sends me an article and I'm like, this article is like purely for seo. This is not what freelance writers like typically write. This is something a staffer would write, and oftentimes I see this when someone's moving from like businesses, writing a lot for businesses to magazines, businesses, we would be writing a lot of SEO content, right?
Like it would be our job to be the ones coming up with these ideas to get more clicks and like helping things rank. But with magazines it can be very different where they have staffers or editors or other people at the magazine that are writing like evergreen kind of SEO stories. Oh man, hold on. I have to cough.
So they're writing a lot of stuff that like they're not paying out for. Right? Like these SEO article. . Um, and the other things that they're working on are like just forgetting the magazine, like more, um, traffic or helping with their ads. Um, most of the time for magazines, we're not writing that, especially big magazines.
So when I get a, uh, someone sending me an article and they're like, oh, I'll just write like this. I'm like, that's not written by a freelance writer. Like, that's written by a staffer. And that's like Evergreen seo. Like you would hardly ever write that. Every once in a while there are like, They have like specific listicles that they will have, um, freelance writers write that are more evergreen.
But like, um, oftentimes when I'm getting articles, they're like very purely for like seo. Like they're very specific things that like, clearly people would search a lot, right? Like they'd be, um, Like, I'll give you a couple of examples. Like one example is like the lists that I've written, um, for travel magazines, those are very evergreen, but they're written by like a local expert, right?
And they only get updated every so often, every couple of years or whatever. So those are more like SEO friendly, but they're more listicles that like they want a local expert to write other things like, um, you know,
There are other things like your, um, let me think. Like something where like someone would search for it all the time, like five things to do today in whatever. Like, that could be a listicle that you could write as a freelance writer. Um, or you could, they could end up writing something like, you know, why a visit, blah, blah, blah place right now.
Like that would something be something that oftentimes a staffer would. Um, because it's like, why visit right now? That could be any time, right? There's a lot of times where you need to distinguish who's writing the article and to take your magazine writing and your journalism to the next level, you really need to understand like what sponsored content, what are the things that you would be writing in terms of like freelance writer stuff.
Like what types of topics, what types of articles, like what sections are they in? Do they have freelance writers writing them? Um, and then what are the things that staffers are writing that you probably wouldn't be? Those things are really important because if you start pitching and you're pitching these like articles that like staffers write, they're not gonna get back to you.
Like, excuse me, this is like a common problem that I've seen a bunch. Like, you're missing the point on like what types of articles to pitch. And every once in a while an editor will get back to you and they'll be like, Hey, that's not right. Try this over here. Um, but this is something that's really important, like start reading through and understand which articles in a magazine are seo.
SEO focused editorial stuff that the editing team, right, the editorial team, um, are writing at, which things are written by freelancers and focus on the things that are, that freelancers write and read a lot of that stuff. Okay? So when you're kind of looking for, um, little things in here, you wanna make sure that you're paying attention to the little quirks of each magazine too.
So as you're kind of reading through all of those articles and understanding the differences, Types of sections and tone in style and like all the different advertorial sponsored content, SEO stuff, freelance wri, freelance writer, written stuff. Um, make sure you pay attention to the little quirks in the magazine.
So that's number one. I'm gonna cough man. This thing just like will not go away. Actually I think I have a new thing cuz I feel different, but also terrible. But it's more cough based than like what it was before. Okay, so number two, what we're talking about is steps to improve our writing. So the more you read, the more you know this is like the thing all the time.
2) Steps to improve your writing as a freelance journalist or magazine writer
So this applies right to reading a bunch of things before you submit your piece or before you submit your pitch. So that's reading a lot, right? We already talked about that. But the other thing to improve your writing is like actually read your work when it's published. , like this is something where I feel like a lot of writers, and I'm guilty of this, like there's sometimes where I forget, like I send out the article and I'm like, Hey, your article's been published and I put it in my portfolio and I like have only skimmed it.
I didn't like actually deep read it. So deep read your articles, like what did they change, what kinds of things are different, what types of. Did you like, did they change in your article? And did they change that because either you kind of like didn't beat their toes style, or did they change that because like they're making their own kind of editorial changes and the same rule applies if you have like 70 to 90% of your, sorry, if you have like 70 to 90.
Of your original draft getting published. You did a good job. Like I, I've written for enough of magazines to know that like there's sometimes where you just have editors that just like, they, they wanna do a lot. Like they just, they wanna change a lot. They're like, they have their own thoughts and it's more team worky to them where they're like, they're submitting a draft and they play with it.
So that's why like 70%, there's sometimes where you put in basically the bone. And you have 75% of it, right? And they're messing with the other 30%, and sometimes you get like 90% of it, right? And they're messing with the other 10%. Anywhere 70 to 90%. You did great. I, that's my rule. So when you're kind of looking to improve your writing, you need to make sure they're actually reading what they changed.
Why is it different? Why are they choosing different words? Did you say yellow? When you need to be saying like some other like very specific color of yellow. And this is something that I know sounds nitpicky, but if you're writing for magazines, like this was something, um, that I learned writing for top magazines.
Your job is to be very descriptive for certain magazines and have the right color. Like you can't just say yellow or you can't say mustard yellow, like you have to say this specific color. You can't say blue. You have to say, you know, like, uh, Like Cian or you can't say, you know, like green, it has to be C foam.
Like there's very specific details, right? And you need to know those usually going in. But if you didn't right, read your copy afterwards. , read it a lot. That will help you like meet the magazine and become a better writer. You'll learn new words. I learn new words almost every time. , um, where someone like picks something else and I'm like, oh, that's a new synonym, right?
Read your actual work. Like I know that sounds silly, but people don't do it and I don't do it right. Like there's times where I just am guilty of it cause I'm doing something else. I'm busy, I need to do marketing. I need to like let the dogs out. Or Bo needs some like doggles or like, I need to go to this meeting.
We're all kind of guilty of that. But make sure you go back and actually read it so you can see what's been changed and how to make your work better. Right. And what kinds of. They're actually looking for. Okay, so that's really important. The other thing to improve your writing is to go read their competitors
I know this sounds. Like an interesting twist, but like a lot of times when you're reading ki like something like Kanye, NAS, traveler and Traveler and Travel and Leisure, they compete, right? They compete in terms of audience and they're competitive. Like they're com um, competing magazines. So if you read their competitors, you're like, oh, I see these little tiny things.
Why c n T is a little bit different than traveling Leisure? They're pretty similar, right? They're not, they're like covering the same topics. Stuff, but they are different in terms of like certain topics that they cover or how they cover certain things or the words that they use or how they describe something.
So another way to make your writing better is like if you're writing for a specific magazine, go read their competitors, go see like why the other ones are different. If you've already done the work of reading, you know, 20 to 50 articles from your magazine that you're working with, oh man, hold. Then you can read a competitor and you should be able to pick out the differences.
You should be able to pick out why that magazine is different. You should be able to pick out like what types of things, um, you know, would make their articles different than yours. Right? And then the last step that, um, you should think about when you are kind of improving, um, your writing is, Remember that you are looking for the thing that answers the question the best.
So what that means is when you have an outline, right, like you're going through this story, this story needs to answer these few questions, right? Like usually that's what it is. The story is answering these few questions like what is it like or, Um, what was the experience like, or what was the food like?
Or like tell us about like the environment or the stories. Like tell us why, you know, um, restaurant owners might want to, um, do this thing because of X, Y, Z. You need to find the quote or the information, the research that answers that question the best. This is something that I think is really hard to do because you end up sometimes with a lot of really good.
But the way to make your writing really good is like you can't have all of it. That you can't, like you only have a thousand words or 2000 words, or sometimes 800 or 700 words. You can only pick the thing that answers the question the best for that audience. So as you're going through your work, you have to say like, okay, this piece, oh my goodness.
Look at that sad little lip. Look at that sad little lip. . Oh my goodness. I'll give you something in a second. So you have to go through and make sure you're picking up the quote or the researcher information that answers that question the best out of all of them. So like if you interviewed three people, you have to pick the one person who said that, answer the best in terms of what that audience needs.
In terms of information. So that means that that person's quote gives enough information or more information or more director specific information that that reader audience needs to move forward or to understand the concept or to understand the, um, the hotel or restaurant or the process or procedure, right?
So we might have three great quotes, but we can only include one. So when you're going through your writing, and this is something I struggle with, I had , I actually was, um, I had a deadline yesterday. And I had, um, a 4,000 word draft that I needed to cut into a thousand words, which like, uh, somehow I managed to get it down
But, um, as I'm going through, I'm like, I wanna include these three quotes, right? I wanna include these three quotes. But then what ends up happening is you're like, this quote is, is the strongest, right? In terms of doing the things I need it to do, right? It not only answers the question, but it gives a little extra information.
It tells the. Audience what they need to know or how they need to move forward. It gives something that helps me, like, um, understand the personality of that person or their experience. It does a lot of work and you're like, Ugh, I love these other quotes. They're really great, but they're not as good as this one.
Or the other thing too that you add in there is that it's transitional. A lot of times I will find these quotes, they're kind of transitional in terms of. , um, they're moving me into the next concept. So like the first quote will be like, kind of answering the top part, right? Like, it'll say like, all right, we're answering question two.
Then I have like a next quote from that person that is like transitional into answering the next question. So now I have like a quote on top from the person, and then, right, like, you have like blah, blah, blah, said so and so, and then they like, blah, blah, blah, right? The end part of the quote. So you have these nice transitional things to move into the next.
That's another thing to look for is like we have quotes that answer the question the best, and then we have quotes that are kind of helping us transition into the next part of the piece. And this is research research too. So when you're kind of thinking about this stuff, we have to have this specific information that makes this quote or research or piece of data or like copy, whatever you're.
Answer the question the best, like it's giving them the best possible answer out of the information that you have. Okay. That's really important. Yes. Woo. Would you like to be part of the group? We haven't done a live streaming in quite some time cuz I've been really, you know, dealing with this bug. Hello friends.
So we'll do a little snack o time, we'll do a little update with everybody over here. All right.
How you doing buddy? You doing good job? So a little pup date since it's been a while. Bo's eye ruptured again, which we, uh, think that he ran into something because he's, you know, kind of blind and, uh, so Bo now has doggles. I don't have 'em up here. I should have brought them. But Bo has doggles now, like little do goggles that he wears outside.
We got 'em from Rex Specs. Bingo bean. Good. So he wears his doggles outside to make sure he doesn't run into anything or like get hit in the face with sticks, which he has many, many times. since he's been wearing the doggles. Um, cuz he's just like not very careful. He's kind of like a, like a wild child still, even though he's like over, he's over 16 now, so he's over 16 now and he still runs around and he's still wild and crazy and all that stuff.
Uh oh, we got an escapee. So Bo's been doing well. He's got his doggles. He is, uh, I don't know. Every day is a gift cuz he is like a thousand . But, um, can you go back to your haba hole? You go back to your ha hole. Thank you. And, uh, Charlotte's been doing really well. I don't Oh yeah. Charlotte French de cactus, but I think we already talked about that.
So other than that, Charlotte's been doing great. She's. A little, little hog lit. She's been doing all her good stuff. You want me to put your blanket on? I know you just come back here. Come back here. Sass machine. There you go. All right. Good job. Okay, everybody hang out for a little bit. We're gonna do number three.
3) How to make your journalism interviews and research better
So, um, oh, the other thing is, if you ever have any questions, you can always put them in the comments. And if you have any advice or tips about how you've taken, um, your magazine writing or your journalism to the next. Put 'em in the comments. Cause I'm always interested to hear how other journalists kind of do things.
Cause I have like my own, I feel like every journalist kind of has their own like weird quirks, . So like I'm giving you tips off of like my 10 years of weird quirks and things I've noticed. Um, but if you ever have anything that you're interested, like you feel like it will add to the conversation or something that you're like, Hey, I have a question on that, drop it in the comments.
Let's talk about three. Um, oh. If you feel like this has been helpful, give it a thumbs up. If you feel like you wanna learn more about building, um, a finance writing business. You love, subscribe. Let's talk about three. Sorry. I was, I've been trying to mute when I cough, but it's hard to do. So let's talk about how to make our interviews and research better.
And I'm gonna do like a just a little tidbit on this because I wanna do an actual live stream on interviewing later on. So I'm just gonna give you a little bite size chunk. So, uh oh, we got a blanket Sherpa. Go back to your home blanket. Sherpa Sherpa . So number three here, when we're taking our interviews to the next level and our research to the next level, this is the same thing where like I am kind of like an interview nerd and a research junkie.
So like I have a tendency to over research something. I have a tendency. Like read too much. So I have to set different limits on that, right? So for me, when I'm doing my interviews and my research, so let's talk about research first. You have to set like a time limit. If you're an over researcher, you have to decide that if you've already read 20 articles, that's all you need to know on the topic.
Like if you have asked the right questions of Google and you've found different articles and you have read widely, you have enough information, right? You're not, you're not like, You know, gonna miss something or whatever. There's only so much that you can put into an article, right? So when you're doing your research, look for very specific things that answer your questions, read other articles, understand the topic really deeply, and rely on like specific places for studies, right?
So like, if you're working in a certain niche, there's like certain places to find studies. I still like, um, a Science Daily or, um, what's that one? Like, you can use PubMed, but PubMed a lot of times is like really complicated science stuff. So like someone like Vesna would do really well with PubMed, . But I usually like science Daily cuz it like pulls from PubMed, um, look around.
What's that one where like, um, sata, that's what it's, SATA has good statistics. Um, colleges and universities have lots of studies that they publish. Um, there are certain, um, professional organizations that do a lot of studies and research and reports. So go look for those in your. Um, and then there's sometimes when you can ask your editor, like, Hey, are there specific places that you want me to look for data and information?
Like, are there specific places that you, you know, want me to find a report? And they're like, oh yeah, you should use this report from Mintel, or use this report from, um, you know, I don't know, like, uh, d and b, well, not d and b. Use this report from like this specific place, but there's a lot of information that we can get from like places that like put out annual reports or put out information that we can grab.
So make sure when you're doing your research that you read other articles, like you're not ripping those articles. You are understanding the topic deeper, right? If we wanna make sure we're answering those questions in our article properly, we need to read widely. And you might be noticing a. . We as writers, I think it's kind of normal that we read a lot.
Like I think a lot of writers come as readers. I started reading, which made me love creating, which was writing, right? So the reading part should be kind of like par for the course. , it should be like normal, right? So you need to read widely. And this includes research. This includes other articles. This means finding the.
The answers the question of your article. The best. And the same thing goes for research when you're doing certain things like restaurants or properties or hotels. Get the fax sheets, right? Get the fax sheet. , make sure that you have like specific things, um, beyond the press release. Make sure that you look into other concepts they've done, read through their website.
Um, make sure that you interview anyone at the property or at like the company that you need to, um, rely on PR people cuz they usually have a ton of information. . But there's a lot of stuff when we're doing our research, like I think it's just being diligent. One of the things that I think is really important when you're thinking about research is being diligent, oops, is being diligent.
So be diligent with your research and do stuff more widely. That will take your journalism to a much better level because it'll be richer and more specific. So the more specific you can get your research to your topic or you can get like the data, and this is the same thing, right? It's not yellow. Celon, which I think is yellow, is like a, a yellow, if I remember right.
Or it's like mera gold or it's uh, whatever it is, right? The more specific you can be, the better your piece is. And this comes down to being really good at collecting research and collecting data and not just being like this general study that was done a billion years ago. No, we want something that's as specific as possible and you want your studies.
If you do need studies to be like less than five years old, like we, I remember like a while back, people would say like 10 years, but now it's like two to three years cuz there's so much research. So two to three years at the most, five years. And then for interviews, when we're doing our interviews, we wanna make sure we are asking very specific questions.
So like I always open with a regular. What's your title? What's your name? Like gimme your location just to like, you know, we need that stuff on the record and then we need like, um, the first question I always ask is like, what's the most important thing about blah, blah, blah topic? Wait, what's the most important thing, audience, whatever that is.
So like, for example, my recent one was, um, What's the most important thing? Restaurant owners, right? Let's, well, let's be more specific. So what's the most important thing full service restaurant owners need to know about collaborations with breweries. Right? Or it could be, what's the most important thing that full service restaurant owners need to know about creating a signature beer?
And this gets them thinking about like, well, what's the number one thing? It's right here. , like what's the number one thing that this audience needs to know? Right? So they're kind of starting to cycle through all the tips that they would give, but they're giving me the most important, so I'm already kind of priming the pump of like other advice they would give, but now they're like, now I have something where they said like, if I only say one thing in this article, it has to be the most important thing.
Right? So those are things that really help when we're kind of like getting them ready and we're like, the topic is right. Signature beers, or it's collaborations with breweries. This is the piece I just worked on. Um, but it's whatever it is, right? The audience is full service restaurant owners, so we've identified that for them.
What's the most important thing full service restaurant owners, or what's the most important thing, you know? Luxury, um, luxury millennial travelers. Um, need to know about blah, blah, blah resort or, you know, whatever. So we wanna make sure we're mentioning the audience and that we're also giving them like, Hey, what's one, like, the most important thing?
Like, think about all the stuff, you know, what's the most important thing they need to know about this topic? that kind of primes the pump. And then we have regular specific questions which like, we'll do a different live stream on that, but go through questions obviously that you're answering in the article.
Why this, how that, um, like how do you do this? Or what are the steps for this? Or, um, basically they're your what, how, and why questions, right? Or where do I look for that information? Or anything that's not a yes or no question, or makes them think about processes. Systems information that the, the audience would need to either do something or to take action or book a hotel room or build a better business.
Then at the end, um, I usually go through like, um, is there anything else like that you haven't mentioned about topic or that you haven't mentioned about this? Or I say, what are some pros and. Or what are some pluses and minuses to whatever this is? And then the last question I always ask is like, is there anything else we didn't talk about?
Right? Is there anything else that we, that I didn't ask you about that we should talk about? And then there are a lot of times they're like, oh yeah, we should talk about this. Or sometimes they're like, Nope, we've covered it. So these kinds of questions need to be ultra specific and you need to kind of put them in the right order.
If you ask questions out of order, it gets people jumping around in their brain and you get way worse quotes cuz you're driving them all over the place. The questions need to kind of like rainfall into each other. Right? Hold on. It kind of needs to be tears, right? What's the most important thing about.
Why are we doing this other thing? Or then how do we do it, right? So anytime you ask why are we doing something, it should be followed with how do we do it? Why is the reason and the purpose for like explaining this to the audience of like, why should you do this in the first place? Now that we know we should do it, how do we actually do it right?
Then we're kind of putting our questions in place so it's naturally flowing to the person. Who's being interviewed so they can give you more specific information and their brain is like, moving in this right order. Um, and then we're giving them the chance to say like, what other pros and cons? Bless you.
Bless you. What other pros and cons are there? Or what other information would be a plus or a minus for this audience? Or what other complicated things are there? Or, um, what other types of stuff could you mention that we haven't talked about? . Then the last question is, alright, I've asked all my questions, right?
Like, what are the things I didn't ask you about that we should talk about or that we, you know, you think should be mentioned? And then they can mention extra stuff and you can ask follow up questions. So those are kind of the minimal things when you're doing it. But as they're going along, as you're going through these questions, you will hear like little things that they're saying where you're like, huh, I bet my audience would wanna know more about.
Ask the follow up question immediately. Sometimes people wait to ask follow up questions at the end. Don't, they're already on the train, right? They're already on that train of thought. Ask the question, right? Make sure you're asking it then, and you are doing this interview. I have to call, do this call. Um, you are doing the interview through the lens of what your audience needs.
You are not doing the interview through the lens of like, what do I need for this story? This is a big mistake, okay? Don't look at it through, what do I need for this story? You need to look at this interview as like, if I was a full service restaurant owner or whoever it is, whoever your audience is, why would I, what if I got to personally sit down with these CEOs and these big people in business, what would I wanna.
For this topic, so you need to be doing this interview through the lens of your audience, not like, what do I need for this story? Right. Hi, will. . Hi W that's really important and I, we're gonna do another live stream on that, so I'm gonna move along. But your interviews should be, make sure you have this nice rainfall, kind of like tiered flow of questions that it would go through logically in their mind.
Make sure you ask like different types of questions that are why, how, what, when, where. Right. But things that they can't answer, yes or no, . Um, and make sure that you're really following up and that you are looking at it through the lens of like your audience reading the story, right? Your audience is reading the story.
And so if your audience got to sit down with this person you're interviewing, what would they ask? Right? What do they need to learn? Okay. Four. Let's talk about the last part first. I'm gonna, okay, friends, go back to your haba holes. Barry, go back to your haba hole. Go back to your haba hole. Good job. Okay.
Charlotte, you look very short neck swan today. You look like a short neck swan sitting over there like a little tiny dirt. That's what we call Charlotte. I don't know if I've ever said that on this live stream, but we often told, tell her that she's a short neck swan. She's just a little graceful, little wild beast.
You know, swans are like majestic, but also scary. , right? Charlotte's not scary. She's just wild. She's a wild child. Hey, Good job. All right, Charlie, can you gimme a high five? Good job. Good job. All right, friends, can you back up? Oops, sorry. Can you back up? Back up, back up, back up. Oh, all you did was sit in position too, Charlotte.
All you did was sit like a little mermaid. Gimme a high five. All right. Good job. All right. We had a good pup date. Everybody good.
Damn it. Let me start over because I muted myself like a doof. Thank you, Margaret . Thank you, David. Okay. I know I'm muted myself. So let's start over. So when you're thinking about this, I always tell this one story and I think it's really important to, um, remember. So I know writers, like pretty much all the top publications.
4) The one story to remember about getting started with writing journalistic stories for top-tier publications
I know a writer who got their first pitch. Or their first article in that magazine. Okay? So even though we're doing all this stuff, don't let the roadblocks and the self-doubt and like the imposter syndrome get to you. And I even have a student, which I think she posted it in our community, but she sent a pitch to a huge publication, to a huge newspaper.
She got it accepted. She got her first clip, that was her first reported article in this giant newspaper, right? This like huge thing. . Um, you have to remember that when you're pitching and when you're taking your magazine and journalism stuff to the next level. A good pitch always works. Like when you're doing this stuff, like a good pitch will get accepted.
Work on those skills, right? Like, Really hone in on the specifics, right? Really hone in on the specifics of what you're doing for your pitch. Really hone in on the types of things that that magazine, newspaper publication focuses on and it will get accepted. Like there's always these things where like I get writers that are like, don't I have to have a 900 clips or don't I have to do this?
No, you don't have to any of that. Almost every writer that I know that did it, they just went for it. They just were like, I wanna be in the New York Times. I'm gonna send a pitch. And then they get in like, There are people who spend years trying to get in New York Times, and then there are writers who send a pitch in a really good one.
It gets accepted and that's like their first reported article, right? So you have to remember that like there's no matter what you think the qualifications are, if you send a good pitch, that doesn't matter, right? The good pitch is your writing audition. So even if you don't have any clips, if you have this good pitch that makes sense for their magazine, newspaper, public, You're gonna get an editor's attention, right?
So even if high school, even if you're worried, like this is something that I often talk to about writers that wanna get in to top publications. They're worried about like, number of clips or how recent the clips are or, um, that the clips aren't for other top publications or all of these roadblocks. And it just doesn't matter.
Like it, they're, those things are nice. They're nice to have. I will, those things are nice to have, but they're not totally 100. And necessary for getting in that magazine. The important thing here is that that writer paid attention to the publication. They read that publication all the time. They knew how to pitch them because they read stories there all the time.
They knew the specifics to include, they understood like how to put everything together. Right. They knew what types of things made sense. And that goes back to the same thing. They're reading a lot. They're like some of those writers, um, I think one of them that I know of like read that thing for years.
They read that, um, that paper for years and years and. And they just knew, they were like someday, you know, like, and they finally found a story that made sense and then they pitched it, right? And that was their first pitch, like their first pitch. That magazine, their first reported article, and they got it in.
So you have to remember that like we need to focus on specifics. We need to focus on like reading that thing widely, that publication magazine, um, newspaper. I hear you. I hear you. And those things are more important to setting a pitch and putting in a good article. Right? You have to know all these specifics.
Those are really important. Yes. Woo. Would you like to lodge a formal complaint? No. Okay. So whenever I think about getting started or taking things to the next level, just remember that there are like, A lot of people who are just really persistent, right? And you need to kind of match that persistence. It doesn't mean that they're better writers than you.
It doesn't mean that they have more skills. It doesn't mean that you can't do it most of the time. It's just that they're persistent. They're continuing to pitch or learn or read or find different types of story ideas. Like they're constantly trying to find these different ways of getting like the details or the useful pieces of the magazine that they can.
Pitch and give good information. Oh my gosh, you're so woosh today. Woo. Okay, I'll give you something. So these things I think are really important, but we'll do another one on this cuz like, it's a lot and it's a deep topic, especially when it comes to like pitches and when it comes to, um, getting things in magazines and when it comes to interviewing a research.
Here you go buddy. Okay, there you go. Be you got the woo, you got the Woos case of the woos. So whenever you're thinking about these things, just remember that, just remember, like it's, it's about your ability to meet the magazine where it's at. It's your ability to meet all of the criteria that's already easily available all over the internet, right?
And if you have to get a subscription, pay the subscription. Because what ends up happening is that subscription pays you to write the story. Right? And if you need to use something, like there's, um, like if you pay 10 bucks a month, you can get subscriptions. Hundreds of magazines and newspapers. So like you, it's like, um, like Xeno is one that I use, but there's also, um, there's a bunch of other ones where you can use, like, that give you, like, you pay 10 bucks a month and they give you subs, like you can read all these magazines.
Um, it's really great. Okay, so that's what we're gonna do just for this one. Eventually I will do a live stream on interviewing and. Um, but if you ever have a question or something that pops up that you wanna do a topic on, you can always go to mandy.com/question and put it in, um, any topics or questions, and you can do them anonymously or not anonymously.
Um, and I have actually two questions, um, that came in recently that, um, we're gonna go through real quick right here at the end. . Um, I have a question. So it says, do I send a link to tune in on Fridays? And if not, what exactly do we do to make sure we can access this session? So this is just like we're all on YouTube, right?
So I've put a link to this, um, but I'm gonna, I already mentioned this, but it's always mandy ellis.com/live. So if you ever wanna come to the livestream or you wanna tell someone about the livestream, you can always go to mandy ellis.com. Hey. , you can always go to mandy ellis.com/live and it'll bring you to YouTube.
And I always share the link to this live stream this Friday live stream in an Instagram post, um, which is at it's Mandy Ellis, i t s, um, and uh, on LinkedIn. So you can always friend me on LinkedIn. If you're a writer, just give me a note. Hey, I saw your YouTuber. Hey, I wanna connect. Um, I always put up a post with the link and the link is always mandy ellis.com/live.
LinkedIn changes your link even though it's the same thing, um, but Instagram doesn't so, uh, anytime. It's always the same thing. So it's always noon on Fridays. So if you ever wanna come hang out or tell someone about it, it's always noon central time on Fridays. Mandy ellis.com/live. And then Sherry had a question.
So Sherry says, um, so Sherry says, , what do you do when, um, you turn in good work and the client screws up the final published copy? Um, there shouldn't be a comment there that's gonna bug me. Hold on. Okay. Um, I wrote an article, it was published, but now it reads poorly. It's if an ESL writer wrote it, run on sentences, bad grammar.
Um, I don't think I can use it as a sample. My other clients published my work pretty much as is. I suppose I could tell potential clients that this client messed up with a copy, but that doesn't really make sense. Sad face. She put a sad face in the, in the question. So I put it in here. So here's the deal.
If you have something where, um, it's a like, hold on one second. , I'm gonna delete some of this so that it's like lower. There we go. So when you get a piece of work that is, there we go. Um, where someone makes a lot of changes and makes the copy not good , um, I just don't, don't use it in your portfolio. Like you got paid for the work and unfortunately it turned out not.
but don't use it in your portfolio. If there's a bunch of stuff where you're like, they made a lot of changes where they think it reads better, like where you're concerned about it, that usually means that like you're writing at like a higher level than they're reading or they're looking to make it like they're changing some things where like they think it reads better, but it really doesn't.
I just don't use those in my portfolio. If I ever get something where I'm like not proud of it or something where. I think like I shouldn't show this to a client, then I don't put it anywhere. So if you ever get something like that, if you ever get an article or something where the final is messed up, just don't use it.
Um, and you don't wanna go into this thing where you end up showing it on a portfolio where you have to explain it. You shouldn't have anything where you like have to go into a deep explanation of, oh, this isn't the original. And like they. Because whatever you're, whatever you're putting your portfolio, your potential clients are gonna think like, this is what you're gonna write.
Like, so you don't wanna put that in there. Um, it's really frustrating, but whenever I've been in this kind of situation, I, can you go back to your hava hole? No, I'm not gonna high five you. Okay. That's a nice high five.
whenever you get something like that, like we just, yeah, it, it's really frustrating. And, and just don't work with that client. Like if they're going to make your work something that you're not proud of or make something that's like grammatically incorrect or something that really sounds not good, , uh, just don't work with that client anymore.
Like just, you know, or finish out your contract with them and then, and. You know, don't, don't renew the contract and don't use that work in your portfolio. You could go back and ask them some questions. Like, one of the things that, um, might be helpful to understand why they did it is to go back through the doc and say like, Hey, I, I saw you made some changes on, or like, uh, send 'em an email after you go through the doc and say, Hey, like, I noticed you made some changes.
Like, um, do you have any feedback for me about how to make the work better? Or like, I was wondering like, um, why those changes like made sense and they can give you feedback or they can be like, Nope, you did. , and then you're like, okay, so you're just gonna like, make it weird when I, when you publish it. So asking for feedback is good.
Um, paying attention to whether or not you should continue working with this client. Don't use it in your portfolio. This happens, right? Like this is a thing where your client makes, um, changes to your work or your client. Things that they're making it better, but when you read the whole thing, it's not making it better like this, this happens.
Um, but the whole point is like, just don't use it in your portfolio and then don't work with that client if you don't like the outcome. Yeah. Okay. Um, oh, the other thing is pricing guide. So I've been asked about this. If you go to manuals.com/pricing guide, you can grab my free pricing guide and it'll also give you my weekly tips and tricks.
So in addition to this live stream, I also sent out a weekly email on Monday about all the different types of tick tips and tricks and um, you can get it by going to man.com/pricing guide. Um, okay, so we are not gonna have a live stream for a little bit just because it's gonna be holiday time off and I've been sick, so, um, I needed some rest time, but we're not gonna have a live stream for a little bit.
I may be back, um, I'll be back in early January, like early to mid January. Um, and if you ever have a question or topic, you can always send it to me by going to mandy.com/question. Um, and I always love comments. So if you're watching this video and you have comments or questions or you're like, Hey, I do this to make my magazine writing better, drop 'em below.
Um, but I hope everybody has a really good holiday season, and I hope that everybody gets some rest time off and these two little goobers. You go back to your ho. Ew. You got like a 12 inch dangler gross. Go back to your hollow hole. I'm not gonna touch that. 12 inch dangler. You gotta drool. Drool. I don't know if you guys can see it.
Oh, there it is. Oh, now it's gone. But it was on camera for a second. Shall I go back to your ho hole? These guys are gonna get some rust time. These guys are gonna be, you know, maybe they'll get some Bud toys. We'll see what they get for, from, uh, Santa Claus. Who knows All. So I hope everybody has, um, a good holiday season.
I hope you get some rest time and um, I will see you guys in January. Bye.
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