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How and When to
Market
By Joanne Stanko
Are you opening rejection after rejection to read, “Sorry this doesn’t meet our needs at this time”? Before grumbling at the editors who sent them, think about the words you just read.
Prior to mailing that article there are a few things you should consider.
Know the market you’re targeting.
Know when and how to submit.
At a writer’s conference, the former managing editor of Writer’s Digest, Thomas Clark, told me that many beginning writers receive rejections because they don’t bother to study the market. They send articles to magazines that don’t publish the type of article they’ve written. The articles are too long or they miss opportune deadlines.
Study The Market
Market study should be one of the first things any writer should do even before attempting to write an article. Knowing the style, content, theme, and format of the magazine you plan to target will save you time and frustration later.
First, decide what type of article you want to write. Then, find out who publishes that type of article.
How? Let’s use, for example, this article. When it was just a spark of an idea, I knew what type of magazine would publish it. A
writers' magazine or writers' e-zine, of course. If I were to send this article to
Reader’s Digest, Time, or Newsweek, it would be like trying to sell ice to
Eskimos, and I would not only be wasting my time but also the editor’s. Why? Because an article about writing belongs in a magazine that publishes articles about writing.
Let’s say your interests are in gardening and you have this great idea to write an article about raising hybrid gladioli. Where would you send your query? To a gardening magazine, right? It stands to reason that a magazine about gardening might publish your article about gardening. In fact, it might belong in other publications, too. That is why studying the market is so important.
You’ve just whisked off your article to Better Homes and Gardens, thinking the editor has to love your gladioli piece. Oops! Wrong! Chances are the editor may have liked your article, but had you studied the market you would have known that
Better Homes and Gardens just published a piece about gladioli five issues ago. Okay. I’ll just send it to another magazine, you might say. Wait! Before sending anything, go back to a.) Know the market you’re targeting, and begin again.
First, if you don’t own the latest copy of Writer’s Market, buy one or trek to your local library. It is packed with names of hundreds of magazines and pertinent information you’ll want to know about the publication. For
example, there are at least ten pages of home and garden magazines listed in the
2004 Writer’s Market. Those pages list more than thirty-five places you might sell your article if you time it right. (I’ll get to the timing and when to market in just a moment.) Don’t stop at just those gardening magazines; there are dozens of women’s magazines and
e-zines that occasionally take gardening articles, too. Learn what magazines carry articles similar to the one you want to write. Make a list of those publications.
Then, go the periodical section of the library and pull the last six issues. Scan through each issue carefully. Note what type of article the editor likes, the style in which it’s written, and the scope of the content. Is the article a personality profile, humor, essay or how-to with lists and examples? Also, note what articles have already been published.
Read the letters to the editor. Maybe a reader has asked a question about growing gladioli. This would be the perfect opportunity to query the editor and state that you have the information to answer the question asked by a reader. By analyzing each magazine, you will know what the editor expects, what has already been written, and you’re able to show the editor you’ve done your homework.
When To Submit
Maybe you think your article about raising gladioli was better than the one you saw published. Maybe it was, but the author of the published article beat you to the editor. Timing is everything! Sticking with the gladioli example, let’s say you sent your article in August and, while studying the market, you found that similar article published in March. But gladioli bloom in August, right? Sure they do, and if you want the editor to know that you know the magazine
and know the subject, then you’d better send that article as early as November or December.
Most magazines have a four-month lead time. Some have six. So, if bulbs need to be planted in March your article should be planted on the editor’s desk in time to be harvested for the March issue. No one wants to read how to raise gladioli in August, during the blooming season, when s/he can read it in March and enjoy the blooms in August.
This same lead time rule applies to other articles too. Travel articles, for example. A piece about camping in the Pennsylvania should be camped out on the editor’s desk in December. Most campgrounds in Pennsylvania open April 1. That gives the editor time to consider the article and allow the lead time for the article to be published in the March or April issue. I think you’re getting the idea.
Timely Articles
As you can see, timing is essential. Keeping ahead of the next writer is difficult. There are always times that someone’s article will be accepted rather than yours, but knowing when to send is half the battle.
Get out that calendar you received free from your local bank. It’s time to make use of it to help put dollars in that bank account. List the holidays or special days that are printed on most calendars. We’ll use the month of July.
Now, applying the same lead time rule, mark your calendar appropriately. For
example, maybe you have an article about fun things to do on the Fourth of July besides going to fireworks displays. When would you send that article to an editor? January? Right! Mark January 1 as a reminder to send July articles. Mark June 1 as a reminder to send Christmas articles.
I follow a six month lead time and have a monthly accordion file. All the articles I need to send for July are in my January folder and articles for October are in the May folder, and so on. This way, I not only have the calendar reminder, I have the articles filed in the month they should be sent. On the first of each month I send those articles to the magazines I’ve targeted. If you do this, you’ll never again miss a lead time or subject yourself to the embarrassment of sending an article the wrong time of year.
How To Market
As a professor who teaches freelance and creative writing at a local college, I asked my students how to market an article. One student replied: “How to market is simply a matter of sending the article, right?” “Wrong,” I answered. Marketing is much more than simply sending articles and hoping you’ll grab an editor’s attention. Marketing takes time, and the time you take marketing will be time well spent.
Let’s say you’ve listed five magazines that carry articles like the one you want to write. You know this because you’ve already studied the market. You also know when to send that article. How do you send it? By mail or e-mail? Do you send the entire manuscript or query first?
Some established writers are able to send complete manuscripts without a query to the editor. But when you’re first starting out, it’s best to know what the editor prefers.
Right after you make your list of targets you need to request the magazine’s guidelines. Or if the magazine has a website, check to see if the writer’s guidelines are posted online. Guidelines spell out what the editor expects as far as article size, style, content and who to, when to, and how to submit those articles. Most magazines have editors who handle specific departments. Normally, the guidelines list these editors, titles, and departments. If they don’t, you may want to make a quick phone call to the magazine to get that information and, while you’re at it, ask for the correct spelling of the editor’s name.
Now you know to whom the article should be sent. But don’t mail it just yet. You don’t want to send a 2,500 word article when acceptable lengths are 1,500 to 1,800 words, and you don’t want to send the complete article if editors want query letters first.
For example, ByLine’s guidelines spell everything out for you. The guidelines not only tell you what type of writing and content the editor wants, it also lists the word length, payment, and to which department and editor you should send particular manuscripts.
You’ve got everything at your fingertips and you’re ready to mail out that query or manuscript. Wait! Remember you made a list of five prospective magazines? Are all five magazine editors open to multiple submissions? Yes. Then, don’t just send it to one at a time; you will lose your time slot for those monthly events. Send that article to all five targets. If by chance you receive an acceptance from an editor and another editor is interested, you can offer that second editor either reprint rights or another article you may have already written on the same subject.
The trick once again is to know the market. Sell only first rights whenever possible. This allows you to sell that article year after year. Or you could rewrite and re-slant the article. (But that is a whole new subject.)
Next time you open a letter from an editor to read, “Sorry this doesn’t meet our needs at this time,” don’t grumble. Pay attention to those words. S/he may be telling you to study the magazine. Your article might not be appropriate, it might be too long, or the editor may have liked the article but you missed the allotted lead time.
The time you take learning what the editors want will be time well spent. Studying the market is no guarantee of acceptance, but it might lead to an acceptance instead of a rejection. And if you do get a rejection, at least you’ll know the article you sent was appropriate, the proper length and sent at the right time.
Marketing Steps
 | Decide what type of article you want to write. |
| Find out who publishes the same type of article. |
| List target publications. |
| Send for writers' guidelines. |
| Analyze the magazines last six issues. |
| Note the style, content, theme and format. |
| List the editor’s name, word count and lead time. |
| Keep month-by-month submission folders. |
| Plan your article in a timely fashion. |
| Submit to proper department editor. |
NOTE: More next month on how to obtain market information, writers' guidelines, and free sample copies of magazines you would like to target.
**
Joanne will also accept questions by e-mail from readers about writing and answer those questions either by
e-mail or in her column.
E-mail Joanne: joannedstanko@comcast.net.
Visit her site at http://worldzone.net/arts/joannestanko/
Joanne Stanko has published more than 2,500 articles. She was award recipient of the 1990 Woman of the Year for Beaver County, Pennsylvania, for her accomplishments in her community and excellence in journalism.
She was on the staff of Slippery Rock University teaching her copyrighted writing course "Sell What You Write" and Creative and Freelance writing. She has appeared on television and radio, hosted several Writers' Conferences, and spoke for many conferences and writer's organizations. Her most recent articles were published in ByLine Magazine, Absolute
Write.com, and Moondance.org.
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