Tips from a veteran article writer

With thousands of published articles, I think I've had almost everything happen to me over my career that could happen.  As a result, I feel more than qualified to offer a few suggestions.

Take the editor's word for it.  I've had students who think they can change an editor’s mind no matter what he or she says.  What I found is that when an editor says he or she doesn't want the article, they're not going to buy it no matter what you say.  Final is final.  There are a few exceptions.  Sometimes an editor will tell you that he doesn't want something, but will also explain the problem.  Often you can fix that objection and ask if you can send the article back.  I've salvage a number of articles that way.

You can also use the rejection to pave the way for your next article submission.  When I receive a rejection and send a query for any another article, I thank the editor for his response to my last query.  Then I say, "While I'm sure you can't use my last article at this time.  I have another idea that may be a good fit for your magazine."

This technique helps build a relationship with the editor even before you work with him or her.  It also changes your mindset and turns the rejection into an opportunity. 

Too many bad ideas.  When I first started writing articles for publication I guess I was desperate to get into a number of magazines.  I sent them queries for articles they would never take in a million years.  My top goal was Parade Magazine. I sent them terrible ideas and wondered why they were rejected. 

As I got more sophisticated I realized that every magazine has their own audience and their own way of looking at the world.  In other words, each had a distinctive focus and a different style.  After I realized this and began slanting ideas into each magazine I sold a lot more articles. Today, I generally go through a magazine looking for places to place re-slanted articles.  Because of this I sell dozens of articles I couldn't sell any other way.  I never concentrate on articles.   However, I concentrate on magazines and try to see if what I have in inventory that might fit the magazine I'm looking for through at the moment.  This seems to work pretty well.

Schedule your work.  Sometimes times I have four or five article assignments I need to complete in a few days.  I start my day by looking over what I have to do.  Then I prioritize and select those articles that I need to get out first.  In many cases, I need to allow for five or six interviews and some research. I take down the calendar and schedule both the research and interviews, it helps to see what  needs to be done, and on what time schedule 

Rejection is part of the territory.   One of the hardest things a writer has to put up with is rejection.  Over the years I've had thousands of rejection slips.  Even when you get to where you're selling regularly you still get rejected, sometimes.  Unfortunately, many of my students take this personally and some of them would come to class in tears.

There's no real solution for this The main thing is to believe in yourself.  I always tell students that there's no such thing as a rejection, it's simply an article that hasn't sold yet.  I've proved this many times over.

Every article should spin off several more.  Writers often write one article for a magazine, then forget about the subject, and start all over again for the next magazine.

Yet nearly every time you write an article you collect a lot of research material that you don't need for that article, but that material might well fit in another one.  In my own case, I often interview six or seven people for an article.  Then only use a portion for that particular article.

For instance, I was working for a couple of business magazines, a nursery magazine and an appliance magazine.  I had some material about the middle class buying more up scale items.  I did one for the appliance magazine that worked well then I turned around and did that same theme for the nursery magazine.  I used most of the facts in both articles.  I simply had to interview the appliance dealers in one case and nursery retailers in the other.

 I also got an assignment from a camping magazine to do an article about recreation facilities on Indian reservations.  I interviewed a number of people around the country then collected photographs from all over.

 I had material about RVing on an Indian reservations, camping Indian reservations, hiking Indian reservations, hunting on Indian reservations, fishing Indian reservations and more.  So I set out to see how many magazines I could sell to.  The list at the time read something like this: Trailer Life, McCalls, Argosy, Sports Afield, Outdoors Magazine and several others.

Each article was slotted to that particular magazine.  McCalls took luxury accommodations on Indian reservations, Trailer Life of course, wanted RVing on Indian reservations and so it went.

So, my best tip is to look for all possible articles out of the research you do. You will be surprised at how often this pays off.