Speaker 1: My writing has been published and circulated all around the globe. If you want to know how I did it, keep watching. Hey, my name is Megan, and I help freelance writers make a living. Don't forget to give this video a thumbs up and subscribe to my channel if you haven't already. A lot of writers ask me how they can get published on bigger websites with huge followings, and I always tell them that the first thing they have to do is write a flawless pitch. Understanding how to write a pitch is going to make or break your chances of getting published. A pitch is just an email that you send to a publication, usually to the editor, and you are sharing an idea that you want to write about. The goal is to get them to give you the go-ahead. That sounded really funny. The goal is to get them to give you the go-ahead? Whatever. You want them to agree to your idea and give you permission to write the article, which they will then publish. You are pitching them an idea. Now I've had my work published on sites like Bustle, Elite Daily, Parade Magazine, The Daily Dot, Thrive Global, and I also receive pitch emails on pretty much a daily basis, and some of them are great and some of them are terrible. So in this video, I'd like to give you some tips for how you can write an effective pitch email. For many, if not most, publications, editors are getting bombarded on a daily basis with hundreds of pitches. So if you want to get your work into bigger publications, then knowing how to pitch is going to be key. First, we need to talk about what you do before you send your pitch. This is where it all starts. I know that pitching websites can feel like a numbers game because there's typically a lot of rejection involved. So a lot of writers think that the goal should be to send out as many pitch emails as possible. But never forget that quality matters as much as quantity. This is something I've talked about a million times before in all of my videos about cold emailing, and the same holds true for pitching websites. One of the biggest mistakes I see writers making is they will write one pitch and they will copy paste it and blast it out to whatever editors they can find with zero regard to that publication's audience. It's not going to matter that you sent more emails. This is going to result in crickets. Before you send a pitch, you want to ask yourself a few different questions. First, who is this publication's audience? So we're talking about their demographics, age, gender, their interests maybe. Second, will they care about this topic? Why? Third, how is my idea relevant to them? And fourth, can I see my article fitting in with the other articles on this website? Does it have a place there? You're not doing yourself any favors by pitching an idea to a website or publication that doesn't serve the same audience that you do. Do your research ahead of time and your response and success rates are going to be way higher. All right, now let's get into writing the pitch itself. One important note. The first thing you should always do is check the website that you are pitching to because very often they will have a page specifically for people who are interested in contributing where they will give you their directions for how they want you to do it. Look for a page that says something like contribute or become a contributor. Sometimes they will hide it under the contact page or the fax page. These directions always take priority. If they tell you how they want you to pitch, do it like that. Before recording this, I did a quick search and Bustle, Parade, and Thrive all have pages for people who are interested in contributing. So I will drop those links in the description below. In general, if you're trying to find that page on a website, it's really simple. Go in Google and search become a contributor with the website name. If they have a page like that, it'll usually pop up. If you plan on pitching one of these guys or all of them, give this video a like and drop a comment. I've already written for them. So if I can offer any additional guidance, I'll always do my best. All right, so you've done your homework. You've made sure you are pitching the right audience, and you've checked to see if that website has specific directions for how you pitch. Let's say they don't have specific directions, or even if they do, they don't give you a ton of information. Here's how you write an effective pitch that's going to get an editor's attention. Step number one is write an irresistible subject line for your pitch. Everything starts with the subject line. The numbers vary, but some estimates say that somewhere in the ballpark of 47% of recipients are going to decide whether or not they want to open up your email based on the subject line alone. I usually start my subject line with the word PITCH in all caps, so that at a glance the editor knows what they're getting. Then you want to follow that with your proposed headline. And keep in mind here the number one goal of the subject line. It's to get the editor to open the email. That's all we care about right now. Get them to open the email. This means that you're going to need something that is seriously going to hook the reader. In this case, the editor. We're not going for clickbait. Don't be that person. But instead, you just need to think of something that's going to pique their interest enough to incentivize them to click. A surprising statistic is usually a good approach, as long as it's relevant to the article that you want to write. If the topic you're pitching is time-sensitive, like if it's something seasonal or holiday related, or it's related to something that just popped up in the news, mention that in your subject line. You can just put in parentheses, time-sensitive. And just to be clear, if it is not time-sensitive, don't put that in the subject line just to get the editor to open it. And then in the email, you're like, yeah, just kidding. It's not going to work in your favor. There are a lot of ways to write a great subject line, but let's do a before and after example with a completely made-up statistic. Here's an example of a not-so-great subject line. Pitch, how women can avoid being harassed on their runs. Meh, snooze fest. Here's a better way to do this. Pitch, 63% of female runners have reported being harassed. Here's a simple solution. Again, I made up that percentage, but do you see the difference between these two? In the second example, I'm using a powerful statistic that gives my pitch more weight, more ground to stand on, and I'm backing it with research. And not only am I sharing the problem, but I'm saying, oh, hey, there's a solution. And if you open up my email, you're going to find out what that solution is. Step number two, you want to tell them who you are, what you want to write about, and why. If you've done your job with the subject line, then the editor is now reading your email. Don't open your pitch email with small talk. They don't care. Dive right in with the name, the topic you want to cover, and why you want to cover it. If you have some huge credit to your name that is relevant to your pitch, mention that up front. For instance, if you are pitching a story to a gun magazine and you are a cop or a retired cop, now's the time to say that. Here's an example of how you want to do this. Dear Jim, my name is Megan and I'm a fitness writer. I'm interested in writing an article for Jim's fitness magazine on the effects of keto on muscle building, as keto is a growing trend among health-conscious individuals. I told him who I am. I'm Megan. I'm a fitness writer. I told him what I want to write about. And importantly, I tell him why. Keto's been a hot topic for a while now, but there's still this debate surrounding it, especially for people who want to build muscle, because a lot of people believe you can't build muscle if you're going to eat keto. If you don't know anything about keto, that's okay. The point is I gave him my story idea and I explained why my story idea is important, why it's relevant. In step number three, you're going to get more into the nitty-gritty of your pitch. Part of writing an effective pitch is giving the editor a good idea of everything your article would cover. This might include why this topic is relevant right now, what stance you would take in the article, why this article is perfect for their audience, how it will help their audience, and also any industry experts you plan on interviewing for your article. You don't need to write an epic novel detailing all of these points. In fact, it's better that you don't. Editors are so busy, so you should take care to get to the point. Don't tell them more than they need to know. However, you still want to take the time that you need to convey to them why it's in their best interest to publish this article on their website. Keep in mind that you don't want to only tell them your idea. You want to tell them a story. This means there needs to be a problem, there needs to be a solution, and you also want to explain how you plan to cover it. Paint the full picture. And while you're doing it, be sure to avoid language like I would love to write about. They don't care what you would love to write about. That's not going to win them over. Instead, you want to explain to them why their publication needs this story. Let's do another example using our previous sample of keto and muscle building. Beginning in late 2020, Google saw a huge increase in the number of people wanting to learn about the keto diet, and this has held steady. It's been of even greater interest to athletes since some question whether or not you can really build muscle using fat as your main source of energy. In this article, I'd use what research has found so far to explain why your body prefers carbohydrates as fuel and why carbs are crucial to gaining muscle mass. I'd reach out to experienced dietitians and athletes for their perspective. This will give your readers science-backed information on how they can achieve their fitness goals by tailoring their nutrition to muscle gain. So do you see what I did there? The what is the story and why it's important. The how is reaching out to experienced dietitians and weightlifters. In step number four, you want to explain why you are the perfect person to write this pitch. You want to wrap up your pitch email by telling the editor what your qualifications are. What makes you the best person to cover this topic? This is another area where I see a lot of writers go wrong because they'll say something like, I'm really passionate about this. The thing is, we care about our passions, but editors don't. They're running a business, which is the publication. So you need to give them really concrete reasons why you have what it takes to successfully write this article. Let's keep going with our example. I've been a competitive athlete most of my life, most recently spending five years training as a competitive Olympic weightlifter. I've also followed a macro-based nutrition plan for about six years, portioning, weighing out, and logging all of my food. This has helped me manipulate my diet in order to lose, maintain, or gain weight from my training. So in this example, I'm giving them a little more background information on why I have any ground to stand on when it comes to nutrition and muscle building. It's because I have a ton of experience with it myself. Now, once you've done this, there's another important question that comes up. How long should your pitch be? Everyone's got an opinion on this. Some people will tell you 500 words is the standard. I can tell you from personal experience that sometimes 500 words feels like way more than I need. So my advice to you is this. Make it long enough to tell the editor everything they need to know and don't make it a single word longer. That's it. The shorter, the better. Every word should have a purpose. Very often, my pitches will end up around 300 words. I tend to be a very short-winded writer. I get to the point and I'm really, I guess, picky when it comes to cutting out fluff. So if I read a sentence and don't feel that it's 100% necessary, I delete it. This goes for pitch emails and for the blogs that I write as well. So that's why the things that I write typically end up being on the shorter side. It's worked for me over the years. Lastly, I want to leave you with this. I'm telling you right now, you're going to be ignored and you're going to be rejected. That is totally normal. Like I said earlier, these editors are receiving sometimes dozens of pitches a day. In fact, for bigger publications like the New York Times and Forbes, I would bet it's even more. They can't say yes to everyone. They literally, physically do not have enough space on their site to say yes to everyone. So they have to be really selective and that's okay. This is a marathon, not a sprint. If you're serious about getting your work published on bigger websites, then you have to understand it's more of a long-term commitment. Never sacrifice the quality of your pitches just for the sake of sending out more. I told you I've sent a million pitches and I've received even more and I can tell when I'm receiving the same pitch that a bunch of other writers received. It's very obvious and those pitches always end up in my trash. I don't even finish reading them. Never stop caring about quality. One of the best things that you can do as a writer in general, whether you are writing for a bigger publication that you pitch or for a client that you produce recurring work for, one of the best things that you can do is make sure that you are writing for their target audience. We call this search intent or user intent. It means that you are delivering the work that the reader wants to read. To learn more about this, I've got a video on it so I'm going to put that link in the description below. If you want to learn more about how to write and incorporate user intent, you're going to want to check that out. Thanks so much for sticking around. I hope you like this video. I know it's a little different from the kind of content I normally produce, but moving forward, I plan on focusing my videos a little more on writers and writing specifically. So I hope you found this helpful. I always appreciate your feedback if you want to drop a comment. If you haven't already, please be sure to give this video a thumbs up and subscribe to my channel and I'll catch you in the next video.