Stealth Secret No. 3

Make Sure Your Query Actually Gets Read.

If you follow standard advice on how to write a query letter, you’ll write a weird, stilted pitch that will go to the wrong person. Or perhaps to no one at all. Good luck getting published. The how-to-be-a-writer books steer you wrong at every turn. Plug alert: The real way is a full, detailed chapter in my book Write Where the Money Is. But here are two Stealth Secrets for the price of one that will set you apart from the hordes.

Stealth Secret 3.1: Find out who exactly should receive your query.

Remember Stealth Secret 2? A freelance writer has to be a sleuth. You want your pitch to land in the in-box of the right editor. Find out who that person is. It’s usually easy to do with a little online legwork. If nothing else, just call, connect with the editorial department, and say, “I have an article about _____ I’d like to pitch“ or, “I’d like to pitch a story for your ____ department. Can you give me the name and e-mail address of the right editor to send it to?” This contradicts standard advice, which says you must hew to the writer’s guidelines with lockstep obedience. They’ll have you e-mailing some black hole of an in-box with an address like info@ or submissions@. You can cc those, but get your query to a real live human. And if the guidelines tell you to fax or snail-mail your pitch, assume that’s dated advice for the other schlump. Not for you.

Stealth Secret 3.2: Don’t pitch topics. Pitch stories.

Because I write a lot of travel stories, I get pitched all the time by public relations people who represent various destinations. They believe in their clients. Beautiful places. First-class digs. They invite me to come visit, and don’t understand why I almost always decline. It’s because editors aren’t interested in destinations. They aren’t interested in topics. They want stories. Digging up stories is a lot more difficult than digging up topics. You have to flesh out details. You have to do research. And when you think you’ve got a story, you have to put it under a microscope. (Your editor will!) You have to refine it, make it even more compelling. Make it irresistible. If your pitch explains the plot, characters, and sex appeal (using the term loosely) of your story, you’ve got a great shot. You immediately leapfrog over writers who merely pitch topics, or settle for “good enough” when they pitch a story. For more Stealth Secrets, fill in the form below. You’ll be directed to an opt-in page so I know I’m sending this only to someone who has requested it.