Excerpt - Guide to Query Letters

CHAPTER 2: ARTICLE QUERIES

COMPONENTS OF A QUERY

Query letters can be intimidating. Sure, you could picture the editor in his underwear (Heck, it got you through that speech in 1996!), but it might be just as easy to overcome your fear by reminding yourself that queries are nothing more than fancied-up letters. Letters aren’t scary, right?

Remember when you were in elementary school and you had to learn the basic components of letter writing? There was a salutation (“Dear Santa,”), the introductory paragraph (“Thank you for the Easy Bake Oven”), the body (“Mom says she’s gained 15 pounds from sampling all my cupcakes”), and the complimentary close (“Sincerely yours”), etc?

A query letter is like the grown-up version with a twist. You’ll still have the salutation and complimentary close, but between those two bookends are the four meaty parts:

1. The opening hook (one paragraph)
2. The supporting details (two or three paragraphs)
3. Your qualifications (one paragraph)
4. The thank you (one paragraph)

The Opening Hook

The opening hook can be taken right from your article’s first paragraph (“citing the lead”) or can be a completely new grabber. It should include something fascinating, intriguing, controversial, funny or outright bizarre that immediately make the editor want to request or assign your article.

Example: Cathy Cacowski thinks worms taste delicious and she’s not alone. In fact, when the Denver chef took them off her menu at her restaurant, Gourmet Grubs, customers complained. A lot.

The Supporting Details

The supporting details will provide information about some of the “five W’s” – who you’ll interview (the chef and some customers), where you’ll go (watching a worm stew being made), what people order (worm chowder, anyone?), or tidbits to let the editor see why it’s such an interesting story. You can include bullet points of things you’ll cover, offer to send photos (or a menu), suggest a word count, offer a match to a certain section of the magazine, or even offer a timely tie-in, such as a January deadline in order to coincide with the publication’s June edition on “New Trends in Dining.”

Your Qualifications Paragraph

Your qualifications paragraph doesn’t necessarily need to be a long list of published pieces. It simply needs to explain why you’re the perfect person to write the piece. (“I’m a gourmet cook myself,” or “I live right down the road from Gourmet Grubs” or “I’ve already been granted a backstage pass to the kitchen.”)

Your Thank-You Paragraph

Your thank you paragraph should thank the editor for his/her time and let them know that you are enclosing a SASE.

IDENTIFYING YOUR MARKET

Now that you know what, when, how, and why to query, let’s talk about whom to query. There are five major considerations when looking for a magazine to query:

1. Do they serve my article’s audience?
2. Do they represent my article’s market?
3. Do they run my type of article?
4. Do they accept freelance material?
5. Do they pay? (If you happen to be one of those independently wealthy writers who says, “Writing is about the craft, not money,” you can have your editor make the check to me.)

First, the audience. If you’re writing an article about, say, understanding reverse mortgages for yourself or your aging parents, your audience will likely include senior citizens or Baby Boomers. Who are you missing? What about people who are somehow tied to that industry? If you used to work in the mortgage industry and are pitching a complicated, technical article about reverse mortgages, you may be able to target mortgage brokers, bank loan officers, real estate agents, and financial advisors.

How does this translate to finding your market? For a more basic article, the obvious focus should be on consumer magazines read by Baby Boomers and seniors. And there are also unique demographic or niche magazines (with titles like Senior Living and Senior Times). But for the more technical version of your article query, you’ll want to aim for trade magazines read by the professionals in the industry. Again, these readers are mortgage brokers, bank loan officers, real estate agents, and financial advisors.

A third target will be specialty magazines read by senior citizens and Baby Boomers. These might include RV magazines (because a great majority of RV owners are retired), membership magazines (think AARP or that quarterly magazine your health insurance company mails you), and in-flight magazines for travelers.

And of course, don’t rule out online publications, local and regional magazines, and even the senior, real estate, or financial section of newspapers.

One easy way to get a quick list of markets is to break out Writer’s Market, the research bible for freelancers. Skim the table of contents for a list of publication categories (fitness, trade, parenting, etc.). Here’s an example of how to use it:

I wrote an article called, “How to Get your Kids to Eat Your Veggies!” and after skimming the Writer’s Market table of contents, I sold it to magazines in all the following categories:

• Health
• Parenting
• New Age
• Vegetarian
• Women’s
• Fitness
• Gardening
• Food

One tip: Don’t make the mistake of assuming that any financial article can only go to a financial magazine. The competition is incredibly stiff and there are plenty of writers pitching who have more experience than you. Look for the diamond that’s just waiting to be mined, the publication that other financial writers never thought to pitch (like the RV magazines), and you’ll greatly increase your chances of seeing your name in print.

Next on your list of criteria: Do they run my type of article? For this, you’ll need to look at the publication’s writer’s guidelines. You can start your search in Writer’s Market or online at www.WritersMarket.com. If your publication isn’t listed, search its Web site. Many list writer’s guidelines (or “contributor’s guidelines”). Still don’t see them? E-mail the editor to request them. If the editor doesn’t respond, you can try calling to request them from the receptionist. If the publication doesn’t offer them, ask if they accept freelance submissions. If they do, but don’t have guidelines, review a back issue (or two) to study the writers’ tone, voice, and style. You can also get an estimate of word count for features or particular sections.

Note that some publications do not use freelancers at all. Don’t waste your time on trying to convince them otherwise. There are plenty of fish in the sea.

And finally, does the publication pay? In general, the larger a publication’s circulation, the more money they pay. The exception is often found in your favor: a few smaller publications will pay because they have good funding. It’s rare to find a very large magazine that doesn’t pay its freelancers.

There are a few other—in my opinion, less important—reasons to consider which publications to pursue. They include:

• Circulation. Is the magazine a local rag printed out of the publisher’s basement? Chances are that even if five hundred copies are printed, not all are picked up and read. But if you’re OK with smaller circulations just to get your name in print, go for it.

There are, of course, some small-press publications that are very popular. I once edited a small magazine (literally run out of the publisher’s basement) that focused on all the fringe elements of society: extra-terrestrials, government conspiracies, making clothing from hemp, how to legally avoid taxes, et al. The magazine had an opt-in list, probably made up of mostly expatriates. I don’t know what the circulation was, but because it was a very targeted market and people asked to receive the magazine, I knew it was being read. (Probably by the government.)

• Whether the magazine is published online. This is a tricky one. The good news is, more and more magazines that publish an online version are paying extra money for electronic rights. The bad news is, because more people will have access to viewing your piece, you’ll have a much harder time reselling it. Not every magazine that runs an online version runs ALL the print stories on the Web. This means that your story might get into the New York Times, but not www.nytimes.com. (Read details about electronic rights later in this chapter.)

• Prestige. You’ve got a triangle of people to impress with your publications: yourself, your friends, and your editor. I stopped trying to impress the first two years ago. Getting into a well-known publication is no doubt an ego boost and a conversation piece, but if you plan to do this for a living, you’ll need to value this nugget for what it is: a medal on your uniform. Just having a medal doesn’t automatically make you a general; you’ve still got to sell yourself to the committee. Editors do like to see national publications on your list of credentials; it’s a sign that someone with experience liked your writing. So go ahead and pitch to the big names. Just remember that five or six published pieces in small magazines can carry as much weight as only being published once in the New Yorker. (Besides, most people don’t “get” half the stuff published in the New Yorker.)

DECODING WRITER’S GUIDELINES

Writer’s guidelines can be intimidating, but think of it this way: they are there for two reasons, both of which are to help you. They’ll either increase your chances of getting published … or save you from wasting your time.

While writer’s guidelines can vary greatly, most contain the same basic components. The following are the most common you’ll encounter. We’ll use this sample listing from Writer’s Market to illustrate the points. (I took this from the 2003 edition so I could justify keeping it when my husband was cleaning out the attic.)

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