Most of my colleagues know I’ve been an on-again-off-again freelance writer for the last four years, mostly contributing to The Washington Post Magazine, RunnersWorld.com, the now-defunct Running Times (::cries::), RunWashington, USA Today’s GET Creative sponsored content studio, and Wine Enthusiast. In the past, I’ve been lucky enough to receive a steady flow of assignments from my editors, which, in talking with other freelancers, is a rare blessing. But lately, my editors have wanted me to pitch them more. Shit.
Don’t get me wrong, I love my side gig. But usually I’m too brain dead at the end of the day to think of stories to pitch. And if I don’t think of story pitches, well, then I don’t have anything to write. That’s where PR reps have a huge opportunity to swoop in and save the day. Pitch me! Please, please, please pitch me. It’s a win-win: you get client love and I get paid.
Here’s the thing. All reporters are busy. Freelance writers are busy — especially because they, and they alone, are in charge of finding and pitching stories to bring in their income. (Bravo to them because I could never do this full time.) But those freelancers who also work full-time in other industries, well, I question our sanity. Sometimes I ceremoniously close my work laptop, pour myself a glass of wine, and shift across my living room to my iMac to begin the side gig. It’s exhausting.
I get about a dozen pitches a day, sometimes more. Most I delete without even responding — which the PR rep in me thinks is the meanest thing to do given that I hate when reporters don’t respond to my pitches. But honestly, I’m so busy with my full-time career at Fish that I just don’t have the energy to respond to each one. Most of the time, I’d be re-hashing the same grumpy response I think in my head, “Hey, so-and-so, thanks for this, but I would need to spend more time than I realistically have to think of a bigger story in order to weave in your client and no editor is going to accept my pitch without the larger story angle and a list of potential sources. I’m sorry. I just don’t have time.”
So, if you’re going to pitch a freelance writer — especially one that has a full-time job doing something else — help them out by doing their job for them. The easier it is for me to package something up and quickly send it to my editor, the more likely you are to get a response and, hopefully, coverage.
Of course, there are the exceptions. Yesterday I received a pitch from someone I had never spoken with, with a headline that was way too long, and with a clear copy-paste job of a press release. However, I’m now writing a story about it for The Washington Post Magazine’s “Street Smart” column.
Here’s why it goes against everything we as PR reps are told to do, but it worked anyway:
The ridiculously long headline happened to call out something I’m interested in regardless if I’m going to write about it.
The headline — “World-Class Art Festival Celebrates 15 Years during Annual Alexandria King Street Art Festival September 16 – 17, 2017” — had “art” in the first few words. I doubt the PR rep knew about my affinity for art and that I was an art history minor in college, but, hey, sometimes we get lucky. I opened it. (A better headline would have been: “Hey, Ashley – Here’s a story idea for Street Smart.” PERFECT. Yes, thank you. I need to open this right now.)
It was a TL;DR pitch, but it had every possible piece of information I needed.
All I had to do was forward it to my editor and say, “Hi Marcia – here’s an idea for Street Smart! I can look at the local galleries in Alexandria and highlight this event.” Her response: “Hi: Let’s do this, but what do you think of making it a fall street festival guide?” Sure, now I have to do all the work to find the other street festivals to write about, but it piqued my editor’s interest and that’s really all I needed.
There were nine (yes, NINE) attachments.
But… but… you’re never supposed to send attachments! I know. But I have a Gmail address and so that may have helped it get through those pesky spam filters most news outlets have. So it actually ended up in my inbox. What I liked about having the attachments is that they were photos of the wide variety of art readers can expect to see at the art festival and one of the crowd from a previous event. I really got a sense of the festival’s crowd and how cool the event will be. And they’re exactly the type of photos my editor would be looking for for “Street Smart.”
So take these tips for what they’re worth. Sometimes breaking the rules works — whether it’s by accident or not.
And for the sake of giving some extra love for this pitch that will make me some money, here are all the details for the art festival:
King Street Art Festival
Presented by Howard Alan Events
Date: Sept. 16-17, 2017
Time: 10 a.m. – 5 p.m.
Where: Old Town Alexandria (along King St. from Washington to the waterfront)
Cost: Free!
https://www.visitalexandriava.com/things-to-do/events/king-street-art-festival/
