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Top 10 Ways to Impress a Travel Editor

(I wrote this when I was senior editor for travel at Coastal Living. Some of it’s specific to that magazine, but aspiring magazine writers will find some more general tips as well.)

10. Think in terms of what you have to offer me.  What can you provide that the freelancers I already work with don’t?  Most often, it’s a great idea.  Coastal Living covers the entire saltwater coasts of North and Central America, plus the Caribbean and the Great Lakes.  I can’t possibly know about all the great stories out there in a territory that vast.

9. Offer readers something they haven’t already read about or seen on TV.  Coastal Living avoids pieces based on hot trends or prominent anniversaries, all of which would be old news by the time we could get it in the magazine.  Find something unique.

8. Familiarize yourself with whatever media outlet you’re pitching. Be willing to shape a story to its needs.  Take the trouble to find out to whom, specifically, you should address your query.  That tells the editor you’ll be meticulous about other things as well, such as getting your facts straight.

7. Double-check EVERYTHING.  Make your grammar, syntax, and spelling impeccable.  Avoid claims about the “only,” “first,” “oldest,” “biggest,” etc.  Somebody always disputes them. Even if true, such superlatives are mostly beside the point anyway: “Okay, I’m aboard the biggest cruise ship in the world.  Now what?”

6. Send clips, so editors can get an idea of your writing.  For photographers, make samples of your work available on the internet.  Don’t send a resume.  As an editor, I didn’t care where you went to school.  All I cared about is how you wrote or shot.

5. Politely stay in touch about the fate of your query; I’m not as organized as I would like to be, so occasional gentle reminders were helpful.  Also, don’t take rejection personally.  I often had to say, “This is a great story—but not for our magazine.” 

4. Make it easy for the editor.  Meet deadlines.  Follow instructions concerning billing, fact-checking material, and so on.  Make sure your e-mail spam filter lets the editor’s e-mail through.  (You’d be amazed at how often I’d reply to an e-mail query and be blocked by the spam filter of the person who contacted me in the first place.)  If a problem arises, don’t suddenly become unavailable.  Talk to the editor and work it out. 

3. Expect to do the writing or the photography, but not both. Many magazines and especially newspapers prefer travel writers who can supply their own photography. In my experience, that’s not ideal. Seldom is one person really good at both writing and photography, and it’s really hard to research (as a writer) and photograph a story at the same time. For both writing and photography, remember: The photos are not mere illustrations for the words, nor are the words mere captions for the photos. They’re two different essays on the same subject, intersecting at times but also diverging according to the particular strengths of each medium. So whether you’re writing or shooting, get close, put some thought into what you’re doing, look for interesting angles, develop a personal voice/point of view, and work on more than just a surface level (i.e., be aware of both the denotations and the connotations of your words/images).

2. Before you start giving me facts about a destination, SHOW (don’t tell) me why I should care about those facts. Travel is an emotional experience. So make the reader fall in love with the place you’re covering. Use verbal images involving as many senses as possible. Make the destination (not yourself) the star. Tell a story, with a beginning, a middle, and an end—and a strong narrative drive that propels the reader all the way through. As a grizzled old newspaperman once told me, the easiest thing in the world is to stop reading.

1. Have fun. Put some life, some spark into your writing and your photography. Write with a distinctive voice; shoot with a distinctive point of view. Ninety percent of the clips and images I saw were competent but boring. The few that added some sparkle to that competence caught my attention and inspired me to try to get that writer or photographer into the magazine.

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