Right place, right time

I often think PRs and freelance writers are in the same boat. We have to pitch and we have to be persistent. I’m currently sitting on a couple of ideas that I’ve already pitched to one title and had rejected or been waved off with a ‘maybe later in the year’. My first reaction to an editor saying, ‘maybe later, is that it’s never going to happen and you’re better off taking it elsewhere. 

But that’s defeatist and actually the sensible thing to do is to take them at their word and follow up a couple of months after your first pitch to sound the editor out again. (The other thing that PRs and freelancers need to have is no shame.) Even if they were just brushing you off the first time round, be optimistic, it might be that your second pitch finds the editor in the middle of an ideas drought or with a sudden increase in pagination. At that moment your pitch can find itself very welcome. 

On this, it pays to remember how the print calendar works. Post Christmas and the high summer months see a dip in advertising that effects magazine pagination. You’re much more likely to get a juicier story placed after September and in the lead up to Christmas when the issues are bigger.

Time to start pitching now for that Christmas rush…