Craft your own killer essay and op-ed pitches

My no-fail formula

Let me tell you why I put together this series on why and how I pitch essays and op-eds around my publications days, plus the exact pitches I sent out for The Lost Night (check ‘em out here), The Herd (ditto), and We Were Never Here (voila):

Pitching op-eds and essays is something authors are expected to do, but no one really tells them how to do it. When the time came to brainstorm story angles for my debut, I had a huge advantage: I’d worked as both a magazine editor (fielding pitches from journalists) and a freelance writer (crafting dozens, nay, hundreds of pitches over the years in order to get assignments in order to make a living in order to keep buying my cat Mona the very expensive kibble she prefers).

My name! In a magazine! To promote The Spare Room!

I knew what a pitch should look like and what sort of ideas would make editors’ hearts pitter-patter. But like, I’m really lucky I had that leg-up! Pitching is an art form, one I honed over many years. Much like fiction-writing, it takes time and practice, and many, many examples!

Can you tell I like examples? It’s why I’ve shared the pitches I used to sell my editor on my books here. It’s why I’ve compiled successful author queries here. And now, I’m almost out of my own “off-the-book” article ideas to share.¹

Authors, that’s where you come in: If anyone’s willing to share the article pitches that landed them assignments around pub time, please DM me (or reply to one of my emails)! I’ll pull together ideas from other writers so you can see how this looks across genres and outlets (not everyone’s gonna rely so heavily on Marie Claire, ha). If you have one burning a hole in your inbox, let me know!

For those of you who are less into examples and more into explicit instruction, I’m sharing my basic formula for writing an article pitch below. I used to teach this to junior editors when I worked in magazines, and I hope you’ll find it useful as you organize your own media outreach.

Don’t hit send on any ideas just yet, though; next week I’ll provide some verrry important tips for writing those commissioned essays/op-eds as an author. I’ll say it: It’s really good information your editor, agent, and publicist might not pass along. And after that, we’ll set aside the essay/op-ed topic for a while to get into other good stuff, like finding a writerly community, making requests of authors you admire, writing “likable” heroines, reading your own work with fresh eyes, and more.

As always, if you want personalized help crafting your own essay and op-ed ideas (and learning how to find the right editor and pitch effectively), I offer one-on-one consulting. And remember to keep an eye on my Substack’s publicity tag for more resources. Okay, let’s break down the ingredients of a killer pitch!