More pitches!
So my pitch for City Scoops might have been successful and all, but what about pitching some of the big boys?
Dan Baum, a former New Yorker staff writer has a bunch of pdfs of the pitches that worked for Wired, LA Times, Playboy and the likes. The lengths of each pitch vary but all put my quick e-mail to shame. One proposal for a series in Rolling Stones is a whooping 15 pages! That is longer than all but one of the papers I wrote in college.
Most of the proposals read very well with plenty of liberties taken with creativity while still laying out the article in very technical terms. It’s a nice refresher course (although I am not sure I can say I ever had a course to begin with) in making the editor curious about the story while proving it is also feasible. Interestingly, he also shares the pitches that failed, although I do not see anything that immediately sets them apart. Just goes to show you editors are individuals with personal opinions and while a pitch for killing and cooking a whole bull might work for one editor, it won’t work for all.
(via Boston.com)
