Over on A Photo Editor, Rob Haggart links to a great list of successful pitches made by writer Dan Baum and his wife Margaret Knox, the same list Jackie wrote about a couple posts ago on this blog. An important thing that Haggart points out is that it’s not just a skill for writers – a photographer should be able to write a good pitch as well.

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 …

I started my journalism career as a writer, and, like Martha Gellhorn bemoaned, always felt as if the “bloody words would not walk straight.” I constantly have to read my writing out loud and even then Serena has some serious editing to do if I want a nice flow and rhythm to my piece. My tendency to write awkwardly, however, is not enough to stop me from trying to make my words walk straight.
I subscribe to the NYCWriters mailing list and while it’s mainly garbage and self promotion, occasionally there …