When 'How to Start?' Is the Hardest Question
On learning to pitch and getting over the hurdle of perfectionism
I have a confession to make: I spent years (maybe even a decade? Don’t make me do the math and face my age) avoiding pitching stories out of fear. I’d written and published a book, submitted essays to literary magazines, and done a lot of complaining to anyone who’d listen that I didn’t know how to increase my platform, but I’d never pitched an idea directly to an editor.
I’ve always thought of myself as a words-focused writer; I have an inferiority complex when it comes to the idea part. So of course I leaned more toward situations where I could just shove a draft under an editor’s nose and hope the magic of the sentences would convince them my work was worth publishing.
But guess what? That didn’t work. It wasn’t until I started pitching that I actually gained some ground in publishing short-form pieces.
I’m not gonna say it was easy to get started. I had a graveyard full of half-written pitches that I’d periodically add to, or dig around in, seeing if I could animate something I knew was more than mostly dead. I took a handful of expensive (and wonderful) classes on writing better personal essays, convinced if I could just get the drafts right the pitches would be an easy afterthought (LOLSOB). And just like so many of my college classes, those workshops were helpful procrastination tools, helping me avoid the very hard and scary work of entering the ‘real world’/just sending a damn pitch.
I did eventually send a few. In 2019 I sent a total of four pitches. All were rejected, although one received an invitation to pitch again (I didn’t know then that that’s a win in itself). All were also based on essays I’d already written, which I would later discover is actually not the best formula for me.
The pandemic was, in an odd twist, my saving grace. In 2020, as everything went virtual, my access to the writing world I felt so far from (I live in a small town in NW Washington) exploded. I took every workshop I could find on freelance writing, pitching, and what editors are looking for, hoping to learn enough to make me confident about my ability to land a pitch. I never did achieve that confidence, but I did learn a ton, and something new cracked open in my brain. I began generating ideas, just a few at first, and then more and more, until I was coming up with a new idea every couple of days. I was becoming an idea person, something I’d never thought possible!
I also started absorbing what every freelance writer and editor was saying in these panels: I needed to pitch a lot, especially at first, to find even a little bit of success. So I sucked it up and started pitching, with low expectations and a goal of sending two a week. And between my newfound persistence and all the practice I was getting coming up with new ideas and writing tight pitches, I started landing commissions. Slowly at first, then faster and faster, until I actually had to pull back because I was majorly overwhelmed (I have a separate full-time job and I’m also working on two novels and querying my second memoir, so time isn’t exactly abundant).
Now, just a little over a year after I got serious about pitching, I’ve been published in Catapult (twice!), BuzzFeed, Refinery29, and The Good Trade (thrice!), with upcoming pieces in Cosmo UK and The Rumpus. And that’s not counting the many other places I published in between. I’ve learned to write a pitch that showcases both my writing style and the arc of the proposed story, negotiate my rate, and (perhaps most importantly) not take rejection personally – in fact, if an editor replies at all, I’m thrilled, and I add that person to my list of preferred editors for future pitches.
So if you’ve been ‘wishing you could’ pitch editors, lamenting your inability to land a piece in a publication you love, or just feeling paralyzed by the seemingly enormous hurdle of getting started, you’re not alone. I’ve been where you are, and I promise you can move forward – I’ll even show you how at my Pitching 101 workshop tomorrow night! Bring your questions and your angst and I’ll do my best to address both thoughtfully and compassionately.
Hope to see you there!
<3 Anne