Does anyone in this forum work for a magazine? Has anyone ever had any luck selling to magazines? This media seems to be very difficult to break in to. My published work has been to calendar companies, postcard companies and screen saver producers but have had absolutely no success with magazines. Any secrets? SR

-- Steve Rasmussen (srasmuss@flash.net), October 07, 2000

Answers

Steve, Copetitionin the big selling magazines is pretty fierce, and unless your work is outstanding your unlikely to be succesful. I would try the medium size and smaller circulation mags where the competition is more managable. Get as many of the previous editions as possible and learn their style what gets published each season, are there common themes, what type of pics are in there. The more you study up the closer you will get. Sometime its just bad luck, they ran similar article last month or you need to get your story in 3-4 months in advance. On two occasions I have been told my work was good but but the articles were turned down. Once because they didn't attract enough advertising and the other because they wanted to run storys on different region of Australia. Sometimes if you can give a list of possible articles this indicates you are serious rather than one off contributor. There is no secret to success just hard work and my experience is you need to study up on your customers needs if your going to succeed, and this not only in the magazine but in calendar, stock etc. Don't forget professional letterhead and proper packaging go a long way.By the way I am only semi-pro.

-- Chris Georgiopoulos (chrisgeorge@bigpond.com), October 12, 2000.