Adding Value: Results Already!
This week I posted Adding Value, about how we writers need to offer not just benefits but also value. The benefits I offer an editor are that I’m fast and a good writer who works well with editors — but those benefits don’t really distinguish me from other good writers. I struggled deciding what value to add, and decided that I would begin generating great ideas for the editors who usually come to me with in-house ideas. Even these editors need ideas to fill their pages, and it’s difficult to come up with them month after month.
So yesterday, I made a list of magazines that usually come to me with work (mostly trades and custom pubs), and sent quick ideas to five of them. By this morning, I had heard back from two of them:
Thanks so much for sending me this pitch. I am currently brainstorming content for our Winter 2009 issue, so your timing is great!
Thank you for this great idea! I love it. I’m actually meeting with [client] on Friday to discuss a 2010 editorial calendar, so your timing is perfect. I’ll plan to propose this idea for the January issue.
Wow! I don’t usually hear back on pitches so quickly, and with positive messages to boot. The Adding Value experiment is off to a great start.
How will you offer value to your editors next week? [lf]
Thanks for getting me to brainstorming, Diana! I know it’s often necessary to stand out to editors,and you’ve come up with a terrific way to do just that. Love it.
That’s a great idea about offering ideas, and I’m glad you’re already seeing success with it.
I think it’ be especially welcome at trade and custom pubs — markets I need to make a bigger part of my mix. I did just pitch the editor of a trade anuual I’d not worked with before three ideas, though, and she assigned all three. Your post is a great incentive to keep going in that area.
Do you think the approach of suggesting several ideas at once would be as welcome at consumer publications?
I get what you’re saying Linda, but I’m wondering, are you sending these ideas in a different format than regular queries?
I’m trying to see how there is added value in sending ideas to my clients since I already do that in a form of a query. And yet, like you stated in your original article, it’s like I’m always starting at square one.
Is it because you don’t have to send out many queries anymore (because the eds come to you) that sending out ideas is an added value for you?
Thanks for your comments!
Kerry, I send multiple short ideas only if I’ve worked with the editor before. Otherwise, with consumer mags, I send one query.
Chanize, I usually approach trade and custom magazines with a letter of introduction and they come to me with work. I wondered if I would get more work from them if I actually sent them ideas, and so far the response is positive. To me, that’s added value because it’s something I usually don’t do with trades and custom pubs, but it’s something that editors need. (And when it comes to consumer magazines, I generally have to send queries…letters of introduction have not worked much for me.)