Comments on: Query That Rocked for Fortune Small Business Magazine

By: Dan

Dan — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 21:52:09 +0000

I’ve only read the query and I want to read the entire article!

By: LindaFormichelli

LindaFormichelli — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 12:51:12 +0000

Martha, thanks for writing! When an editor gives you an assignment, she’ll tell you what the word count should be. If you do want to give a word count in your query, check out the department you’re pitching to see how long those pieces usually are, and stay within that range. Hope that helps!

By: Martha

Martha — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 06:09:04 +0000

Ok, just discovered your blog and am loving it! I am an aspiring writer and have one question. In courses I have taken, we were instructed to estimate how long the article we were querying would be. I have always found this an extreamly difficult thing to gage. Sometimes I just don’t know how many words it will be before I write the darn thing. I just don’t have the experience to reliably predict. How do you know what your word count will be??? Do you jave a method for estimating how long an article should be?

By: LindaFormichelli

LindaFormichelli — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 15:03:37 +0000

Thanks, Debbie! I checked out all the business mags and there seemed to be only one where it would fit. I tried them and got the black hole treatment. But I’m always keeping my eye open for more markets.

By: Debbie

Debbie — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 14:17:48 +0000

Nice query, Linda. One thing I always have trouble with is re-submitting pieces when things like that happen. I had a similar thing happen last year, and have been trying to think of how to re-slant the piece somehow because I’d spend quite a bit of time researching and then writing it. Keep us posted, maybe you’ll give me some ideas!