You Ask, We Answer: How Do I Find News Before It’s News?
I offer to answer freelance writers’ burning questions on the blog. (By the way, if you have a question you’d like me to answer, you can send it to lindaformichelli@gmail.com.) Have a lot of questions? I’m offering a 10% discount off my phone mentoring services through August 20.
Here’s Mark’s question: Here’s what happened. I called an editor at an adventure magazine to follow up on a query I had sent a month ago. He read it and said that my idea took something that has been here forever and made a story out of it. “If you want to break into this magazine,” he said, “you would need to do the opposite. You would need to know someone noteworthy or know of something that has never been done before. You would need access to the person or thing… and you would need to know it three months in advance.” Really? Nothing about good writing? An original perspective or angle? Where am I — little old me — going to find the person, event, or happening that the guy is talking about? What’s an outdoors writer to do?
I have to agree with the editor: Good writing is expected. It’s a given. And without a good idea with a unique angle, sharp writing is nothing.
That said, here are a few ways you can get the scoop on news before it’s news:
Go local. Read your local newspaper with an eye to turning small ideas into national ones. Get involved in your local community. That’s how my husband Eric found out about a New England pétanque league, and he ended up selling an article about it to Yankee magazine.
Ask your friends. I’m guessing you have a lot of friends who are into the same things you’re into. Send them a mass e-mail asking if they know of anything new or exciting going on in adventuring, and ask them to pass your question on to others they know who have the same interest.
Get on press lists. Find out which companies and organizations serve adventurers and ask the press contact to be put on their press lists. You’ll probably get mostly announcements of new products — not so exciting — but you never know what you’ll turn up.
Go to Amazon. People who author books often make great sources, and there’s a way to find out about books even before they’re released: Go to Amazon, enter the search term “adventuring” (or whatever), and sort the results by date using the drop-down menu in the upper right. The top listings will usually be books that are yet to be released — some as far as a year in the future! Now you have a news scoop.
Cast a wide net. Want to reach out to a wider audience than your friends and family members? Send out a source request to Help a Reporter Out. Let them know you’re pitching adventuring magazines and are looking for up-and-coming trends and people. Be as specific as you can, because I have to say that many HARO subscribers don’t read the requests very carefully. And be prepared to sift through lots of dreck, which is natural because you’re casting a very wide net. But you may find gold!
If anyone else has ideas on how to find news before it’s news, please do comment! [lf]
If you liked that post, you might also like:
Aug 11, 2010 Advice, Ideas, Marketing, You Ask, We Answer
Hi, Linda and Mark:
Another good source is Publisher’s Weekly. If you sign up for their free email newsletters, you’ll find out about recent book deals. There’s usually a description of the book, so you’ll know the subject/genre. I find it very helpful.
Great advice, Denise — thanks!
Read those emails publicists send.
This is going to sound a little mean, so apologies, but: if you want “good writing” to be the only thing that matters, then write fiction, or poetry. Don’t try to break into journalism, where good writing is not enough. And if you don’t have the faintest clue how to find stories, you should probably go on a course (I imagine the Renegade Writer has one). You don’t have to attend J-school to be a good freelancer, but it’s naive to think you can just hawk tired stories because the writing is good. So you can write? So can everyone. You need more to sell than that.
So. Make contacts in your industry, whatever that is. Get on their press lists. Follow lists of upcoming events. Read blogs. Follow government legislation that affects your industry. Read trade mags nobody has heard of. Talk to charities and think tanks. I get a lot of my ideas from internet sites (have a look at what people are moaning about).
Oh, and use your brain – a lot of stories come around because somebody noticed something. Sometimes I think “Why don’t…” or “Why haven’t…” and look into it and it becomes a story.
I’d add, go to conferences in your field. for me it’s worked to pick one or two and keep going back each year, so that I know where to look and who to talk with. keep in touch with conference press officers in between times, too — they are often good sources,
while I agree with Anne’s most of points above, I would add that ‘just good writing’ is not enough in poetry or fiction either. Angle, idea, voice, good story are all required in both of those fields as well.
My best stories have come from friends. During dinners and at parties, I keep an ear out for anything that is really interesting — vacations people are taking, new things they’re doing at work, problems they’re having with their kids. These turn into great stories for local, regional and national pubs. Training your ear to find these ideas is fun and profitable.
Good luck!
Laura
Thanks for the tips!