How I Went from Zero Bylines to Published Writer in Top Magazines

Borrow everything I know about pitching to go from terrified pitch virgin to published

photo credit: Juliane Bergmann

Over the last decade, I’ve worked as a book coach, ghostwriter, and editor for Simon & Schuster, Penguin Random House, Macmillan, and private clients including Navy SEALs, Apple Executives, and Ironman athletes.

But I was terrified to pitch an intimidating editor to get my own writing into a publication. I had zero bylines and zero ideas on where to start.

A dozen bylines later, I’ve learned:

• Editors need you as much as you need them. They must consistently source quality articles, essays, and service pieces. You’re helping them as much as they’re helping you.

• It’s a numbers game. If you’re still counting your rejections, you’re not submitting enough. I write for a living. I do this all day every day and my acceptance rate the last time I calculated it was 18%. Meaning, for every ten pitches, I got not even two acceptances.

So, go into it knowing you’re offering something valuable and that you’ll still get mostly rejections.

Not because you’re a bad writer or your ideas are stupid, but because:

• It’s not the right time for your piece (wrong season, no news-hook, outdated science)

• The pub just ran a similar piece

• The editor you reached out to is not the correct one for your story

• You didn’t match the tone of the publication

• You pitched a topic, not a specific story angle

Here are the steps I took to get my first byline:

1. The Spec Piece

What do you do when you haven’t published anything ever and you’re trying to get your very first byline in a print or online magazine?

Enter the spec piece. Like a spec house sells homebuyers on the quality of a specific construction company’s craftsmanship, your spec piece sells editors on you as a potential guest contributor.

What can you use as a spec piece?

You can use blog posts, website content, or newsletters you’ve already written on Medium, Substack, or elsewhere, especially if you consider them some of your best writing or they fit the topic or format you’re most interested in pitching. If you don’t have anything set up, put your piece in a google doc. You just need to be able to link to it.

Most important takeaways:

• You do NOT have to build an entire portfolio before starting to pitch. I know you’ll want to, telling yourself it’s necessary. It’s not. That’s your fear talking. ONE spec piece, then pitch!

• If you’re interested in a specific topic (healthcare, AI, entrepreneurship, recovery, parenting) or want to pitch a particular type of article (listicle, feature, op-ed, how-to, personal essay), use that for your spec piece, too.

• Make sure it’s your best writing. This is your audition tape!

• Don’t worry about how many followers you have or how many people like your spec piece (that’s not the point). You’re showcasing your writing, not your ability to build an audience.

• It does not matter where you put the spec piece, only that it’s a relevant sample of your best writing and easily accessible via link rather than attachment. Many editors will not open attachments.

2. Topic or Story

Every editor has different pet peeves, but they all share a hatred for broad pitches about general topics, instead of specific stories with unique angles.

You don’t read an article to get general info about a topic. That’s what Wikipedia is for (or Google, or ChatGPT). A story illustrates how a certain topic impacts one person or a group of people, or how the theory of something applies to practice in that one specific context.

This is the biggest problem I see with my clients and students’ pitches, no specific, unique story angle.

We’ll discuss this in depth during Pop Your Cherry Pitch Lab on Monday with pitching prom queen Amber Petty.

(It’s just $37 for you! Online Writing Club members get $10 off with code OWC10.)

3. Where to Pitch

Finding the right fit at the right publication takes time and effort. Once you’ve nailed down the appropriate outlet, you’ll need to identify the right editor and their contact info.

Here’s how:

• Follow your favorite publications and editors on Social Media to hear about specific pitch calls.

• Google the publication’s name plus “masthead” to get a listing of their editors, or google the publication name plus “submission guidelines.”

• Bigger publications will have multiple editors for each section, so pick the one that is closest to your proposed topic.

• You can subscribe to an aggregator service or newsletter that collects pitch calls from around the web, like the weekly “Pitch, Please” I send out every Friday with pitch calls and writing jobs.

4. How to Pitch

Pitches are either timely or evergreen. Timely just means it’s tied to a news story, event, or holiday, so if the editor doesn’t respond quickly, your story becomes pointless. You don’t need a news tie-in to get your pitch accepted, but it helps. This could be anything from a new law passed, a political scandal breaking, a holiday coming up, celebrity gossip, a new study finding, a product launch, or an anniversary.

As you can see, you can make a lot of things your timely tie-in.

Evergreen pitches work year-round. An editor can slot them in wherever they need to fill the queue. More important than timeliness is the strength of your story itself and the uniqueness of your angle.

You can either take an existing draft of a story or idea and find the right publication and editor to pitch it to, or you can review current pitch calls from editors and pick one to respond to. I usually recommend doing the latter, because you’ll get all the specific info you need to practice writing a good pitch. Whichever way you’ll choose, we’ll help you craft your pitch and research editor info on Monday.

Best practices:

• Read the publication’s submission guidelines and familiarize yourself with the kind of pieces they publish (everyone gives that advice because it’s good advice).

• Address them by name (”Dear Editor” shows your lack of basic research and preparation).

• Put “Pitch” in the subject line of your email and then a proposed title for your story (spend time on this because it determines whether the editor will even open your email).

• If your pitch is timely (tied to a news story, event, or holiday), put “timely pitch” in the subject line and give a date within your email by which you would like a response.

• Keep the pitch short and juicy. Think of the pitch as the trailer to your movie—make it interesting enough so the editor wants to see the whole thing.

5. Pitch Template

I wrote the pitch below in a workshop with Amber Petty.

It took less than 15 minutes to write, got accepted within hours, and paid hundreds of dollars.

Here’s a side-by-side of the pitch template Amber taught me with my example pitch:

Your invitation: Join our Cherry Pitch Lab

Back when I was a 40-year-old pitch virgin, I met Amber Petty, who singlehandedly demystified pitching scary editors at fancy publications. After several rejections, Amber’s brilliant feedback helped me find the perfect angle for a story that took it from “meh” to running in HuffPost.

Amber does not always wear a tiara, but she should, because she’s magical, and she will help you pop your pitching cherry and start collecting rejections (until you get an ohmygodyes!).

I’m hosting Amber at the Unmentionables Writing Lab on Monday for Pop Your Cherry Pitch Lab and would love for you to join us!

Online Writing Club members get $10 off with code OWC10.

This class is not a presentation, it’s a workshop where you’ll write, edit, and submit a pitch in two hours. Amber will provide live feedback on your pitch or send you a custom feedback video, since we can’t cover all the pitches in class.

You must come ready to do the thing, but you don’t have to do it alone.

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When Juliane (one of our brilliant community members) told me about her upcoming hands-on class, I basically said: “You have to share this with everyone.”

Here’s why: I used to be a PR consultant, helping people land in the media, and I know it actually works, if you know how to play the game. (Spoiler: Juliane does.)

We first met over two years ago, back when I was pregnant with my daughter. And now? I get to introduce her here, in this guest post. Full circle moment.

Summer’s done, pumpkin spice is everywhere, and you know what that means: autumn guest posts are back for annual paid subscribers. Juliane’s kicking things off, and next up will be… (drumroll

Dr. Axel Meierhoefer 🏕️🔥

🏕️🔥and

Rodney Daut 🔥🪵⛺️

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Big thanks to Juliane for all the nuggets she’s dropping here and her wonderful offer to join the Cherry Pitch Lab.