Over the last two months I’ve sent out close to fifty emails to different magazines, pitching ideas for articles and features and, to date, only three have responded. One declined my idea. Another said they would consider it late. A third said they already had something similar planned for their own in-house staff to write.
I’m a good writer. I know my ideas have merit and are entertaining, topical and newsworthy. Yet, I feel like a complete non-entity when magazines can’t even be bothered to reply to me. As heart breaking as it can be to be met with a ‘no,’ at least saying ‘no’ means that someone at least took the time to read your email and reply.
Complete silence time after time after time is just soul destroying. Is there a way to address such problems?
Thank you.
Before you assume all editors are rude, please understand that spam filters may be coming into play. Either your ISP or theirs could be hard filtering incoming emails, and even outgoing emails.
Some editors are indeed just rude, and don’t respond to writers unless they’re interested in a piece.
If you aren’t submitting exactly to their writer’s guidelines, that may also lead to non-response by editors.
If you are sending the email to more than one editor, that will definitely upset most editors.
And, if you don’t address them by name, that will also offend them. Editors hate spam just as much as the rest of us.
If your queries continue to be ignored or rejected, you might want to check out:
QUERY LETTERS THAT WORKED! Real Queries That Landed $2K+ Writing Assignments