The New Normal

Details like these are what more and more shoppers (and editors!)  are looking for in products to buy and feature.

WHAT EDITORS WANT! Five Smart Ways to Nail a Pitch

Want to better the odds of seeing your pitch make it to print? Here's how!

Check out the magazine’s media kit

Easily available online, media kits are marketing tools meant for prospective advertisers. But what they list, including the editorial and reader profiles as well as an editorial calendar or “general themes” for each issue, make it easy for you to know exactly what editors are looking for and and how to tailor your pitch.

Work with the editorial calendar

National magazines are produced six to seven months out. Regional publications are pulled together three to four months in advance. Online magazines and bloggers generally require only a few weeks or less notice. Pitch accordingly.

Tie-in your idea to a current trend

What’s trending now? The popular British melodrama, Downton Abbey, has made Edwardian grandeur an easy fall/winter fascination among editors. And you can bet that the much-anticipated The Great Gatsby has editor’s composing product roundups with Art Deco twists.  

Give your pitch a subject or intro line

Like a handrail for your idea, this gives editors—at a glance—the skinny on the story you have in mind. A little teaser  for a bright red umbrella like (Cool Wet Weather Gear …….for under $25) helps the editor realize that there are more places than one where your product could fit before they even read the pitch. It also signals to the editor that you have done your part to make a good fit for their publication and that you are ready for press.

Send print-ready images

The single most important component of a product-driven pitch is the image you send with it (and that photo should be embedded directly into the pitch as a low-resolution image, never attached) How do you know what’s good? If it looks as if it could be plugged directly on to the page you are pitching, you’re on the right track.  Don’t style the products with a pretty backdrop or props, which only serves to distract from it. Editors prefer a well-lit picture of the product against a plain white backdrop.

Pig Roast

The Four Coursemen, Athens, GA self-taught gourmets and rising food stars, hosted their annual pig roast this past weekend. The babies, the band, the high gravity local brews and well-behave pups made this family reunion-style potluck an entire afternoon affair of community cool.

Capman: the story of stuff....is about survival.

While walking the dog today I happened upon a sighting of this mobile piece of identifiable art in Athens: the cap man's truck.  Read his inspiring story here.

Practicing What I Teach

Do you remember taking classes where you thought the professor's curriculum was stuck in the year they moved from the industry into academia? The same could be said for the mountains of marketing and social media advice out there.
 In 2010 I co-founded Paper-Cut-Project with Nikki Nye and we rely on press to help our paper sculptures reach the niche audience globally who may be looking for, um, paper wigs and accessories. I use the same advice I give readers in Recipe for Press to try and seduce editors to share our story. When I ask our clients, which include Cartier, Hermes, Kate Spade and Christies, how they found us, they invariably report they saw it in print or on a blog!

WHAT EDITORS WANT

Last week Pantone announced that 'Tangerine Tango' is 2012's color of the year so you can bet that roundups for spring will be centered around this trendy shade.  Anticipate that editors will be craving products and any kind of tie-in around this citrus hue and pitch accordingly.