Welcome Back
In this session, we’re going to start thinking about the creative nonfiction market. As a creative nonfiction writer, there are literally thousands of places that you can publish in. The challenge isn’t the lack of places, it is finding the right place. And individual writers will over time build up a set of connections with places where they feel their work is welcomed.
So today is going to be largely exploratory. You are going to do some research, and share this with the rest of the group. We’re going to look at commercial markets for nonfiction writing, and I’m going to assume that you want to be paid for your hard work.
Pitching vs. Sending Final Pieces
For much nonfiction, you will not be writing something and then sending the finished piece out into the world. You will be pitching your work. We’ll talk much more about pitching next time. But a pitch is effectively a short communication that you send to an editor (usually as an email), telling them who you are, and offering to write a piece for their publication. If the editor says, “Hey, this writer, and their proposal sound great,” they will sign a contract with you, and you can start writing.
Pitching is great, because it saves time — you don’t have to write 10,000 words and find nobody wants it. This makes it a good way of efficiently match-making between writers and publishers.
Some more literary magazines and journals may ask for full manuscripts. But for many outlets, and all journalistic outlets, you will pitch first.
Initial research
To find places to submit, you need to think about what you like to read. Then you need to research how to submit to them.
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Do a web search for “call for submissions” AND nonfiction. This will give you some leads.
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Another place to try is submittable.com — we’ll look at this in class.
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This initial research will give you two kinds of resources: lists of open submissions, and also individual websites.
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Click through to any links you like the look of.
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Follow the thread to find the publication websites, and see what kind of things they publish.
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If you are interested in a publication, see if they have any submissions guidelines (these may be called “Write for Us”, or “Submissions Guidelines” or “Pitch to Us”). Read through their guidelines.
By the end of the 30 minutes, try and find two publications that you might one day want to pitch to.
Homework: Market Research
For your homework, find three publications that you might want to pitch. And for each, post to the discussion board:
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The name of the publication
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A weblink to the publication
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An idea (just a sentence or two) about a story that you might want to pitch there.