This was a webinar  offered from the write for kids organization. Any misinformation is the fault of the note taker.

• it helps position you as an expert on something.
• Magazines allow you to do a short project.
• Great way to get back into writing.
• Help you focus your writing and build skills.
• And you get paid.

How to and where to find ideas.

• Different types of magazine ideas to write
• Profiles and interviews experts or people of interest.
• Write how-to articles that contain step-by-step tasks or projects.
• Travel is popular with tips and advice.
• Rounds up: 12 weird bugs, or other topics, best orchards for kids in my area. Business of running an apple orchard. Profile of a woman running an orchard. What makes the person you interview unique? Apple picking in the fall/ Round out is an industry term
• Personal essays. First-person accounts. And easy way to break in. based on your personal experience.
• Submit crafts, recipes, etc.
• Magazines accept short fiction.

Idea map can be a brainstorming tool.

• What kind of magazine are your ideas for
• Who is your audience?
• Don’t have too broad of a topic such as chocolate. Be more specific.
• Have a big idea and create little iterations that can be separate articles.
• Follow kids helping in an orchard for parent magazines how to have kids help with a family business.
• Trends in music, best places to play music.
• Being a tourist in your own state.
• While on a trip, write down ideas that inspire you or what you see.
• Take five or your favorite ideas from the list look at your target audience, possible tone (will it be info research. does it tie in for a certain holiday or university? estimated time to research the idea. interview orchard owners, interview three families. query 5 mo. in advance.

Write the query first not the article

• You sell your idea based on your query.
• You can tweak it for several market san send to different queries. Submit to the magazine that does not compete with each other. Just use a different angel
• You can get a lot of mileage out of the article.
• If you query a book, you have one shot. If you query a magazine, you can send a different idea to a magazine if they don’t like the first topic.
• Instead of spending 3 years on a book, but yo0u have more choices of where to send it.
• Lead-time for a magazine is shorter, while a book is over two years. A magazine might respond maybe next day.

When do you write for free?

• To support a cause
• Does it promote you?
• Need to know what rights they are asking for, if you give one-time rights.
• While traveling take a lot of pictures to help prompt your memory.
• Look at the table of contents for last year to see what articles have already been done. Magazines redo topics. i.e. lost weight articles are popular in January.
• You can search back issues of magazines to see what they’ve published in the past. So you can avoid going to the library.

How is the query between kids and adults markets different?

• The format is the same.
• Sometimes magazines may want to attach a biography and your sources of research
• Fiction for the magazine: You would do a cover letter. A little about the story and attach the full story. A personal essay, crafts, and puzzles are treated the same way.
• If you have photos, sate in cover letter that photos a available. i.e.: for something rare.
• Paging through the magazine of a big library can give you an idea of what kind of articles they accept. Often libraries will let you check magazines out. or you can sign them out electronically – via their subscriptions.
• Kindle unlined offers a lot of magazines.
• If not hear get a magazine’s response to your query in two weeks, query them as a follow-up and attach the original email.
• Children’s magazines take longer to respond as they are a niche market.

Q&A

How long does a magazine have exclusive rights?

• Look at rights, if not mentioned that they revert between 30 to 60 days.
• If a magazine bought all rights, can a magazine revert rights? You have to get permission. If magazines go under then you are ok to reprint.
• If write more than once for a magazine, you can have negotiating power. Might be due to the research because it takes more work.
• Word limit: if they ask for 1K words they need only 1 k words as that fills two pages on the magazine
• If your piece is too long, you may need to narrow your focus.
• In an educational magazine, the editors want you to provide you have done the research.
• For newspaper? send a query and see if they are accepting freelance work. If you do it free it can build your credentials.