Magazines

Magazines, like any other media outlet, have their own rules and guidelines for submission, and they cringe whenever you embark on a path that deviates from their cause.
If you’re a public relations official, you’re probably used to creating a basic press release in a effort to notify the editor of your news, and let him take it from there. However, submitting your information to a magazine is more like crafting an article as an outsider.

With a press release, you’re probably targeting a trade magazine – some specific publication that caters to a specialized topic of interest. For instance, if your client is about to launch a new convertible solar powered car, you’ll want to send it to an automobile trade magazine, not Woman’s Weekly.

When you make the decision to submit to a magazine of any kind, go out and purchase the writer’s must-have guide – the Writer’s Market. This book is updated each year to contain almost every listing you can imagine for publishers, agents, and your target – magazines.

Each year, the magazines receive a questionnaire from Writer’s Market, which they then complete and return to the book’s publishers. At press time, the magazines are divided into categories such as Women’s, Trade, Romance, Mystery, etc. You simply flip to the genre of your choice, and there it will tell you all of the guidelines to follow when submitting your information.

Since magazines are looking for articles, it’s great if you can simply query them with an already-completed article about the new product or service your client is offering. Like newspapers, a magazine won’t be interested in an advertisement that reads, “Try the best face cream ever invented!” They have an ad department for this type of content, and they charge heavily for it.

Instead, approach it as a consumer-informative document. Do some research, compare it to the other products, but don’t lie about the results. The magazine probably has a fact-checking department that will call your bluff if you provide false information, and they may even include you in a negative article if you try anything tricky.

The most important thing to remember when approaching a magazine is know your target! Do not write them a stuffy business-like article if they speak in slang and poke fun of society. Request a back issue, or study their current publication to get a feel for their tone and style.

Then, make sure your idea hasn’t been done before – or least, recently. If your organization is doing something beneficial for the community, such as building a home for a family who lost everything, angle your story around a person who is organizing the campaign, and send it in as a human-interest piece.

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