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How do I go about "applying" for this?
My town has started a small magazine geared towards parents of babies-teens. It has a variety of local contributors and some AP type articles. It's really small and is free with the newspaper. There is an ad in it that says to email the editor if you would like to be a contributor.
I am a SAHM but would love to have a little something to do like writing articles like this. I have a lot of ideas for articles that I could write, so I'm going to email the guy. I'm just not sure how exactly to go about it. Do I automatically send a resume (my background is in psychology / child development - no actual experience writing professionally)? Do I mention my specific ideas for articles in the email? I don't want them to just use my ideas... I thought I would maybe just send the email stating that I'm interested and leave it in their hands as to what the next step would be. I've never done anything like this before so I'm unsure on what to do!!
Re: How do I go about "applying" for this?
Our little Irish rose came to us on March 5, 2010
Don't drink the water.
Disclaimer: I am not an MD. Please don't PM me with pregnancy-related questions. Ask your doctor.
As a former magazine editor, I can tell you that you should definitely include your ideas. This is called a pitch; you need to write a pitch letter. If you don't include your ideas, how will they know you really have any or that your ideas are relevant to their magazine?
I would send a short email expressing your interest, saying you have several ideas, then outlining one or two. You don't have to give away the farm there, but you need to let them know what the article is about (the main question that would be answered or something like that), how long they can expect the article to be, and why it would be relevant to their readers (especially if you have an off-the-wall topic where it isn't immediately obvious why their readers would care.) And if there is a specific audience -- stay-at-home moms, for example -- mention that, as well. You can include your resume, but that's not as important as a writing sample. I would rather see a short bio in the email (just 2-3 sentences mentioning your subject area expertise) and two attached writing samples than a resume and no writing samples. The samples can be published or non-published (though if you have something published, all the better), and should reflect the style of the magazine (don't send an academic paper in if the readers are casual and the magazine is looking for fun, light reading). But the samples don't have to be on-topic, and if they are, the magazine absolutely cannot take them without letting you know.
One thing you should be aware of before you start this, though, is that you may not be paid for this. You might have already assumed this, but with a free publication, often editors look for subject matter experts who are interested in seeing their name in print for publicity's sake and are OK with not getting paid. At my old magazine, we were about 90% unpaid, subject-matter expert contributors, and 10% paid contributors. It was a business-to-business industry magazine, but this is fairly standard practice in journalism. However, if you make a name for yourself there and build up some samples, you can possibly transition to a feature writer or move on to a local paper or larger national magazine which may pay for content.