I'm an editor at a trade magazine for the television industry and also do some freelance writing. In addition to writing 50 or so articles this year for TV Technology (the magazine for which I work), I've placed a couple articles with Excellence, a car magazine that focuses on Porsches.

There is a secret to writing successful freelance magazine articles and it's one that is seldom discussed: pictures. The key to selling me an article is telling me that you have a good picture to illustrate it. This was, in turn, the key for me to sell articles to Excellence. As an editor myself, I knew Excellence's editor would ask first about pictures. Therefore, I was ready with a couple dozen high-quality pictures to illustrate my car maintenance article.

In addition to the actual pictures, each picture must have complete caption information. This includes a description of what the picture shows, as well as the names (and titles, if appropriate) of any people in the shot. Getting complete caption information is usually harder than taking the picture.

The minimum photographic standard for publication in TV Technology is 1,000 x 1,000 pixels. Since we (and most other magazines) publish pics at the resolution of 300 dots per inch (dpi), that works out to a picture of about 3.3 x 3.3 inches. Obviously, cover shots and beauty photography require much more resolution; a five- or six-megapixel digital camera has sufficient resolution for cover photography if the shot is framed properly.

Of course, the writing is important, too. However, editors are willing to overlook writing shortcomings if the photography is good. It doesn't even have to be great photography; often having snapshots of people interacting with products is more than good enough for us. I went to a big trade show earlier this year, and took 150 snapshots of people looking at equipment and talking to each other. About 75 of these were published, scattered among various articles in the magazine, including several I wrote.

If you're thinking about writing on a particular topic (a great mountain hike, your favorite car, a killer restaurant, 10 safety hazards in homes, etc.), grab a $200 digital camera, set it to its highest resolution, and take LOTS of pictures. Learn how to use Photoshop or other software to process and save your pictures so that the brightness, contrast and color balance are correct.

If you are serious about writing non-fiction magazine articles, the best thing you can do to advance your prospects of getting published is to supply good photos with your articles. I assure you that editors will notice you and keep asking for more.

The pay is good, too. Excellence pays me about $700 or so per article, depending on the length. This represents about 12 hours work on my part.

Let me know if you have any questions.

--Bob

Do the mags pay extra for pictures?

I figure that if "a picture is worth a thousand words", and they pay 5 cents a word, then I ought to be getting at least $50 per snapshot...

;-)

What terrific information! I recently got asked by someone who read my epinions to review advance copies of DVD's for his "nonprofit" website. I thought it was weird that he got my email address even though he isn't a member. Is that possible?

Anyway, my point is that I was hoping that in one of these forums we might be able to hash out some of the freelance opportunities/scams that come our way to warn each other and/or help each other be more successful.

Just a thought. . .

Even if you don't take good photos yourself, it helps the editor if you can get photos from other people.

The articles that I've written have had a national focus and I can't always get to the people whom I interview to take pictures for them. But I do ask them for artwork. If I already have the contract (and I try not to write an article unless I have a contract), I'll have them send the artwork directly to the editor.

Just bumping this to the top to deal with the sneaker spammer.

Hey Bob,
Very insightful article.
Could you help me with something?
I am a writer of poems from India, wanting to publish my articles in USA in magazines / little magazines / newspapers which pay.
Could you supply me with some leads?
Also could you tell me how to go about it?
Regards,
Manis

Buy the book "Poet's Market" from Writer's Digest.

-Andy

I recently got asked by someone who read my epinions to review advance copies of DVD's for his "nonprofit" website.

========================================
Harry
MLS

I recently got asked by someone who read my epinions to review advance copies of DVD's for his "nonprofit" website.

========================================
Harry
MLS