FUCK EDITORS

I get to work under a guy who does it purely for the ego. "It's just a hobby," he says whenever I ask him to please be a little more professional or whatever. He actually tells publicists that I'm going to review something or interview someone before even telling me. And then he tells me I have a bad attitude if I say that I can't interview somebody on five minutes notice for the fifth time this month.

I AM NOT MONTEL WILLIAMS!I AM NOT MONTEL WILLIAMS!I AM NOT MONTEL WILLIAMS!I AM NOT MONTEL WILLIAMS!I AM NOT MONTEL WILLIAMS!I AM NOT MONTEL WILLIAMS!I AM NOT MONTEL WILLIAMS!I AM NOT MONTEL WILLIAMS!

This is prob. why so much of the writing in free weeklies is pretty bad though... I mean, everyone but *us* needs editors, right?

1. Giving more than you promise
When an editor asks for two samples, give her three. If she trusts you with an assignment, don’t wait for the final deadline, but send it in a day in advance. If she’s asked you to provide notes, make sure you give her everything she needs so that she doesn’t have to ask for anything more. If you make an editor’s job easier, she’ll love you for it. And she’ll be willing to trust you again with more assignments.

2. Constantly coming up with fresh slants
There may not be too many new topics (unless you’re writing about technology; then you just can’t complain), but there can always be new slants. An editor likes writers who can reduce her brainwork, and make her look good in front of her superiors by coming up consistently with great ideas.

3. Having all the answers
It’s important to know about your subject. That’s why so many well-paid writers advise you to specialize. So, if an editor calls you to discuss your query, and poses follow-up questions, you better have the answers. Because an editor’s never going to trust you with an assignment unless she’s sure you know what you’re doing. And not having answers to her questions is a sure-shot sign that you don’t.

4. Coming up with clever titles, and great sidebars
The most important thing I’ve learnt so far is to visualize your article. See how it appears on the page. Granted, it’s usually not going to come out like you’d imagined it, but for a minute forget that you’re a writer, and think like a designer. See the beautiful fonts and the shaded box on the side? That’s how the editor sees your article. Now it’s your job to bring that visual to life with your words.

5. Understanding the core audience of the magazine
If you’re writing for a magazine for home PC users, your editor’s not going to appreciate ideas on network security, however wonderful they may be. Similarly, when writing for a small business owner, you’d want to treat that person as a little smarter, even if he might have the same knowledge base as that of a home user. His computing decisions are more important. That’s why you should always be familiar with the reader’s knowledge level. That’ll help you make the distinction between good ideas, and great ones.

As for this: "When an editor asks for two samples, give her three," I can't speak for editors at large, but don't do that for me. I've got enough to read without an extra sample. The extra one means you either couldn't make up your mind or you don't have any two that alone will sell your writing.

Most of that advice makes pretty good sense, actually. (And I say that as somebody who, early on, used to get pissed when Spin editors changed commas to semicolons. Though later, they did stupider stuff.)

Of course, maybe that's why I'm not a brilliant pitch-maker... :)

Publications I write for:

Baltimore City Paper
Orlando Weekly
Grooves Magazine
Signal-to-Noise Magazine
Miami New Times
Pitch Weekly
Creative Loafing Atlanta
Staticmultimedia

I don’t think there’s any harm in non-local writers writing for alt-weeklies as long as they’re good; it’s important to cover ye olde local scene though. I remember back when the Baltimore City Paper didn’t do anywhere near as much of this as they do now – the volume of venom from local hipster musicians was incredible.

All the more reason NOT to do too much local coverage. (I mean, right, my job is to provide publicity for local hipster musicians.)

Eep. I'm learning something here.

I never give too specific of pitch guidelines either, so I'm not sure why it bugged me by the suggestion that you should give more samples than requested. I think I just don't like it that someone else assumes they know what I need. Although this thread is pointing out that maybe they do!

Jeezus.

> the volume of venom from local hipster musicians was incredible.<
All the more reason NOT to do too much local coverage. (I mean, right, my job is to provide publicity for local hipster musicians.)

Did work for a local daily newspaper for years. It was intensely local, sometimes to self-destruction, and the hometown artists had grown accustomed to pattycake treatment. After a couple of weeks, every Monday morning the assistant managing editor for features would be in a really foul mood because he had to answer phone calls from them after I'd slaughtered some hometown favorite over the weekend. The best moment was when a bunch of them brought in a signed petition to have me fired. The griping in the letters section actually seemed to stimulate more readers into looking at the section, which had been one of the most ignored in polls judging aimed at rating what people turned to (sports, the comics and the horoscope always won). If they'd had a sex columnist or someone who told bathroom jokes, that probably would have been first.

Mridu's advice is good, particularly the bit about fresh slants.

http://karma2.karmadownload.com/images/albums/SKCD77_pic.jpg

i have the angry emails to dispute this as my intent in covering local music.

I never understand why the weekend section focused so much on Anthracite entertainment; it always seem to enforce racialized fears that get so much play in Berks Co. as it is.

w/r/t local coverage in Philly: there's basically a one man monopoly on local band coverage in our weeklies and then there's Philebrity. As someone who actually lives here and doesn't carpetbag from NYC, it's amazing how detached and disillusioned coverage has been of Philly bands generally speaking. Maybe it's for the best; if you've waited on bands as customers, then it's probably better to avoid ever writing about them, right?

Yeah. I worked for the Allentown Morning Call in the Lehigh Valley, straight east from Berks and up the northeast extension from Philly. Went to college in Reading and the LV and there wasn't a lot of difference between the two. Anyway, after I left the Call, the music editor used some of Condran's free-lance reviews to help fill the hole. Don't remember seeing a lot but I wasn't paying much attention so I'm sure some stuff escaped me.

The Call was really into the local heevahava scene. It was what xhuxk referred to as local boosterism run amok. It had been that way for years. Everyone was totally into hagiography so this was circumvented by starting a new feature called "Nightclubbing," a weekly column that published satirical reviews of the locals in their watering holes alongside similarly voiced reviews of whatever semi-bigshots were at the Fairgrounds or in the Stabler Arena.

-- strongo hulkington's ghost (wt...) (webmail), November 18th, 2005 7:01 PM. (dubplatestyle) (link)

Yeah, it's weird. With the exception of the ex-Man Man guys, that's pretty easy to maintain, and as someone who's had peripheral experience with Philadelphia, you can understand why. Search Marah and knifepoint and you may find some interesting results.
xpost

When it comes to local Philly weeklies, it seems their predisposed to running the same people's pieces (see Philly Weekly for instance) and not welcome other writers at all, as though it were an affront to the editorial sensibility of the paper. Is this pretty common?

So far I have no editing horror stories to report from working for Strongo or his predecessor!

Hello editors!

Damn Technorati!

Agreed, Chuck ... on the flip side, though, scene-bitching is just as bad. Man-in-the-scene iconoclasm just doesn't have much value or shelf-life anyway you try it ... and that's all I'll say relative to my past experience.

Depends on the execution. For the operation, it was the most read and anticipated section of the weekend music news.

On the other hand, I edit the music reviews on and off, and that's where if I say that I want 300 goddamned words, I want 300 goddamned words. People seem to think that this is something that I'll be pleased to get, 400 extra words on some bland album that I have to cut out anyway. And would it kill them to make a declarative statement that doesn't have "possibly" or "one of the" in it?

And that's leaving aside the hassle of a publisher who cuts the pages randomly and has no interest in funding editorial work at all. ("Yeah, I know that I promised you $25 for your review, Freelancer, but the publisher doesn't cut a check until he runs it, and he's cut the reviews page the last three months. I know it's a dumb policy. No, I can't help you out. Sure, I've got more albums for you to look at, but most of them are 35-year-old white guys rediscovering the blues, and I'm not going to be able to run them until 2008").