S6 Bonus 04: Pitch Brainstorming Process

Get the show’s transcript

[INTRO]

[00:00:02] YD: Welcome to the Travel Media Lab podcast. I'm your host, Yulia Denisyuk, an award-winning travel photographer and writer, entrepreneur, community builder, and a firm believer that every one of us can go after the stories we've always wanted to tell, with the right support, encouragement, and structure. I'm on a mission to help women storytellers everywhere break into and thrive in the travel media space. If you're ready to ditch your fears to the side, grow your knowledge and confidence, and publish your travel stories, you're in the right place. Let's go. 

Hey, everyone. Welcome back to the last bonus episode of September. I can't wait to share with you some of the amazing new interviews and content we've been preparing for you for our season seven. Now, if you've been enjoying the conversations I've shared with you throughout this bonus series, and if you have aspirations to see your name out there in travel magazines, then I believe you're going to appreciate today's bonus episode. 

Today’s conversation is going to give you a sense of what the circle of support I keep talking about actually looks like. Every month, we have a pitch, brainstorming, and a review call with our members, where I give them feedback live on their pitches and help them find the best potential publication to pitch their stories. You're going to listen in as I give this speech feedback live to one of our members in about a minute. 

Just to note that every conversation from the circle that you'll hear as part of this bonus series is shared with permission from our members. Lastly, before we get started, I want to remind you that this October very, very soon now, starting next week, we're inviting travel writer Jessica Poitevien to run a series of travel writing workshops inside the circle. We're calling this series The Anatomy of a Travel Story. In it, Jessica is going to take you through the whole process, from generating ideas and pitching to interviewing and gathering your sources, to developing your story structure and writing your article. 

Jessica herself has written for Travel + Leisure, Condé Nast Traveler, National Geographic, Fodor's Travel, and many more. I'm so, so excited to learn from her this October. 

We'll have a total of three one-hour workshops that start on Monday, October 3rd, followed by Monday, October 17th, and then Monday, October 24th. These workshops are free for our circle members. If you join at our Imagine level, which is just $27 a month, you will be able to get the audio recording of the workshops. If you join at our Rise or Soar levels, you will have live access to the workshops and the opportunity to get your pitches critiqued by Jessica, which is just an awesome, awesome opportunity because I always say that the more eyes you can get on your pitches, the stronger your pitches will be. 

If you've been enjoying the conversations I've been sharing with you all throughout this month, if you have a dream of working with travel publications and tourism boards, if you have a dream of seeing your stories out there in the world, then consider this your cue. Come join us inside the circle to learn alongside Jessica and get her incredible expertise. I promise you, you won't regret it. It's an amazing community, and all of our members are just so, so, so amazing. We start next Monday, October 3rd, and you can get more information and join us at travelmedialab.com/circle. I hope to see you inside. 

All right. Now, let's get into this final bonus episode of the series.

[EPISODE]

[00:03:47] YD: Welcome everyone to our monthly pitch brainstorming call that we call the love seat call. For newer people who are joining us, why is it called a love seat is because in the overall coaching industry, calls like this usually are called hot seat where one person is in the hot seat, and he or she is getting feedback. I wanted to turn it into a love seat. So that's why it's not a hot seat. It's a love seat pitch brainstorming call. The way we do it is whoever wants to participate raises their hand, that they want to get feedback on ideas or anything that they're working on. So we share that, and then everybody else sort of pitches in and gets their feedback. 

Just before we started recording, Katie, who, again, welcome, Katie, to the circle, was sharing about that she's in the process of looking for an agent for her novel. Congratulations, again, Katie. 

[00:04:42] KATIE 1: Thank you. 

[00:04:44] YD: And how this process is just so, so tough and much tougher than the pitching process that we all know how that can be. I want to just to share with you, and I might even direct you if you have some time later, listen to our Travel Media Lab podcast episode with Lola Akinmade Akerstrom. She's photographer, a writer, a TEDx speaker. She's a very, very well-established trader, and she was talking in that episode how – At the time when we were talking, she just had her – She was on a book tour for her latest book, In Every Mirror She's Black. She has three books now, I believe. She was talking about how it took her 70 tries, 7-0, 70 rejections with different publishing houses to finally find a publisher. So I don’t know where you are in that number process. But, yeah, it was –

[00:05:39] KATIE 1: I’m much closer to the beginning. Yeah, like that's what happens. Like you're going to get an agent, and then you're going to go through it all over again, like trying to find a publisher, so yeah. But it’s hard. Like you don't hear back a lot. A lot of agents say you're just not going to hear anything. So it's like to have something that’s taken so long that you push out there, and then you're just waiting for any sound, it takes a lot of perseverance and stamina. So –

[00:06:03] YD: For sure. There's so much overlap between that process, right? Because in a lot of cases, we also don't hear back from pitches. That's why I encourage everyone to use that boomerang plugin because then at least you sort of know what's happening with your pitches. But, yeah, I mean, when she said that, that it took her 70 tries to finally find a publisher, I was like, “Wow, that's dedication,” and believe, right? You’re believing in your work and your idea, and you keep going with it, which is so important. 

So who is participating today? So we know how many – Okay, awesome. The other Katie, your camera's not on, so I don't know. Are you participating as well? Or are you listening today? 

[00:06:44] KATIE 2: Yeah, I'll participate. Let me go last. I'm trying to eat lunch real quick. So sorry. 

[00:06:48] YD: Oh, no worries. No worries. No worries. No worries. That works. Okay. So we have four people, and we have 50 minutes. So that's about 10 minutes per person or so. Yeah. Then a little bit of time at the end. So that's basically the format, Katie, the new Katie, is that we see how many because sometimes not everybody wants to participate. They just want to listen in. That’s how we sort of calculate it. We see who wants to participate, and we see how much time we have. Then we divide it equally.

If you don't mind, actually, I would like to go to you, Katie, first because I wanted to share the feedback that I had for your pitch live because I also think it will help others as well and you as well. Then you can – Feel free to ask me questions about it as we go along. So I'm going to share my screen. So I can sort of walk you through my process of thinking about your pitch here. Okay, let’s see. All right. Can everyone see the screen? 

[00:07:46] KATIE 1: Yup. 

[00:07:47] YD: Okay, great. By the way, thanks for jumping right in. I love to see that. This is amazing. Now, were you able to look at the pitch guidelines before you put the pitch together?

[00:08:00] KATIE 1: So I did look at their pitch guidelines. They weren't really specific, and I don't – I’ve pitched personal essays, but I have zero experience during travel. They pointed to a lot of their favorite pieces. Most of their pitch guideline was like, “Here, look at these pieces. These are the sorts of things that we're interested in.” But like I didn't like – So, yeah. But it didn't feel like it was like a word count section like any of that, so –

[00:08:30] YD: Looking at these guidelines, where would you say your story fits in these guidelines, right? So there's like traveling in the pandemic, secrets, hacks slide.

[00:08:38] KATIE 1: I felt like the fun – I mean, the fun and quirky section, though, they call that intriguing slideshows. But like the fun, surprising, quirky was sort of the tone I was going for. Then it's about a specific – So I guess like a travel – What's the top one? I think the –

[00:08:59] YD: Traveling in the pandemic. 

[00:09:01] KATIE 1: Pandemic a little bit and then like the – I don't know. Like a secret. It’s about a specific hike, right? Like, here's a specific hike that you could take, so like –

[00:09:10] YD: Okay. So let me just jump into the mind feed back then. So the first thing is that you have to understand the environment in which editors are getting these emails. By the time they open your email here, you've already lost them because they need to go down to here to even understand what the pieces are. All of this is too much pre work to get into the pitch. 

So the way I usually recommend to structure pitches and you can – If you scroll down in the pitch review section, you will see there is a lot. I've shared a lot of the example of how I structure the pitch, which really is just a very short introduction, “Hi. I'm such and such, and I have an idea that may be a fit with –” Then you outline which section do you think it might fit in. You’re showing them. You run them through the guidelines. You sort of have an idea of where it might fit. Then you jump right into your idea with a title and then a short paragraph. 

So actually, a lot of what you wrote here is going to be the pitch itself here because as a pitch, this is not enough, right? So you have here a title and then a one sentence. That is not enough to communicate what the pitch is. But some of what you wrote here is going to actually migrate into here. Now, that's sort of structurally. 

But then the biggest piece of feedback that I have for you is that you actually didn't tell me in this pitch what is so special about the Nietzsche hiking path. Nietzsche, sorry. Nietzsche, the writer, right? Because it’s somehow related to Nietzsche, but it's actually kind of buried here. Only here, you're kind of saying that Nietzsche himself spoke to signs along the path, but it's not obvious like what are we talking about here. Because when I go and I Google because I never heard of it, right? So what is the Nietzsche hiking path? Okay, whatever, whatever. 

I actually see there's an article on Atlas Obscura. It's not an article, actually. They have a thing. So Atlas Obscura is a travel publication, and they have articles, but they also have places which are community-sourced additions to their website. Look, like this mountain trail inspired Nietzsche to complete his magnum opus, this one. That’s the significance of this trail is that Nietzsche hiked it. Presumably, this is where he decided to do his best work. 

Now, we're talking about something very interesting, right? So what is the hook? For me, the hook is kind of buried in your write-up, and I need to Google in order to find what is so special about this hike. The thing is that editors are not going to do any of that, right? You kind of lost them here. If it's not immediately evident what is the hook, what is so special about this path, then you sort of lost them. So, yeah, that’s my biggest piece here. So we always want to think about what is – The way I talk about it sometimes is so what. So you went and you hiked somewhere. So what? 

This what here is – Well, this hike inspired Nietzsche, and then you weave in your own personal thoughts on coming back to traveling after the pandemic and maybe creativity and whatever else that you're planning on writing there, right? But that hook has to be so clear because, again, 200 to 300 emails a day that they're getting, they have to see it right away. So that would be my biggest piece of advice. 

[00:12:35] KATIE 1: Great. That's super helpful. Thank you. 

[00:12:37] YD: Awesome. Yeah. Don't get discouraged too because this is the process, right? You work your way to your pitches. Then definitely, I think it's a great idea that you have here. Obviously, you hiked it. You are very knowledgeable about the hike. But let's unbury that hook, let’s change the structure a bit, and then it will be ready to be sold out and sent out. 

I would also definitely look – It’s always a good idea to have an opinion on where in the publication this might fit because you're kind of helping them do their job for them. They always want to see that the writer read the guidelines and has an idea of where it might fit. Lastly, what I would say, and this is not so much maybe for photos, but for a lot of other publications, especially if you're going into prints but even for digital, for some of the bigger publications like Condé Nast Traveler, like Travel + Leisure, etc., you want to give them as many, they call it sort of ammunition points, as possible for why your pitch should be accepted. 

Because in a lot of these bigger publications, the editor that you're sending the pitch to, they might not have that assigning power right away, so they will go into the editorial meeting, where all the editors are talking with the editor in chief. They're all sort of discussing all these ideas. So if this editor likes your idea, they want to have those ammunition points because then they will be arguing on your behalf for why this pitch needs to be there. So it's always helpful to think in those terms as well. 

[00:14:10] KATIE 1: Great, awesome. 

[00:14:11] YD: Any more thoughts or anything that you wanted to share beyond this pitch or about this pitch or any more questions that you wanted to cover?

[00:14:19] KATIE 1: The only question I had is – I’m not sure you noticed. So there’s the essay part, which I understand like where would that fit. But when I was looking, I also saw that they don't have anything on their site about. Now, I was like, “I'll go dig some more,” but I didn't find it right away. So I have also – I wrote a short description to put in there like it's in the pitch like for their location. Would you pitch those separately? Or is it okay to have them pitched in the same pitch? Or do you think it might get lost?

[00:14:47] YD: Where is that? What are you referring to? Sorry.

[00:14:50] KATIE 1: So if you've – I think it's like the last line in the pitch I say. I realized that you don't have any information on the Nietzsche hike you’ve got in your site. I've also included a short description to include under the ‘things to do’ section for as or the [inaudible 00:15:05]. So obviously, that got very lost, right? 

[00:15:08] YD: Oh, yeah. It got lost. No. I mean, that would be probably a separate pitch. 

[00:15:13] KATIE 1: Separate pitch. Okay. 

[00:15:14] YD: That would be a separate pitch because I don't even know what is this things to do section. 

[00:15:19] KATIE 1: It’s just the way they – Yeah. They don't have it in the pitch guidelines, but it's in the way the site is organized. Like when you just type in their location specific, they’re like – If you type in [inaudible 00:15:30], it's organized under places to – I don’t remember what it is. Like things to do. It’s the – Yeah. Destination hotels, points of interest, articles, forums. If you go to points of interest, it just like lists. 

[00:15:44] YD: There is nothing there. Oh, I see. I see. So it's interesting. I wonder who creates these for them. It might be an in-house thing too. Maybe that's why it's not in pitching guidelines. Yeah. I would probably not just even worry about that, to be honest. It sounds like – It looks like at least, from just what I quickly can see, is that it looks like it's an in-house thing that they're doing. 

However, you can mention that once, let's say, you talk to them. Let's say the pitch is assigned. Then you can say, “Hey, I also noticed,” as a follow-up later on. But for now, let's just focus on this pitch. Amazing. 

[00:16:20] KATIE 1: Great. Thank you. 

[00:16:22] YD: Of course, my pleasure. Yeah. The only other thing you had was I would not recommend sending the whole piece parts and piece, unless they're asking specifically in the pitching guidelines they want on spec. Some sites do that. Like Huffington Post, for example, is one that doesn't. But most travel publications, they don't need to see the written piece. They just want to see your pitch. 

[00:16:47] KATIE 1: Perfect. Yeah. Great. 

[00:16:49] YD: Awesome, Katie. Thank you so much. Super, super helpful. I really appreciate the time. 

[00:16:54] YD: Of course. Yeah. Just rework it and then feel free to post it here again. We can discuss it again and then send it out. 

[00:17:02] KATIE 1: Okay. Great. Thank you. 

[OUTRO]

[00:17:04] YD: Thanks again for listening to our podcast during the break we took in between our seasons. I'm so excited to welcome you back next week with fresh interviews and content we've prepared for you for our season seven. Don't forget, if you've been thinking about joining the circle, this is your cue. Don't miss this awesome, awesome opportunity to learn from travel writer Jessica Poitevien this October and improve your travel writing skills. Our workshops start next week, and we're so excited to have Jessica in the circle with us. Go to travelmedialab.com/circle to join us today. Thank you so much, again, for listening, and I will see you in season seven of our podcast next week. 

[END]