S8 Bonus 01: Before Pitching, Ask These Questions

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[INTRODUCTION]

[00:00:00] YD: Hi everyone. Welcome back to the Travel Media Lab podcast. I'm your host, Yulia Denisyuk, an award-winning travel photographer, writer storyteller, community builder, podcaster, and entrepreneur. Working with publications like National Geographic Traveler, the New York Times and more. Traveling to various places around the world and producing stories that I'm really excited about.

[00:00:25] Travel Media Lab is our platform for helping you break into the travel media space where we share insights, tips, advice, and stories from people working in the industry. So this summer we are gonna be taking a little break. Here at the Travel Media Lab podcast and we will be returning with season nine of our podcast soon.

[00:00:48] Until then, I'd like to bring to your attention a few of my favorite conversations we have recently held inside the circle, our membership in which we help you get your stories published with ongoing support, encouragement, opportunities, and a community as you establish yourself in the travel media space.

[00:01:06] In this bonus episode, I'm sharing with you a preview of our monthly workshop we hold inside the circle. Each month inside the membership, I set a theme that we should focus on for the month, and one of our recent themes was how to make our ideas bigger. So in today's episode, I'll be sharing the questions you want to ask yourself before pitching.

[00:01:27] To ensure that your idea is big enough for the publications you're targeting, we dedicated the rest of the workshop to the actual pitch structure that works when sharing your ideas with publications. And I also answered questions from our members. This whole workshop and all of our workshops and conversations are available to you when you join us over at travelmedialab.com/circle.

[00:01:50] And just to note that at the end of this month, on Friday, June 30th, we will be closing open enrollments to our Circle membership until further notice. So if you've been considering joining us, this is your chance right now. Join us before Friday, June 30th to get in on all the activities, all the insights, all the support we have inside the circle.

[00:02:14] All right, let's get into this episode. 

[00:02:18] All right, so welcome Laurie and Susan to our monthly workshop today. I wanted to dedicate, the month of March and this discussion today to this idea of, how do we make our stories, our ideas bigger? how do we ensure that our stories are big enough and relevant enough for pitching for publications?

[00:02:43] And, I wanted to take you through kind of some of the questions to think about, when we're developing these ideas, including them into pitches. And yeah. And then maybe just have a conversation around that and, and maybe answer some of your questions. And Aria, I also wanted to ask how your week in that community went, where you went into, you know, and, and wanted to have some ideas, to pitch some stories, some ideas.

[00:03:09] So I think that could be relevant to what we're talking about today. So I'll just take you through some of the thoughts here and then we can. and then we can discuss. And just to note that what I'm gonna be sharing with you today is based on both on my own experience, but also I think I mentioned this in the past.

[00:03:29] I went and did a workshop with Tim Herrera, who is the, New York Times editor, one of the editors of the New York Times. And this, these were some of the things that he was covering, and I've shared them with you guys before. But I think it's always good to revisit this. we're gonna look at, you know, what are, what are some of the questions we want to answer when we're putting a pitch together, and then also look at the pitch structure itself.

[00:03:52] Actually, the pitch structure from Tim is something that I didn't share with you before, so that will be new. And his pitch structure is a bit more intense than what I'm, what I'm teaching you guys. And, and we'll discuss why that is and, you know, what does that mean for us and whether or not we should.

[00:04:10] Adopt that and stop. but that's kind of the plan for today, intimate today with Larry and Sudan. But I like, I like that that means we have more, more opportunities to cover more questions. So first of all,what are some, so, so let's say you have an idea, right? You have a story that you put together and you, you are ready to send your pitch out.

[00:04:32] So what are some of the questions that you wanna ask yourself before you're sending that pitch? So, first of all, you wanna ask, am I trying to convey in my pitch what I want to convey? Am I actually communicating what I want to communicate? And this is happening right now with one of our, one of my individual mentorship people that I'm, that I'm also taking on.

[00:04:55] he is pitching a personal narrative about visiting a, guerrilla rehabilitation program in Uganda. And in his pitch, he is, Like he's using the pitch template that I share, but he's, he's putting the title visiting, guerrilla habitation program in Uganda. And then his story is, or his, his, pitch paragraph.

[00:05:25] The intro paragraph that I'm always talk about is literally saying in the story, I will, I will write about my experience of visiting the, the. GU habituation program in Uganda. And we're sort of going back and forth now because what I'm trying to tell him is that, you have to actually explain what the story is, what the narrative a of the story is, and you really have to show, not tell.

[00:05:51] And this show not tell is something that I see a lot in a lot of people. Sometimes I see it in like, you guys are putting into your pitches as well. This idea of show,Show don't sell. Right. 

[00:06:02] if you're gonna pitch a personal narrative about the Gorilla Habitation program, tell me what that narrative is. Tell me what you learned there. Tell me what the story is that you're trying to pitch. Right?

[00:06:14] It's not enough to say this will be a personal narrative about Gorilla Habitation program. What is the actual narrative? What is the actual story? So we have to, remember that. So are you, are you trying to convey what you want to convey? Are you actually. Telling the story that you want to convey in the pitch.

[00:06:31] this idea clear, concise? Does it make sense? does, do you have enough information for the editor to evaluate this idea? I did. You include all the relevant details. And this is another thing that I often see in pitches as well, is that.

[00:06:48] People for some reason tend to be more generic and vague than specific in detailed. And we don't have to put too many details into our pitches, but a few, a few specific, very salient details are gonna make our pitch that much stronger. For example, another pitch I'm looking at right now, also in the individual mentorship side.

[00:07:09] This girl is pitching a personal, another personal essay, personal narrative, which are very famous with PE or very favorite with people. For some reason, she's pitching a story about how one of her favorite foods growing up has impacted, or has, yeah, has impacted her identity. it's a, it's a very cool story.

[00:07:32] I really like it. But in her pitch, she says, You know, in the story, I will explore how one of my favorite foods has impacted my identity. That's literally what she put there and, and in my feedback to her, I'm saying detail relevant, salient detail. Tell me what that food is. That's the point of detail that the editor is gonna be able to like grab onto, right?

[00:07:55] In her case that, favorite food is condensed milk. So instead of writing in the story, I will explore how one of my favorite foods has ex impacted my identity. I would write in the story, I would explore how condensed milk one of my favorite foods, has impacted my identity. Right? So we won that celent detail there.

[00:08:18] For Ed, for the editors to be able to grab onto it and to imagine the story and to evaluate this, this story, is it a timely story or has the concept expired? And that one is a bit tricky to judge, right? Sometimes it's hard for us to, to see if it's timely or if it's not. if, if it's a trend that has already expired and not all of our story ideas will be tied to some sort of a timely conversation or a trend or a topic, but if they are, then it's really useful.

[00:08:48] For example, I'll give you an example. Not from the travel world, but in, from the larger culture world. If you remember, several months ago, maybe 3, 4, 5 months ago, everybody was talking about quiet, quitting. Right. Remember that quiet quitting trends? I think it's, it, it was started on TikTok. If I were to pitch a story right now in quiet, quitting, or how, maybe how I.

[00:09:12] you know, just making this up how I quit my job and go traveling or like, I didn't quit my job, I quiet, quit my job and went traveling. Let's say, you know, some silly example, maybe that trend has passed already. I should have pitched that like five months ago when everybody was talking about quiet, quitting, you know, maybe it's not timely anymore.

[00:09:31] But it's something that we have to consider, all the time when we're, when we're putting these pitches together. and then when we think about, and again, this is from an editor's point of view, when we think about why pitches get rejected, right? The biggest reasons for why pitches get rejected is, and, and the number one biggest reason is that when you're pitching your story idea or your idea, You actually don't know what the story is.

[00:09:59] You're pitching something, but you don't know what you're trying to tell. And I see that. So like I see that a lot. And again, coming back to that, to that guy's pitch on visiting the habitation, program in Uganda with guerrillas. So he went and he visited the, the, the program. And just because you went and visited, that doesn't make it a story.

[00:10:22] So now he's pitching the fact that he went and visited it, but that's not the story. What is the story? And I think he's having a bit of a trouble coming up with a pitch idea because he doesn't know what the story is. You have to dig a little bit, right? What, what is the, like, what about that? You got that program, that, guerrilla habituation program.

[00:10:40] What did you learn there? What are some of the challenges they're having? Maybe, maybe there's some new laws in Uganda that are about to impact it somehow. Right. So again, this is very important for us because I think we oftentimes get so used to this idea or this mindset that just because I went somewhere and did something, that's a story.

[00:11:01] It's not in the trouble blogging world. It is, and in the concentration world, maybe it is, but in the, in the trouble journalism and the writing, you know, in the magazine world, it's not. oftentimes it's not enough by itself, so I'm pushing him right now. I'm, I'm asking him these questions. What did you learn there?

[00:11:18] What, you know, what happened there? What do you want readers to know? but that's the biggest reason why pitches get rejected because you pitch something, but you don't really know what the story in, in that pitch is, right? and then the other big reasons that pitches get rejected, rejected, especially if we're trying to place it in some big publications like Condoms Traveler, or like, let's say the New York Times, is that the story is too narrow, right?

[00:11:43] It's not big enough your story. And so, The way, there are ways to make the story big enough and to, to broaden the story. And we do that by, looking at who are the characters in the story, who are all the people involved, right? Are you talking about one person or are you talking about a community or are you talking about different players maybe in the industry?

[00:12:08] Or the sub subset of the industry that you're looking at. Are there any news hooks? Again, if we go back to the Gorilla Habitation program example, you know, maybe Uganda is just about to pass a new law that's going to require every traveler to pay 50% tax on the visit that's going to impact the community in some way.

[00:12:29] Right? I, I'm making this all up, but you can see how this news hook can suddenly make the story. Broader and more relevant to a US travel, travel reading, public, audience. I think this question is something that we don't ask ourselves enough, which is why would anyone not directly impacted by the story care about the story?

[00:12:49] And that again, is coming back to just because you went and did something somewhere, it doesn't mean it's a story. Why would a general reader care? Why would they care about this? And some of these questions are not, always easy to answer. Right. It's not always, immediately apparent, but I think spending even a little bit of time thinking about, again, who are the characters in the story?

[00:13:10] What are the news hooks? Why would somebody care about this? They're just gonna make your story so much better and, and so much sharper. And then finally, what's the big idea around this story? What is the big idea that you are trying to communicate, right? What is the big idea that you want to tell about this?

[00:13:30] about this story. and then the other few reasons that, you know, pitches get rejected, which are a bit more logistical in nature. You didn't check the archives, which I recently did actually. I pitched National Geographic travel with a story idea that I thought was such a good,fit for them. And she responded right away and she's like, oh, great.

[00:13:50] I love this idea, but we, we just did something similar on that, you know? So, Always have to remember to check the archives. maybe you're not pitching the right editor. Right. And when we're checking the, the guidelines, we usually know who is the right editor for which section. But sometimes maybe that's the case.

[00:14:09] Maybe they've already covered something similar, or maybe you're pitching our mini, but they just dis recently did a story on Georgia. And so, you know, it's too close in the region. So sometimes they decide not to cover something from the same region, even though it's not the same country. But if it's, if they recently did something from the same region, they might have hesitancy to cover, you know, to cover the region again.

[00:14:32] So, these are more logistical things in nature, that we don't have to worry about as much because a logistical reason to reject your pitch just means that you can pitch it elsewhere and continue pitching. There's nothing wrong with your pitch structurally, right? Structurally. But the first two that I talked about, these are big structural problems that we need to address if we want the pitch to be successful, which is, again, you don't know what the story is that you're pitching.

[00:15:01] Or your story is perhaps too narrow for the publication that you're pitching, right? If you're pitching a story to Atlas Obscura about some obscure, tea shop in Birmingham, Alabama, I don't know, I'm just making this all up, right? Maybe it's fine. But if you're pitching that story, that same story to the New York Times, why would the New York Times cover that small tea shop in bi Birmingham, Alabama?

[00:15:26] How do we make that story bigger? And that's where we go through these questions. Who are the characters? What are the news hooks? Why would anyone care? And what's the big idea around this? Right? 

[00:15:38] Thank you so much for listening to our bonus episode today. I hope you found the ideas we discussed here, relevant and inspiring to you. And if you're looking for support, opportunities, and community in the travel media space, consider joining our Circle community where we have conversations like the one you just heard on a regular basis.

[00:15:59] Go to travel medialab.com/circle to learn more, and be sure to join us before Friday, June 30th, because we will be closing. Open enrollment into our membership. Until further notice. Thanks again for listening and I'll see you very soon.