For the month of July, the MKE Creatives had an interesting discussion with April Reese of Discover Magazine. April is one of the associate editors at Discover (Twitter), and moved to Milwaukee about a year-and-a-half ago, when Discover’s owners, Kalmbach Publishing, moved the offices from New Mexico to Waukesha! April had some good tips for people looking to make pitches to Discover.
April told us that about 98% of Discover >is< written by independents, so they are always looking for pitches. “I’m always learning new things, as Discover is a general-interest mag – so it’s pretty exciting!” She also said that “as an editor, you have to say “no” to pitches sometimes, but you always have to say it in a way that’s encouraging, because that person could be a future collaborator.”
When it comes to writing pitches, April said to be sure to have an angle, a hook to it – “Show your pitch to a friend who doesn’t know the topic, and see if it makes them want to know more about it.” She continued, “Don’t just send us a topic as a pitch – there >has< to be a story – not just a topic.” April did invite us to contact her, and she’d be willing to get us Discover’s proper “pitching guidelines.” She also noted how important it was for any “pitchers” to do their homework – “know what we’ve done stories about in the past year, so that you don’t send us a pitch about a topic we’ve recently covered.”
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The value of this monthly meet-up continues to be in the sheer variety of people who attend. At Anodyne Coffee, we had the following professions in attendance: a travel/wine writer, a story-teller/actor, a small business accountant/investment manager, a writer who also works in brand development, a documentary film-maker, a stock-media agent, a web developer, graphic designers, photographers, a science writer, a visual artist, a nature/sciences writer, a wedding/event photographer, and a medical/parenting writer! To see who these fine folks are, LOOK HERE!
