Dear Accidentally Qualified: A Tale Of Two Email Inboxes

“Accidentally Qualified” is an advice column from Study Hall written by Sonia Weiser, a freelance journalist and the founder of the journalism opportunities newsletter, “Opportunities of the Week.” Questions can be submitted through our anonymous form for consideration: https://forms.gle/pwUbNgwTBaGKATyu5. 

Dear Accidentally Qualified: 

Is there any point to using mail tracking software when pitching editors via email? Because they ignore your pitches just as much anyway…I often see that my emails haven’t even been opened. And then the callout is closed because “they found a writer.” What the actual fuckety fuck? I feel like giving up on pitching entirely, to be honest. 

–Editor, Can You Hear Me?

Dear Editor, Can You Hear Me?

I have so many thoughts on this so I’m glad you asked. Just recently, I went back to using Streak to track pitches after years of thinking there were no point. And you’re right, if an editor is going to ignore your pitch, tracking it won’t do anything. However, knowing whether an editor viewed your pitch is useful when it comes to the follow-up. I’ve found that if an editor didn’t open my pitch the first time, following up on a separate email thread rather than as a reply to the original email results in more opens than re-upping an email they disregarded already. Maybe it ended up in spam or got auto-filtered into a folder. I don’t know what it is. But it works. Sometimes. 

Something I learned from making a public call out for sources is that you can never prepare yourself for how many responses you’ll get. And depending on what the ask is, sometimes it’s easiest to go with someone who’s good enough than it is to read through every email to find someone who’s truly great. Even the kindest editors with the best intentions get overwhelmed. I’m sure you’ve solicited source requests and found yourself buried under dozens of emails, so much so that you can’t get yourself to go through more than the first five. 

So much of this is a number’s game and the brutal reality of a crowded playing field. Don’t take it personally (or do. It’s your call). But if you feel passionate about a story, don’t self-reject. Keep throwing it out there and see what happens. 

Dear Accidentally Qualified, 

This scenario perplexes me! Freelance writers often complain about being ghosted or not getting any response to pitches YET they do the same thing! I get it that some PR blasts are garbage and fall into the ‘press release’ category BUT if someone is pitching something directly to a freelancer with a potential story hook…95% don’t respond. A simple ‘not for me’ or ‘not my beat’ or ‘thanks but no thanks’ goes a long way to better tailor pitches to them in the future.

A bit of a longer-tail on this: I freelance BUT I also run an independent publishing company. I have personally experienced writers who have ignored pitches about books (or worse, been shitty about even receiving a pitch) come back a few years later to pitch ME their book! (Yes, I’m the acquiring person who also does the marketing and PR and everything…this is common among even the largest of independent publishers…on the whole, we’re small shops.) 

My dude, I–and every other publisher in all of creation–remember who the stinkers are! So many people have multiple hustles and fulfill multiple roles who might be the connection you need/want in the future. Why jerk your way out of easy networking?

A PS to this is: You’re a freelancer writer, why make it difficult to contact you? 

-Did You Get My Message? ‘Cause I Looked in Vain

Dear Did You Get My Message? Cause I Looked in Vain,

Multi-part questions deserve multi-part answers. So:

1.I think many journalists eschew stories that are based on press releases either because their editors have told them to, because they feel like it’s cheating, or it’s not their style to jump on a story that doesn’t feel authentically their own. Whatever the reason is, they might ignore PR emails, in hopes that you’ll get the message through their silence. Unhelpful, I know. 

I wish I had advice for how to solve this problem. But the greater issue is that this industry is latent with rejection at every level. Freelancers’ pitches are rejected or ignored so they in turn reject or ignore PR emails. Maybe out of spite, maybe out of dejection. Maybe because they just have too many fucking emails to get through so they delete everything that seems even remotely impersonal, even if yours are tailored to them. 

2.The hidden email address perplexes me as well. As a freelance writer, finding editors’ or potential sources’ email addresses is often a lesson in futility and it drives me nuts. And if you look on Twitter, you’ll find countless other people who feel exactly the same way. Not to use the word “irritating” in another advice column, but it’s irritating and makes this industry feel all the more insular. Contact info shouldn’t be a IYKYK situation, at least if you work in the media. If I can find the email address of someone who lives in a tent on a compound in New Hampshire and teaches parkour at a local park, then I should be able to find yours, dear media person.

Journalists: If you’re worried about your safety or privacy, you can have a contact form on your website. That’ll keep your personal info private while allowing people to get in touch.

If reading the submissions to this advice column has taught me anything, it’s that people are burnt out, angry, and generally speaking, over all of this. It’s getting harder and harder to land stories—publications are closing up shop or they are catering to the lowest common denominator to garner the most attention. In terms of the book beat, I don’t have personal experience trying to sell stories, but I spoke with my editor (he says hi) and he said as a journalist reporting on the publishing world, he’s finding it more difficult to place things these days. 

I can’t offer much by way of advice, so all I can say is that your frustration is valid. Maybe, on a rainy day in the future, writers, editors, and PR people can all gather in New Jersey and pay homage to the screaming into the void scene from Garden State.

-Sonia

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