Slick work- how to break into magazines

During this session, on Saturday morning, the sun began peaking through the shade, and I became very mad. This session was very good and I learned a lot, but it would have been better received if I wasn't steaming from anger for the weather.

Three women represented different ways to get into magazines. One started, and still works, in teen magazines. Another started as a copy editor, and the third began working for organizations with in-house magazines.

It was stressed by all three to gain as much writing experience as possible and learn many different writing styles. It was also said that it is never too early to start submitting work to potential publishers.

When creating a cover letter for your resume, it is a good idea to research the magazine and emulate their style. Also, don't oversell yourself and find your own voice.

Online resources such as Craig's List, idealist.org, journalismjobs.com, www.mediabistro.com were given for query tips and job applications.

It is important to follow the application guidelines very carefully, since some are different.

Also, if sending your resume electronically, it is best to save the cover letter as a word document so it may be opened and read easily.

I also learned that a perk of the magazine industry is its variety. One is less likely to burn out if one does not stay at a publication for very long.

Kera Simon

Keeping the dream alive

Friday morning I tried to go to "Thinking like an editor," but it was overflowing with students. So, I went to this one instead. It was about literary magazines, so it didn't really apply to me that much, but it was still interesting. It also helped to hear about business models and publishing, because I know zero about all that. The speaker was very encouraging, though, about continuing to write and to do whatever you're passionate about even if it doesn't seem like a success.

Leigh

Designing a literary magazine on slightly less than a dime

This seminar was led by a co-worker of the lovely Molly Sides who spoke only one day earlier on another literary journal session. Scott Fustin of Rock Valley College led the session about ways to budget the money of a literary magazine to create a good product.

Mostly, the class replicated the one the day before. There was talk of printing costs. Talk of printers. The passing of magazines. The same people. It was a shorter session because half-way through we had run through the maze of possible literary magazine problems and were done.

Perhaps this is why they have so few literary journal sessions.

--Andi

Changing Freelance Markets

This session was led by Michael Ray Taylor who, like me, also attended Whither Magazines and Breaking into Magazines. He had a very knowledgeable and amiable way of speaking and was, next to Keith Bellows, the speaker I enjoyed best.

Mostly I was overwhelmed by Taylor's accomplishments. He could teach by example, perhaps, with his many adventures and mistrials in the pursuit of magazines. He was a freelance writer for five years of his life and traveled to many, many places in the meantime. He said "It's not a good living, but it is a living." (by which he followed up with, saying that it is more exciting than managing a restaurant, though)

He gave us five points in which to base our pursuits on. Our pursuits, of course, being the "dream magazine." His advice was as follows:

1. Start by sending articles to local magazines, then lead to enthusiast magazines with a small niche and/or trade magazines.

2. Specialize. Use what you know and recycle. Pick something not already crowded with writers.

3. Cultivate a web presence.

4. Cultivate sources and markets. Or, as he put it, become "a professional schmoozer."

5. Grow the break out pieces. Begin writing your break out piece to a small market, revise, send it to a larger, revise, recycycle, and then send it to the "dream magazine."

--Andi

Breaking into Magazines

Breaking into magazines, presented by David Levy of Wright College, had one focus and one focus alone: The query letter.

We were given a hand-out with step-by-step instructions on the query letter as well as when to send it, who to send it to, how to promote our story, etc. This was useful for me because if creative writing does not work out I wanted to try a career in magazines and had, sadly, no knowledge of the query letter.

David Levy offered lots of useful information and repeated two phrases I have heard again and again at this conference "KNOW the magazine inside and out before you send an article" and "Buy The Writer's Market."

He gently reassured us that we would be making zero to negative amounts of money, but that the goal was to be published. Another remark I have heard quite a bit of this week.

--Andi

Boast and Whine-Literary Journal Editors Roundtable

This event was one of the few sessions that focused solely on literary magazines.
It was very casual and was led by Molly Sides, of Rock Valley College,
who was playful, smart, and had the most excellent Chicago influenced accent.
In the session the few literary journal editors at the conference passed out our
magazines, discussed printing, submissions, etc. As we discussed submissions
Molly Sides listed the types of poetry submissions in four categories: God poems,
goat poems (very pastoral), kitten-in-a-basket poems, and my life is a swirling
abyss poems. She, of course, was correct and all the editors got to share a good
laugh together. Mostly, this session allowed me to see the different programs
going on at schools and what they can do with their varying budgets to produce
a worthwhile magazine.

--Andi

Whither Magazines

The first session I attended on Thursday was "Whither Magazines? A Look at the Future." The speaker for the session was Keith Bellows, the editor-in-chief of National Geographic Traveler. This was one of my favorite sessions I have attended so far. Keith Bellows had a authoritative yet relaxed style so that his discussion did not drag on, even at the end.

Of course, he was misguided and arrived a few minutes late. Mr. Bellows discussed, generally, the query letter and what an intern or writer must do to be considered (be smart, willing to do anything, get involved and be nosy, tell your editors what you want to do).

However, he really lit up when he discussed the new movement he was taking with his own magazine. At the beginning of the session he provided a slide show of old magazine covers. He commented on the National Lampoon's cover of a dog with a gun at its head reading, "Read this issue or we will kill this dog," saying it was the best magazine cover and conveyed the desperate nature of trying to get your magazine read.

His idea, however, is to return National Geographic Traveler to the passion of the older magazines. He wanted to keep the stories, of which he wanted more narrative stories, and the photographs in the magazine and save an on-line Web site for the less passionate aspects of a magazine. He was pumped.

Mr. Bellows has had a long history in the magazine business, working for over, I believe he said, seventy magazines. He edited for Readers' Digest, as well. To me, he looked and sounded like an older version of the actor in Almost Famous, so I imagined that movie to be a true story, and he to have written for the Rolling Stone. This is not the only reason I enjoyed his session, but I think it had something to do with it.

--Andi

Breaking into Magazines

This session was held on Thursday at 11 a.m. and was right after the web trafficking one. I must admit that I was disappointed, not because of the content of the session- but mostly because I went to the same exact session last year in St. Louis. It was labeled with a different name, so I was tricked! lol. It was even the exact same hand-out.

I re-learned about query letters, the Writer's Market, and how magazines work in general. I like the fact that he is real with us. He said that free-lance writers do not make money. They work hard and try to sell themselves.

That's about all that I got out of the session. I left five minutes early to get a Kit-Kat :)

Kera Simon

First impressions of our nation's capitol ... a day late

As this was my first visit to Washington D.C., I couldn't help but peer out of the window of the airplane when we began our descent into Reagan National. The brake lights of afternoon traffic pockmarked the soaked streets of our nation's capital...unfortunately we would encounter traffic of our own. We happened to board the Metro subway right as Washington's corporate bees left their metaphorical hive. Apparently masses of people crammed into tiny subway cars bring out the worst of people in this city. Regardless, this has been quite an educationally valuable trip (more on the visual spectacle later) as we attended our first sessions today.


At 9 a.m., I attended the "Whither Magazines" session with National Geographic magazine's Keith Bellows, who discussed the future of magazines. He essentially stated that reinvention must occur if magazines are to survive. Writers must become more well-rounded in terms of what they can do for the publication; they must be willing to write for the print and online mediums. They must be willing to produce narratives that engross the reader.

At the 10 a.m. "Intro to Underwriting" session with NPR's J.C. Patrick, we explored the basics of radio kits to present to potential advertising clients. Radio kits should be personal and user-friendly to the prospective and should sell a benefit -- not a feature -- to the prospective client.

At the 11 a.m. 'Breaking into Magazines" session, we learned that query letters really help gain the attention of magazines to your story, as many submissions lack a query letter and magazines have little time to sort through them all. The session was focused heavily on the query letter. We also learned that if we wanted to start submitting now, it's all right to state that we're still writing for our school's newspaper.

The 12 p.m. "College Press 101" was a basic outline of significant court cases involving student journalists with follow-up on how it affects us today. The SPLC's Adam Goldstein was very knowledgeable of his craft, as he deals with the bulk of calls from student journalists to the SPLC; he said that he deals with at least 1,000 calls per year, which surprised me a bit.

Perhaps the most energetic session of the day was hosted by Jason Levine. The 1 p.m. session by the self-proclaimed evangelist for Adobe software was filled with exhibitions of his "prowess". Oohs and aahs serenaded his glowing ponytailed and mutton-chopped aura after he made a seagull disappear from a video clip in the Adobe After Effects program. I was personally engrossed in the new software that enables users to make their videos suitable for broadcast on everything from cell phones to YouTube.

More on the sights and sounds of D.C. in a later post. My fingers hurt.

--Richelle Stephens

Whither Magazines? A Look at the Future

Originally, I was going to attend a seminar about landing an internship. However, it happened to be canceled, and I found myself at a seminar about magazines. With all the convergence going on in journalism, I decided to attend a seminar that deals with something that I do not know that much about--magazines.

Keith Bellows, who works at National Geographic, gave a great seminar about how the magazine industry is not a dying field, just different. He gave us a different way to look at the rise of Internet readers. The magazine world is now a 360-degree field. Reporters are not only being hired to write articles, but to post Web articles and podcast.

I learned a lot from this seminar. I never realized that a magazine has to keep a subscriber 3-4 years in order to start making money off of them. Mr. Bellows made it clear that getting into this field is very competitive, especially for photographers to get work in National Geographic. He gave some great advice for breaking into the field. For example, when you intern, always ask if there is something to do. Motivation shows that company you really want to help and learn. Mr. Bellows said National Geographic has had countless interns who just sit at their desk and wait for work and lack that certain motivation the magazine needs. In the end, they don't get selected for the jobs.

Mary Manno

Breaking into Magazines

This was a popular session for NSU student media... A lot of my fellow students were present for this one.

David Levy discussed how to make a living as a freelance writer for magazines. Although freelance work can be hit or miss, he said a living could be made, if a writer is persistent.

The importance of query letters and details of formatting and content in the letters was discussed in great detail. I felt like this session was very helpful to me because I can see myself doing freelance work in the future.

-- Lauren Sciba