Writing to magazines

[simon the viking]

I seem to have a knack of writing the 'Star letter' to magazines... I have in the last 8 months been letter of the month 3 times in Cycling Active... it has bagged me (all Madison) 1 x bib longs, 2 x bib shorts, 3 base layer tops, 3 sportive jersey and 3 pairs of cycling mitts (1 pair of which I am passing on to a fellow CC'r) worth a grand total of £450 add this to the 3 books, 1 dvd and an ipod dock from Focus magazine and a gadget bag from Practical Photography and I'm sure you will agree quite a haul.

I'm not posting this to show off or to blow my own trumpet (I haven't even got a trumpet) but to pass on a few tips as I have decided to give writing to Cycling Active a rest until next year. The tips apply to any magazine that you read, not just cycling ones.

- Buy the magazine, this may seem obvious but a couple of times I've been a cheapskate and flicked through the magazine in the supermarket, photographed the contact details gone home and wrote the letter. These do normally get printed but not the star letter, you need to study the whole magazine to get the feel for what the editor wants to read.

- Find an article that interests you and write about how it relates to you/cheered you up etc include some humour if the subject warrants it.

- Do research, my letters to Focus (the BBC science magazine) have responded (intelligently and humorously I hope) to Nuclear power, Time Travel and environmental issues.....(entering smug mode - the editor even emailed me back once before it was printed to say what a brilliant letter it was.)

- Proof read it several times (I often alter it 6 or 7 times)

- Email it. Don't bother posting it, it doesn't make difference at all and its a lot easier.

- I'm led to believe magazines do not receive bulging post bags every month, probably only 200 letters at most so if yours is well written and informative its already halfway there.

Hope this helps you restock your cycling wardrobe... I'm off to buy Practical Fish-keeping to see if I can win a fish tank........

 

[Andrew_Culture]

It's also a reasonably good route into being a freelance writer!

 

[simon the viking]

It's also a reasonably good route into being a freelance writer!

I asked C.A if they accepted freelance stuff and could do any features or reviews for them but alas no reply, I have had a couple of short plays produced as Am-Dram but obviously no payment was received. But I would love to down that route and get hard cash rather than goods

 

[Andrew_Culture]

I asked C.A if they accepted freelance stuff and could do any features or reviews for them but alas no reply, I have had a couple of short plays produced as Am-Dram but obviously no payment was received. But I would love to down that route and get hard cash rather than goods

Wow! I've not written a play but have helped put a few on through my brother in laws theatre company. I will write a play one day though

 

[simon the viking]

Wow! I've not written a play but have helped put a few on through my brother in laws theatre company. I will write a play one day though

Thanks Andrew.. the trick for me seems not to be writing them but getting paid to write them! although I must admit sitting in an audience and watching actors perform your work and listen to the audience laugh at your gags gives you a warm (and slightly smug) feeling and I also wondered if it entitled me to shout "Do you know who I am?" to get served quicker at the bar during the interval....

I have submitted to the BBC writers room a few times but no luck yet.

 

[Andrew_Culture]

Thanks Andrew.. the trick for me seems not to be writing them but getting paid to write them! although I must admit sitting in an audience and watching actors perform your work and listen to the audience laugh at your gags gives you a warm (and slightly smug) feeling and I also wondered if it entitled me to shout "Do you know who I am?" to get served quicker at the bar during the interval....

I have submitted to the BBC writers room a few times but no luck yet.

Excellent, very inspiring! I've done tons of writing in trade journals and music magazines / zines (and I wrote my own zine for years). I've also written a few books. None of it has lined my pockets with gold, but has given me a lot of joy.

 

[biggs682]

i nearly wrote an article for reader wives section once but thought better of it !!

 

[vernon]

I wrote a web site once and got £10,000 for it presented by His Billness Gates in Lisbon in 1998

Another web site what I wrote got me a colour television from The Science Museum also in 1998

I then quit while I was ahead.

 

[simon the viking]

Excellent, very inspiring! I've done tons of writing in trade journals and music magazines / zines (and I wrote my own zine for years). I've also written a few books. None of it has lined my pockets with gold, but has given me a lot of joy.

You could try writing a play for pintsizedplays.org.uk it's a very respected short plays competition based in Tenby, I've not won, but entered most years also Wildorchidtheatre.co.uk sometimes put a call out for short plays, that's who produced my two.... but they've not done any productions for about a year

 

[simon the viking]

I wrote a web site once and got £10,000 for it presented by His Billness Gates in Lisbon in 1998

Another web site what I wrote got me a colour television from The Science Museum also in 1998

I then quit while I was ahead.

Wow... why did you quit, it seemed you had a good thing going!

 

[Lance Jack]

A few years ago a friend and myself did lots of competiton, every one we could get our hands on. Had a lot of success and won all sorts of things, Playstations, beer, days out, a Raleigh cycle, lots of things. My mate did the best, £2000 and then £5000 in holiday vouchers. There was a trick to winning as well that worked for us.
Simon the viking, well done on picking up some star letters and thanks for sharing the tips with us.

 

[vernon]

Wow... why did you quit, it seemed you had a good thing going!

There's only so much spare time that you can give over to creating web sites for competitions and the prize values quickly diminished. I was also fighting off my school who wanted me to enter every school based web site construction competition despite the prizes' values dropping to printers, the occasional PC and the like. Then there was the matter of making sure that the web site was cross platform and cross browser compatible especially when it contained Java and Javascript.

Wrangling words for a letters page is a breeze in comparison. I had several things published in science education journals and was courted by a couple of publishers with the notion that I might like the idea of writing school science text books then I learned how little money there was to be made from it. The kudos gained from having my name on the spines of books didn't appeal to my vanity strongly enough

A sample

 

[Andrew_Culture]

A few years ago a friend and myself did lots of competiton, every one we could get our hands on. Had a lot of success and won all sorts of things, Playstations, beer, days out, a Raleigh cycle, lots of things. My mate did the best, £2000 and then £5000 in holiday vouchers. There was a trick to winning as well that worked for us.
Simon the viking, well done on picking up some star letters and thanks for sharing the tips with us.

I tired that for over two years and won nothing at all! I entered about 3000 competitons!

 

[Lance Jack]

Andrew_Culture,
There is a system on winning competitons, prize draws and tie breakers we did that worked. It might be worth if I wrote it down and started a seperate thread to this. I don't want to hijack Simon the viking's page.

 

[simon the viking]

There's only so much spare time that you can give over to creating web sites for competitions and the prize values quickly diminished. I was also fighting off my school who wanted me to enter every school based web site construction competition despite the prizes' values dropping to printers, the occasional PC and the like. Then there was the matter of making sure that the web site was cross platform and cross browser compatible especially when it contained Java and Javascript.

Wrangling words for a letters page is a breeze in comparison. I had several things published in science education journals and was courted by a couple of publishers with the notion that I might like the idea of writing school science text books then I learned how little money there was to be made from it. The kudos gained from having my name on the spines of books didn't appeal to my vanity strongly enough

A sample

A genuine "we are not worthy bow" to you Vernon you have achieved far more than myself (I really don't understand website code), as you say the rewards have to merit the time and effort, a decent letter takes an hour or so of my time (not including reading the magazine) and I am happy to receive lots of Lycra in exchange, the short plays take longer probably a month or 2 but I still enjoy just watching them and don't require paying (yet)...

But I'm sure a man of your obvious talents (I have read your amusing and informative pie blog!) could easily bag some magazine goodies (clearly without my help!) whilst not encroaching on your time too much.