To recap the previous two posts that I have put up here on getting published, I discussed one of the most effective ways to break into the editorial business and how to build relationships with editors. In the second post, I discussed exactly how that you go about submitting ideas to magazine editors in the form of the query letter. In this entry, I am going to talk about how that I personally go about creating story ideas for magazines.

As a photographer, you have a few different ways to go about creating articles and article ideas for pitching to editors. The absolute easiest thing to do first and foremost is to simply use the files that you already have in your library of images to build a story around. Maybe several ideas immediately pop right out at you based upon this. Most likely you will need to sit down and really browse through your images to see what sort of themes that you could create with them.

Say you spend a lot of time photograph big mammals, especially species like elk, pronghorn, mule deer, moose, etc. . . You have considerable coverage of these animals in the rut. You have deer exhibiting the lip curl, elk locked in dubious battle, pronghorn scrapping their scent glands across sagebrush, bull moose swaying their antlers in unison with each other, as well as other unique behavior shots like these. Based upon these images, you have quite a lot to work with in terms of creating a story idea for anything from state wildlife magazines to hunting magazines.

Your first obstacle here however is that you must overcome the trappings of cliché and trite ideas. Most magazines will no longer accept “me and Joe” type stories. They want something new, fresh, or at least different from any article they have ran in the last few years. This means you have to put your mind to work and be creative.

So you sit back in your office chair and consider the different possibilities. It probably will not take you long before you realize that with all of these behavioral photographs you have of animals in the rut, there is something quite unique about each one of these species and how they go about winning over the hearts and minds of ladies. You think about the heart stopping action of the elk rut, and how that the bulls become so drunk off of their testosterone that they literally scream out into the autumn air announcing their presence and beckoning any would be challengers in the area to dare come and try to take their girls.

This sort of behavior of course stands in stark contrast to the more passive species such as the pronghorn. Pronghorn bucks establish a territory in the Spring. They walk around the sagebrush scraping their faces and scent glands on the sage in what amounts to be a big square more or less. Once established, the pronghorn then waits. He waits, and waits, and waits some more. Patiently he bides his time, hoping he secured a good piece of ground that would attract females to it, and that hopefully, if he is really lucky, just maybe, a receptive female will possibly wonder into his little world. Compared to the testosterone pumping madness of the elk rut, the extraordinary passiveness of the pronghorn’s strategy for getting girls is almost hilarious, if not shocking.

With this comparison, you suddenly realize that you may just happen to have a unique story to pitch to a magazine. That is, a comparison of the different rutting strategies of mammals in the Rocky Mountains for instance. You look again at your images. Moose? Check. Elk? Check. Pronghorn? Check. You work your way right down the list and realize you can actually cover a little about all of these animals.

Now once presented to the editor, its quite possible that your idea might be a bit too broad. Maybe it would be better to just compare the elk to the pronghorn due to the extreme differences and make the story something of a comical piece. If the editor wants to tweak the idea, that’s OK. You have accomplished your goal of creating a unique idea that interests her.

A story idea such as this one can be pitched to a number of different types of magazines. Its all about how you spin it. And best of all, once your initial research is completed for writing the story, you could then rework the same idea to create a completely different type of article to another magazine that does not directly compete with the first. Viola. Your on your way to publishing, making one project evolve into multiple projects, and building relationships with several editors at once while letting the photographs you already have, begin making money for you.

To be Continued. . .

Once you have decided to create a need and market for your photography with a magazine, you must next understand exactly how to go about getting your work in front of editors. Writing articles are a lot of work. They take time to formulate, write, edit, etc. . . After all of that work your article can still be rejected by an editor, or even pulled from the lineup after accepted. So obviously the last thing you want to do is to spend all of this time hunched over the computer hacking away at a keyboard for nothing. This is where the query letter comes into play.

The query letter is something that you need to become familiar with. This is the vehicle that you will use to put your story ideas in front of editors. Entire books have been written just on the art of writing successful query letters and if you are serious about breaking into the editorial market this way, than I highly suggest picking up one of these books and writing a few practice query letters before diving head first into the game.

Basically a query letter is a multifaceted tool that you will use to convey your ideas. This is your first impression with an editor. You want your query letter to be the best of the best of your writing skills. Edit the heck out of this thing. You want it concise and to the point, but you also want it to be captivating, grab the editors attention right off the bat, and convince him that this is an article idea that his readers are really going to want to read. This of course is no small task.

There are so many different opinions on what is, and what is not, a good query letter. Personally, I try and keep my query letters down to less than one page in length. Editors are extraordinarily busy. They don’t want to read a full manuscript about a manuscript idea! They are scrutinizing every aspect of your query letter – from length to writing style to your ability to convey your point.

Don’t let this stuff deter you from pitching stories to editors though. Magazines are in constant need of material to publish. Often times if an editor likes your idea, than they will be happy to work with you in formulating an article that matches their style.

Some of the books that I recommend checking out in regards to writing query letters and working with editors are as follows:

The Writer’s Digest Handbook for Magazine Writing

http://www.amazon.com/Writers-Handbook-Magazine-Article-Writing/dp/1582973342/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1353520504&sr=8-5&keywords=writing+for+magazines

       The Writer’s Digest Guide to Query Letters

http://www.amazon.com/Writers-Digest-Guide-Query-Letters/dp/1582975663/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1353520432&sr=8-1&keywords=writing+query+letters

To be continued . . .

How can I get published? That’s becoming a common question that pops up in my inbox these days. It’s the dream of many aspiring nature photographers, to see ones images on the printed page. Whether it’s the grand notion of one’s photographs gracing the pages of National Geographic, or the far more common and obtainable pursuit of publishing with smaller markets, working with magazines holds a distinct allure and prestige for many.

I’m not going to lie. I’m one of those many. I love working with magazines. Like all those photographers who ask me questions about how to get published, in the not so distant past (I’m only 31 and started selling to magazines my first year in college) I was asking the same thing myself. Today I count myself as a lucky man to be able to follow my dreams as a photographer, and I still get a rush of excitement when a magazine arrives in the mail with my images in it and even more so when I randomly pick up a magazine off the shelves and happen to stumble upon one.

There are a lot of different ways of approaching this goal of getting published in magazines ( and even more articles, books, and blog posts on how to do this). So instead of listing off and discussing all the different possible outlets like stock agencies and photo need lists, I am going to just cut to the chase and tell you what has worked best for me.

I realized a while back that I was fighting an uphill battle trying to get my images in front of editors at just the right moment. With billions of photographs to choose from these days, and seemingly countless stock agencies to pimp those images out, the notion of selling stock photography can be quite daunting – especially for new comers competing with old hands with 30 years’ worth of images being represented.

Like most, I played the game. Sales would trickle in as editors filled gaps with an image of mine here or there. It was exciting to see this happen, but let’s face it, a trickle is not going to grow a business. So I decided that I needed to change my game plan on how to do this. I needed to find a better way to market my images to magazines. Once I started trying to figure out how to NOT follow in everyone else’s footsteps, all sorts of ideas started coming to me – most of which have worked very well for me and are still in practice.

The most important realization though was that it would be a whole lot easier to make a living doing this if I sold a bunch of images at once to a magazine instead of just one at a time. So just how do you go about doing this you ask? Start writing.

You see, magazines are constantly in need of content. Though some people just flip through magazines for the photographs, first and foremost, a magazine is vehicle for the written word. Selling stock photography to magazines (there are other markets of course) is the business of trying to help illustrate someone else’s story in that magazine. So I thought to myself, why not cut to the chase and write the article myself?  By doing so, I am actually able to CREATE A MARKET FOR MY OWN PHOTOGRAPHY. Instead of one image, hypothetically speaking, the sale is then for 15 to 20 images, a potential cover shot, an image for website marketing  of next month’s issue, AND the price of writing the story which can range from $300 – $5,000 in and of itself.  So instead of lets say, a $100 sale for a small image to go along with someone else’s story, you turn it into a $2,000 sale as a complete package yourself.

Best of all, writing for a magazine is the fastest way of building a relationship with an editor. Once you have done this, than the rest begins to fall in place for you with that magazine if you work at it. You see, marketing is all about relationships, not bombarding people with your name and company logo. Once a potential client gets to know you, they are more willing to keep turning to you for other assignments and needs which translates to more articles published and even stock photography needs that never make it to the email lists and agency requests.

Most people hate to write. If you’re a nature photographer though, you might consider getting over yourself on this one. Sure it can be laborious – especially starting an article – but practice makes perfect. So my advice for someone who is looking to break into selling and publishing photographs with magazines, is to start learning about pitching articles to magazines instead of photos.

To Be Continued. . .