What do commissioning editors want?

By Louise Bolotin

HERE'S a question to vex the minds of writers... what do commissioning editors look for when hiring freelances? The answer might well be – how long is a piece of string?

Journalism comes in all shapes and sizes these days. It's not all about daily news. There are thousands of magazines - weeklies, monthlies, quarterly - that operate very differently to the daily press. Websites too, have their own publishing requirements. What suits one commissioning editor will not necessarily suit another as it depends what publication they work for.

One thing all commissioning editors look for is the ability to put a strong story together. This is undoubtedly the key requirement. If you’re a writer who can’t tell a great story, you could well struggle to get commissions. In addition, the other essential is the killer pitch – that vital paragraph that engages the commissioning editor’s interest and makes them decide: “I want this story, deliver it to me”.

Beyond that ability, requirements vary a lot. A section editor on a daily newspaper is likely only to be interested in whether you can get the story to them, on time. Newspapers are equipped with healthy budgets to pay for teams of desk editors and sub-editors whose job is to polish the copy and get into a fit state for publication. For such commissions, good written English matters a lot less than telling the story. The desk editor is there to restructure and rewrite, while the subs will fit copy to the page and clean up the typos, grammar and punctuation.

For magazines on a tight budget, it's a very different matter. I commission writers myself, as a part-time, freelance contributing editor for a quarterly niche magazine. I know what I want – a writer who knows the magazine well, who has great ideas to pitch to me, can put a story together coherently and deliver their copy on time. I also expect any writer I commission to have a reasonably good grasp of written English – I want them to spell properly, know their grammar and use punctuation correctly.

This is because the magazine I commission for is run on a shoestring. I don't get paid vast amounts for the copy I write for it and I get paid very little for subbing and proofing the laid-out pages. The magazine simply can't afford to pay me to rewrite badly structured and poorly written stories. This means that if I have a choice between commissioning a writer who can write well and supply me with copy that doesn't need vast amounts of work at the production end or a writer who writes well but needs a lot of time spent on delivered copy, I know who I'm going to choose. Every time, it will be the writer who is the all-rounder (or as near to as possible). The writers I commission not only get a brief, they also get a copy of our house style guide and are asked to adhere to it. Those that play by our rules are much more likely to get a second shot on our pages.

For small magazines, it’s a question of practicality. When money is at stake and you have to be efficient with it, the writers who get recommissioned are the ones who will save you valuable pennies at production stage.

To anyone breaking into freelance writing, a good pointer is fees. Small magazines pay less well because of budget issues and are far less likely to use someone whose written English lacks finesse. Sending in a poorly written pitch full of typos will give a commissioning editor the first clue as to how good your language skills are. If the budget is tight, that will make a huge difference as to whether you ever get that commission.

* Louise is a freelance journalist, copywriter and editor based in Cheshire. She writes for a range of regional and national publications.

Comments

[Linda]

Thanks Louise for another informative piece - it's always good to see into the mind of an editor - I wish I could do it more often - especially to see how much they laugh and shake their head when they read my pitch!

[Louise Bolotin]

I'm sure my pitches get laughed at too when I'm on the other side of the table... None of us are immune to that. It's odd wearing two different hats, well three if you include the copy-editing - you see it from all angles.