Oh the anticipation: Waiting for your stuff to be published

ONCE you have filed a piece for a newspaper, website or magazine, how long do you have to wait until it appears?

It depends.

Diane was getting a little jumpy that her piece on Mummy bloggers had possibly gone astray before it was published last week. Seldom a day passes on JournoBiz without someone wondering aloud if their piece has been the victim of the dreaded "over commissioning" so beloved of some newspapers.

That's when questions arise about whether a piece can be resold. My advice would be 'yeah - get in there and re-sell it,' if you feel you are banging your head up against a brick wall - the editor isn't coming back to you when you phone, email or camp outside their flat.

But it is perfectly normal to wait months for a piece to see the light of day, especially in a publication that has a long lead-in time or is inundated with freelance submissions.

If you have pitched an editor and they have accepted the piece - then that's fantastic but a reality check should tell you they may not have actually asked you to, and will have other stuff planned in already.

I have three pieces published today. One has come out a week after it was written - as I was asked to write it, and to deadline, one has come out a few weeks after it was submitted - as a result of a pitch to a slot which is very popular for freelances and one (not online) in Take a Break was first written around, oh, more than a year ago, for an editor (somewhere else) who then seemed to disappear off the face of the earth . [Linda]

Comments

[Nora]

Great piece in the Guardian today Linda.

[DIANE]

ooh it's me! ta :)
great advice as usual, Linda. xx