Alakazam!
Note: This is the first in a series of posts describing my effort to get letters published in newspapers in every state and territory of the U.S.A. You can read the whole series here.
Caveat: This post is not of the humorous, entertaining variety. It may be of interest only to writers who like to think about ways to get their works published, or who care how I arrived at the way I am going about it. In fact, the nuts and bolts writer’s diary aspect of some posts may only ever be of interest to one reader—me. Future “Road Trip!” posts will be more amusing, and I highly recommend them in advance.
So far in this space I have been writing about writing, with most posts built around some letter or commentary that I managed to get published somewhere. It is admittedly a vanity project, showcasing my published works and then indulging in what my son used to call “mindless rambling” when I used to do it aloud, but which I prefer to think of as “priceless works of imaginative humor.” Now that I think of it, it would be very funny to have both opinions appear in the blurb on the back jacket of my first published book. Or maybe they can be the title and subtitle of the book.
My rambling may have obscured a fact that careful observers might gather from the sudden, Big Bang-like appearance of this blog, and my other blog, out of nowhere in late December of 2020. That fact is: I am on a mission to achieve wide publication. These blogs are fun, and they may eventually gain a few subscribers, but they are probably not my avenue to wide publication.
The true avenue is, simply, to pack my works into sturdy trunks, load up the Alakazamvan, and take my show on the road.
I know I make it sound like a big production, but what I’m really talking about is submitting my letters and commentary to more than just my local newspaper. When I first started submitting letters to The Anniston Star, I had no goal other than hoping to see one letter in newsprint (a great, though dying, format). After my very first letter was published, I was hungry for more. It’s a nice little endorphin rush when you see something of yours in print. And so I have continued submitting letters to the local paper, with steady success.
One day I got to thinking about how it would be cool to get my work in front of more readers. So I submitted a letter to AL.com, the website of the Alabama Media Group, which is the main news publisher in Alabama. I got no reply to that, so a few days later I submitted the same letter to The Star. Next thing you know, the letter was published by both papers!
While that was gratifying, I then thought I had a dilemma on my hands: which publication to send future letters to first? And what if my letter was on a topic that might only be in the headlines for a few days? If I submitted to just one outlet and the letter was not published, wouldn’t I lose my shot at getting it into the other outlet?
These thoughts led to an a-ha moment. So I played my a-ha album and then got back to thinking about writing (that’s the kind of humor that keeps my readers slavering and pounding at the door—at the inside of the door, that is, trying to get out). In that moment, I realized that my specific dilemma was classic small-scale thinking: Gee Willikers, self, which of two publications in Alabama should I submit to first? And also: Gee Willikers, in the act of trying to achieve publication in front of more readers, I sure wouldn’t want to offend anyone by doing multiple submissions of the same work!
Well, hold up there, Willikers. Very few news outlets specifically ask you not to send them things that are out for consideration at other publications. Most don’t seem to care. And when you think about it, most readers don’t closely follow the opinion and commentary pages of multiple publications, especially if those publications are far apart geographically. I think publishers are much more interested in their ads being seen by more eyeballs than in whether some few inches of editorial content are unique to their publication.
Which reminds me of a not-so-secret fact of the news publishing world: the editorial section of a general-interest newspaper is not a profit center. I can’t claim to know the economics of newspapers in any great detail, but you generally don’t see many, or any, ads mixed in with editorials and letters, at least in the print edition. Online is different—display ads plaster everything in sight. While I consider editorial to be the section that gives each newspaper its unique character, for many readers it is Snooze Town, something to be skipped.
Some papers get rid of the editorial section entirely. In fact, The Anniston Star did just that, for economic reasons, early in 2020. Then the editor in chief resigned so as to save a few newsroom jobs. From those two facts, I imagine that the economics of small newspapers are very dire. The editorial section did eventually return, covering just one page where it used to take up two pages. I’m glad of that, but I recognize that it might be temporary, and that similar conditions might exist for every small publication.
I am pursuing publication in the least-favored (by average readers) section of a type of publication whose continued existence is in doubt.
But, being old-fashioned (and old), I like that type of publication, and I like that least-favored section. And I also realize that as print publications die out, those same publications are not simply yielding to rival online publications—they are actively trying to become online publications. By pursuing publication in the old-school outlets, I am also joining them online.
The realization that there’s a wider world of publications, and that I was essentially free to submit to any and all of them, was like poking my head into a narrow closet and experiencing not claustrophobia, but instead having the vastness of the vacuum of space open up in front of me. Here I was, worrying about AL.com vs The Anniston Star, while out there in the wider world there are literally thousands of small publications, all needing a steady diet of material. That wider world, not local paper vs state-level paper, should be my target.
And so I switched to large-scale thinking: Unless it dealt with a strictly local topic, each letter or commentary could be sent to an essentially unlimited number of publications. I also realized that what looked like a local topic might also exist elsewhere, in slightly different form (I’ll explain that in future posts).
Now, I know all about news and editorial syndicates, and authors whose work appears in hundreds of publications. So I’m not claiming that my revelation was something new in the world. But it was new for me to think of my work being something that could be distributed that way. And by “that way” I don’t mean via an actual syndicate but by me, myself.
I could be my own distributor, to as many publications as I wanted.
And so I put on my distributor cap and started thinking in terms of world domination. Well, maybe not that, but something like it. I started thinking of what it would take to get my work into many more publications. And what I came up with was fairly straightforward:
Having a body of previously-published work. Check; I have saved everything over the years.
Continuing to write topical and/or humorous work. Check.
Setting up and maintaining an outlet for self-publishing, where I could offer subscriptions. Check.
Submitting to more outlets. How to do that intelligently and without it becoming drudgery? Answer: Road Trip!
Steps 2 through 4 require constant effort (it’s called work—also not invented by me).
Now, submitting to more outlets might seem like an easy task, but some stages of it involve the most effort of all. If you can’t imagine it being much work, let me ask you this: How many news publications are there in the world? How many in the United States? How many in your state? Name them. Give me their URLs. What are their submission guidelines? Do they require submission through a web form? Where is it? Can you paste letter text into it, or do you have to type it directly into the form? Or do you submit letters via email? To whom, and with what formatting requirements? Can you automate the sending of work to an outlet, or not? Should you?
You might answer all those questions (about one state, if not the whole country or the whole world) with some hours of effort. And then you are ready to rumble, stomp the gas pedal and peel out on your road trip.
Or are you? Take a look at your letter or commentary, and ask yourself: Is this suitable for every publication you know of? Is the topic general or specific to one locale? If it is specific to one locale as written, is it possible to change it to suit another locale? If so, which locales on your list of publications? If it is customizable, how many versions are you willing to write?
This is why I added the word “intelligently” to item 4 on my list above. If you just blast everything you write to every publication on your list, regardless of topic and regardless of observable suitability to each publication, you run the risk of getting yourself added to spam filters throughout the publishing industry. In fact, even if you do everything intelligently you still run that risk, for you are certainly not the only one out there flooding publishers with material. The last thing you want is to be blocked systematically. The next to last thing you want is for editors to start to recognize your email address and to roll their eyes and hit “delete.” The challenge is to find the sweet spot where your work is considered by the editors and in the best case it is published, and in the worst case it is simply not published. You have to be aware of how others perceive you: are you a flaming nut, to be tolerated and/or blocked? Or are you a welcome occasional voice of insight or humor?
A monkey could sit at a computer and perform repetitive submission of written works. Perhaps that’s why a popular automated email company is called MailChimp. Substack, too, could be configured to submit my work to some outlets (the ones that accept email submissions). I can easily imagine emails from my blog being blocked by spam filters. And so for me, it’s down to handling submissions manually, one publication at a time, intelligently.
Part of submitting intelligently is sending quality work, in moderation. Unless and until I am repped by a syndicate (note my hip industry lingo), this is the way I have to do it.
The general questions above are the basic Adventures in Publishing Road Trip itinerary. Choosing a locale (county, state, country, whatever) and adapting the itinerary and then doing the research, answering the questions, and submitting the work are the road trip.
It takes time and effort.
I have gone on two publishing road trips so far—one to Arkansas, and one to Utah. I will share details of those in future Road Trip posts, but one fact: each state took at least one full four-hour writing session. I’m sure I will get it down to a science and improve my speed, and I should only have to gather information for each locale one time, but still, if you think about the eventual number of publications I will document, submitting work intelligently to many outlets is always going to be time-consuming.
Suppose I have identified ten outlets in each U.S. state, and half have a submission form and half accept email submissions. And suppose I have a story that needs no customization by locale—the easiest kind to blast to all outlets. If I want to blanket the country, I would need to visit 250 sites and fill out the submission form, and also send out 250 emails. Maybe I could easily automate the email submissions. But if each submission form took 1 minute (possible with some auto-fill fields, but you still have to click on “I am not a robot” on most such forms) that’s over four hours. Realistically, though, it would take longer than 1 minute per submission form.
And so, with all of that in mind, it is a good time to remind yourself: What is the goal of all this, and is it worth all the effort?
My goal is, simply, regular and wide publication.
For me, since I want to be not just a writer but a known and published writer, and since I still find it gratifying to be published in small publications, it is very much worth the effort. Add to this the fact that I am interested in geography, and in the news and publishing worlds in general, as well as in their content, and also in potential engagement with publishing and editorial staff, and it is a fun activity. That said, it is not a truly rewarding pursuit in and of itself if it does not result in publication (I guess it could be rewarding without publication if you were doing it for social reasons, but I’m not).
In addition to doing it intelligently, one has to be sure not to do it compulsively if, after a reasonable amount of time and effort, it does not bear fruit.
And what is a reasonable amount of time and effort?
While I would not draw any lifelong conclusions from just two road trips, I will tell you that I achieved publication in Arkansas while I was only halfway through the road trip to that state. Surprised the heck out of me, as I expected feedback (if any) to come along on at least a one-day delay. And not only did I achieve publication in real time while I was still actively submitting work to other papers, but I now have the basic itinerary information I need to take future Arkansas road trips swiftly and efficiently. And I had an unforeseen bonus: an email exchange with a friendly and interested editor. This reminded me that there are people, not just systems and job titles, on the receiving end of my submissions.
My Utah road trip did not result in mid-session feedback, but the traps are baited and set and I hope to report success from that trip as well.
As with all manner of road trips, your mileage may vary.
Boing!
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.