Placed Is Live!

Some notes for writers

If you’re here for Placed, this post is for you!

As I prepared to launch this idea out into the world, I had a lot of thoughts about how to make it go smoothly, protect your pitches, and make it as valuable as possible. I’m going to share them here, and I’d love to hear your feedback and thoughts!

Here we go!

• I expected that freelancers would get excited about this idea - I mean, what’s better than sending your pitch out into the world and having an editor contact you? The excitement has been amazing - thank you!!!

• What I also expected is that editors wouldn’t be as quick to jump on board, and thus far, that seems to be the case. So what’s in it for an editor who already has an inbox overflowing with pitches? Editors can:

  • Browse the database or search for specific topics.

  • Search pitches that are a good for their publication.

  • Find pitches that fit a very specific need.

  • Contact the writer directly to work out the details.

• A few thoughts for writers:

  • You can submit a pitch to Placed and pitch editors through traditional avenues (respond to call for pitches, cold pitch, etc).

  • While you can definitely add timely pitches, there’s no guarantee it will get picked up. You can also add a note in the description that it’s a timely pitch in case editors are searching for that.

  • I’m going to go through my older pitch emails and find ones that are still relevant and add those first!

  • Polish your pitches as you would if you were sending them directly to an editor but keep them relatively short and sweet so editors can get a quick handle on your idea.

  • When you get a pitch accepted, let me know, and I’ll note on the spreadsheet whether it was accepted through Placed or accepted through other outreach. If you’d just like it removed, I can do that too!

• One thing that I’m concerned about (and others have expressed concern as well) is who has access to the pitch database. Obviously, it’s intended for editors, but there are concerns about writers gaining access and stealing ideas. While I don’t think this very likely (you guys are amazing!), it’s not out of the realm of possibility.

  • To hedge against this, I made the post that’s available to editors with the spreadsheet link a paid subscription.

  • If you send a pitch to an editor, either through Placed or directly, there’s always a *small* chance that it could get stolen, spark a similar article with a different angle, or any number of things. So while it sucks to have a pitch taken, it’s an unfortunate risk of sending out pitches, and this is no different.

• Now that Placed is live, I’ll start getting the word out to more editors. I’ll reach out to some in my network and send them the link to Placed for Editors post. If you do the same, you can use the benefits that I listed above. I’ll also be posting more editor-specific info on my LinkedIn, so feel free to repost or share info on yours as well. The more editors that we have looking at it, the better the chances are that they’ll see your pitch!

• Last thing, let me know what you’d like to see here! What info will help make pitching easier?