From Blog Post to Feature

You are not sleepy...

Many of you showed interest in attempting to turn some of your more provocative blog posts into features. So let’s get right to how to go about this process.

1. Look through your blog posts and see what you think might be most relatable to an audience. Did a post get more traffic than the others? Did you feel like one post resonated more with you than the others?

2. Once you choose your blog post, remember to see it as a draft. It’s not ready yet.

3. Start the editing process. Isn’t it lovely that you’re already half way there? Whatever site you’re going to pitch it to is not going to want anything over 1000 words. Make sure your post works like a story and that your experience has a strong first-person narrative. Writing an essay is a lot like writing a very short short story. Keep the focus on the topic. I’m not suggesting that your blog post doesn’t have these elements, but you’ll need to get to the heart of the essay with conflict, etc. just as you would in fiction. Read Kevin Keck’s essay The Stepfather on Babble for an example. It’s one of my favorites, is very chatty, very blog like, but insanely well written. (It also happens to be very long. Do not follow this direction if you are sending your essay to a website.)

4. Take a look at different sites you might want to pitch to. Parenting? Check out Babble. Love? Look at YourTango. Broad interest? Check out Salon. In fact, Salon has an entire section called Open Salon and they often chose bloggers to promote on their main page. Something political? HuffPost. (HuffPost doesn’t pay bloggers, but the pay is getting traffic to your blog.) Feminist? Take a look at Jezebel. (Jez doesn’t pay for content, but they will syndicate and send clicks over to your blog) You can also sign up for a year membership with Mediabistro. They have a ridiculous amount of resources and I’ve used their How to Pitch series numerous times — with success. They also have a series called Personal Essays Market that is worthwhile. You do have to pay for a membership, but I think it’s worth it. They give you emails, contact info, what the editors are looking for.

5. Write up a query letter. This is going to take a lot of restraint. In the query, I’ve found the best luck in writing an excerpt or intro to the piece in the first graph giving the editor an idea of what this is about. This is your first graph and you must catch their attention here. Second graph tell them what the story is about and that its on spec (meaning, it’s already done!). Editors only want essays from new writers completed. Third graph tell them a little about yourself. Done!

I love this query example from the site Ask Allison. These are great pitches and she gets right down to it. (She no longer writes the site, but it’s still an excellent resource.)

Please send me updates about your blog, submissions and query letters so I can look them over for 4th submission.

Good luck!