Three ways to “Get Published”

Resources

Aug 20

How to get published is forever a hot topic.

I am certainly no expert, but as someone who tried and tried for YEARS before I finally had any work published in a printed publication, I know how disheartening it can be to begin with.

I see you!

As one of my most frequent FAQs, I thought I would share the ways that my client work/pitched subjects come to be published, as well as some thoughts on what might work best depending on your situation.

Please keep in mind that my experience is mainly with interiors, lifestyle and product-based creative businesses, so my experience is particularly relative to that genre. And I will try to outline the experience as it relates to both a photographer or business owner.

Read on for my thoughts and tips on:

ways to get published
how to write a pitch email
bonus tips and resources

01.
Pitch with an existing shoot

Pitching an existing shoot of a home/design project or suite of branded images that showcases your business/products is a fabulous place to start if you have not had any work published before. This works whether you are a photographer or designer/business owner.

The first step here is to style and shoot with the ideal magazine in the forefront of your mind, ensuring you have done your research on the types of shots the magazine typically runs.
Once you have the beautiful images back from your photographer, and you have chatted with them about their preferred processes for pitching and sharing images with third parties, you are ready to go!

The benefit of doing it this way is that you will have the images to use for your business in a multitude of ways, and potentially multiple publications. And you can never have too much content as business owner!

This method is what I recommend when people reach out to me asking about this topic.

And is how I have my work published about 75% of the time.

Most of the time when my photographs are printed in a national publication I receive a fee from the publisher to use the images in the story.

02.
Pitch a story idea to the publication

Another way to have your story/work published is to pitch the story idea with the intent that the publication will love it so much that they will commission a shoot.

Pull together some “recce” shots taken on your phone of the space or business to showcase the photogenic nature of it all is handy to include. At the end of the day, most publications are are visual-heavy and the story will be easier to showcase if whatever is being promoted is visually appealing!
If accepted, the publication will hopefully organise a photographer to capture your story. The photos will be governed by whatever contract the photographer/publisher have*.

*Rights with commissioned images

When a publication commissions a photographer, most often the photographer is subject to a “work-for-hire” agreement provided by the publisher.

For example, publisher that owns many interior/lifestyle print publications in Australia, assigns themselves ownership of the copyright of all images from a commissioned shoot, and therefore no rights or license is given to the subject of the shoot to use the images in promotional ways other than to promote the article once published.

So what does this all mean?

If you a business/brand pitching yourself to a publication, this can be a good way to have a shoot “for free”.

However at the end of the day, all control over the images may be relinquished by the photographer to the publisher and therefore you will have a small benefit from photography after the article is published.

How this process works for me as a photographer

I sometimes pitch a story for a commission by a magazine if it is a home or business I would really like to photograph and have no means to do so otherwise. I will receive a commission fee from the publication for the shoot, it is often not much but photographing real homes is my most favourite thing to do and so my passion balances out the small fees.

03.
The magazine comes to you

Publications are always on the hunt for content to shoot (particularly real homes and gardens! Hint hint) and if someone on staff finds one that they think has potential for an upcoming issue, they will reach out to check your interest and send a photographer.

Build connections with writers and editors on social media
Be present online and share beautiful visuals of your brand and story to try and get noticed
Be genuinely good at what you do and people will eventually begin to notice!
If you are a photographer you could try writing an introductory email to an editor with a link to your portfolio

I am in a good place now with a few magazines where if they have a story in my area that they want to have captured, they will contact me and book me for a shoot. Also having general brand awareness around my business now, having worked with so many different people in different places over the years, I am sometimes recommended too.

The same thing about rights and licensing applies as mentioned above - when a publication commissions a shoot, most likely the photographer will be signing their contract, so read that contract to fully understand your rights.

Other handy things

writing the pitch email

Subject line: make it clear what you are pitching and add in the type of feature you are hoping to score (eg Home editorial). I often write them something like this: “Home pitch: Colourful Brisbane house”
Address: Send the email to the editor/deputy editor of the publication you are hoping to be published in, use their names and publication title in the body of the email too. If you are not sure what the email it is, you can easily work it out by first finding how the publisher assigns emails to staff: eg firstname.lastname@publishername.com
Body: introduce yourself if they don’t know you and write a brief paragraph describing the pitch and why it would be perfect for that publication
Images: include a link to the best shots from the shoot so they can get a good feel of the story

Publications are busy businesses! Sometimes you may not hear back. But do follow up a couple of times to boost the possibility of your email being seen or a reply.

bonus points

The number one rule when pitching or trying to get published is to make it as easy as possible for the publication to say Yes! Having great images ready to go is a great way to make things easy, and also making your pitch email very clear and giving them all the answers before they can ask the questions.
Consider hiring a photographer who has a connection with your ideal publication, or at the very least, one who shoots editorial in style. They should have a good grasp on the kinds of shots that magazines publish and will be able to work with you on ensuring those images are captured on the day, as well as editing the images with a fairly clean editorial look.
Know the publication inside and out to understand what types of stories they write and share about, what they might have published stories on recently and check out their ad specs online to see if you can get additional details on specials they might be running and their deadlines.