You just got back from a wonderful six months spent living in a rented house in France and you have this great idea for an article…maybe several articles! Enthusiastically, you get out your market book and start copying down editor names and magazine addresses. This is a shoo-in! You drop your query letters in the mail and sit back to wait for the enthusiastic acceptances.

A few weeks later, you are staring at the pile of rejections on your desk and wondering what went wrong. How could those editors pass on this wonderful topic?

Well, let’s take a look at your query letter. Dear Ms. Editor, Imagine picnicking in a century old vinyard, shopping markets full of local produce and game, sharing a glass of local wine with friendly people, and touring chateaux! Think Provence! This summer my family spent the summer in a rented house in this idyllic region in France.. We found ourselves welcomed by the local people, who gave us a marvelous introduction to all things Provence! I would like to share our wonderful experiences with your readers, and introduce them to this great travel option.

Good query letter, right?

No.

While we’d all like to imagine that editor relaxing behind an immaculate desk, perusing our query at leisure, the reality is far from that! Our Ms. Editor has a meeting in fifteen minutes, a stack of page layouts to okay, and about fifty query letters from aspiring contributors spilling from her cluttered desk top. (She has already gone through her ‘pro’ queries this morning). She is tired, it is eleven thirty and she didn’t have time for breakfast. Her only concern beyond the meeting, the page proofs, and lunch, is putting out a magazine that is so good that it reflects well on her, the editor. That way, she stays employed! And yes, maybe there is a usable idea in that pile on her desk, but mostly there won’t be. She reads a LOT of amateur queries, and most of them simply aren’t written well. She reaches for the pile and selects….your letter.

All right. I need an article on Provence. So what are you offering me? Provence is hot right now, I don’t have much on it in inventory, and I want to feature an article on Provence food specialties in the November issue: This is a marvelous part of France, rich in local tradition, and unique cuisine. Yes, yes, that’s true, so what are you offering me here? We found ourselves welcomed by the local people, who gave us a marvelous introduction to all things Provence! Hmm, might work, if the author focuses on food. I would like to share our wonderful experiences with your readers, and introduce them to this great travel option. WHAT experiences? I need a FOOD article, for crying out loud! What are you going to tell me about? Picnicking among the grapes? I have one like that. The local wines? I just commissioned a piece on that from Ann, my wine writer. Olive oil? Had a piece on that in the last issue, doesn’t this bozo READ the magazine? And Ms. Editor reaches for the form rejection…

Let’s face it, the article is exactly what she wants, but how can she tell? And if she says ‘send it’, then she needs to hold space for it in that November issue, which is being roughed out this afternoon with her staff, after that meeting and lunch. And she doesn’t know this writer, and if it turns out to be an olive oil article or the writer can’t do what she wants, then she has to find something else to fit. Hmm. Maybe she’ll give Peter a call. He does great food articles and surely he can come up with something from Provence. Too bad, but she doesn’t have the time to take a chance on an unproven writer, not when the writer sends in a vague query like this one.

So here, the article would have sold, if the editor had realized that it would suit her needs. The moral here is twofold: Hook the editor and then, equally important, be specific! While a great hook will get you a look from the editor, he or she wants to know that your article is something he or she can use and that editor needs to know it NOW, not weeks later, after sending queries and replies back and forth through the mail, or playing phone tag for days. Editors never have enough time, but they do have writers who can produce on demand!

Even if you are a raw beginner with no clips, if you offer that editor a well written query that proposes a piece that will exactly fit her needs…you will sell. So don’t tell that editor that you would like to share experiences. What experiences? Using the bathroom? Arriving on the airplane? Driving in rural France? Eating the local food? Those are all experiences. But this editor isn’t interested in any of them except the food experience. So she either has to call you or write you and ask you to clarify your offer, or….reject your query. Remember, somebody else is writing the same article you are right now. You want yours to be better, and you want your editor to realize that it’s better, the moment she glances at your letter.

So let’s look at our example. How might we have sold this to Ms. Editor? Well, what experiences do we want to offer? Let’s look at the little stack of magazines we picked up at our local bookstore as marketing research. Glance through each one. What are the articles talking about? List the topics. Who are the articles speaking to? Read them, look at the ads, and make an educated guess. Well-off retirees with money for travel? Budget conscious twenty somethings on a backpack tour? College kids looking for adventure? Armchair travel and food aficionados?

Hmm. Ms Editor’s magazine seems to focus on the armchair group. No real travel info, although some articles offer a sidebar of general tips. Mostly the articles focus on local ingredients, or interesting places to visit, or beautiful vistas. Nice photos. Kids are never mentioned, and the dining is upscale when it’s not al fresco at an interesting local market stall. Most importantly, the ads are for expensive top of the line cookware, and services that supply hard to find gourmet ingredients. Okay. We’re not talking to the backpackers on a shoestring here! Nor are we speaking to parents with kids, looking for a family vacation. Hmm. Wine? Local food specialties? Restaurants? We look again. Most of the articles seem to focus on the specialties and the producers, for example this article on a local olive oil producer. The narrator and his wife ate bruchetta rubbed with garlic and the excellent oil, along with a local fresh cheese. Mmm. No recipes, but a nice photo. And while you didn’t do food shots like this one of the bruchetta on a rustic plate arranged artistically with the cheese, you have a couple of great shots of that farmer’s market loaded with picturesque pyramids of cabbages and towers of local sheep’s milk cheeses. Okay. Let’s focus on treats you can buy at the local market.

Now that we’ve decided how to slant the article: to well off retirees with an interest in armchair travel and local food, we can get to work. Here’s our new query:

This time, when Ms. Editor picks up the letter, she knows immediately what you propose – an article about the local foods available in Provence. She knows you spent months there, so you get points for expertise, and you will clearly focus on the regional food. You don’t mention travel, or children, or day trips. It’s food, food, food. And yes, she needs that food article for the November issue, and you are without clips, but you are offering photos, and you know…the query is good, and you just might turn out to be a reliable contributor.

Dear Author, she picks up her pen, I am interested in your article on the foods of Provence…

Congratulations. You have just made your first sale.

When you sit down to write that query letter, take a close look at what you are actually offering. Experiences? What experiences? Specifically? That editor isn’t interested in ALL your experiences, and she can’t read your mind. And why should she tell you what she wants, just to have you fail to respond or tell her that you didn’t have that particular experience!

Realize that she needs to know exactly what you are offering to share. If you can find a place in your query letter where you can ask ‘what?’ and an answer isn’t provided…provide that answer! You are not seeking a job as a writer for the magazine, you are pitching one article on one very narrow topic to one very narrow group of readers! If the readers of our magazine had been families with children, our article about the specialty foods in the markets might have bored them. They want to know if there is a child friendly hotel with separate bathrooms in the town! And how about restaurants with outdoor seating where the kiddies can run around? Markets? They’re a pain in the backside with a stroller and a toddler. Another time… But the readers weren’t families with kids. They were armchair foodies and you nailed the article in your query. Nice work!