Hello, photography lovers, and welcome to another episode of the Fashion Photography Podcast!

This episode is provided to you by the gorgeous producer George and me – the host of the show and photographer Virginia.

Today we will talk about:
Pitching your editorial to magazine, or in other words, how to get published in a fashion magazine.

So first of all, there are two options you have to keep in mind when we talk about submitting.
You can send your editorial to online magazine or to a paper magazine.

There are pros and cons to both of them and we’re going to discuss them today.
If we talk about the pros, well – in both cases, your editorial is going to be published, which is a huge thing, yeeey!

If you decide to publish it in an online magazine, there is the possibility to reach more people, and it’s not exactly the same with the paper magazine.
There are still paper magazines that are very well known, but they are not paying much attention to their social media.
So your potential audience is sometimes only the buyer of the magazine.
And nowadays this number is not very high compared to all the Internet users and potential viewers.
Also the on-line magazine is probably going to publish your work faster than the paper one.

Paper magazines today are usually scheduling ahead and even if it can be a bit hard for us to understand (because we talk about fashion and it moves really fast), sometimes they plan their summer issue in the winter, so you’ve got to be prepared with that when you are submitting.

However, we all know that the understanding that when you have your editorial published in paper magazine, people are going to think better of you.  Which nowadays, I’m not quite sure of and if it’s still the truth….

But it doesn’t really matter, because today we are going to discuss: 

How exactly to get published in both print and on-line?

• First of all, you need to see what the ways to reach out to magazine are.
• If we talk about online magazines it’s usually very easy.
  They often put a specific email on their website that you can use to reach out with your latest work.
  Or you can use a website like for example Kavyar. Where you can see a list of very different magazines and use the Kavyar platform for submission.
• If we talk about paper magazines, it’s not exactly the same, sometimes it can be very hard to find the right email or the right person. If the magazine is part of a big Franchise but it’s located in a small country the office is usually very small – between 3-5 people.
  If the country is bigger though you’ll find a whole list of people working for the magazine and then it can get really confusing.

Because you somehow have to figure out who is the most important one, or who is the one that will do the job for you. So you need to make a little bit of research. And you know that I always say that for most of the topics. But yes, doing your homework is very important.

In order to find some sort of contact you can take a look at the magazine’s website.
Look for the contact page or if there is about page. It’s a good resource where you can most likely find the names of the editor in chief, the fashion and or the beauty editor or the photo editor.

And If there are their emails, they’re pretty much set, because in just a couple of minutes, we’re going to discuss who is the person you need to e-mail and why.

But if you have only the names listed there, bear with me, because now is the time for a really deep and thorough research.

Some people really try to keep in secret their contacts… So it can take a while for you to find a working one. 

Of course – You can try with a general email like info@somethingsomethingmagazine.com.
But there is very, very slight chance for your editorial to end up in the right person’s hands.
Very rarely if your editorial is really good and it’s suitable for the magazine, they’re simply going to redirect it to the right person

If you are submitting a fashion editorial – the person you are supposed to look for is in the position of the Fashion Editor.
And if you’re submitting a beauty editorial, then simply look for the beauty editor.

If you cannot find both of those, or we talk about smaller magazine or a big magazine in a small country – they might not have two separate positions for beauty and fashion.
In this case, you can approach the fashion editor.

However, if I can find only the email of the editor in chief, you can still use it because sooner or later, your photos are going to end up on their screen, too if they pass the first test (the fashion editor).

In case though, you have all the e-mails including the Fashion, Beauty and Editor in chief’s mails – I’d recommend you to not skip steps and not send it straight away to the editor.

Those people are really busy and they can get easily annoyed, especially if there is someone else who’s supposed to filter the editorials.  
And also – if in a few months you get to meet the Fashion Editor – they won’t be pleased you disrespected them.

So try to climb the ladder step by step and honor the other people. 

As I said above, the sooner or later, your images are going to end up on the screen of the editor in chief if they are good enough for the magazine.

Ok… how exactly to pitch your editorial?

• We’ll start with something very logical I think…
  Make sure you fit the topic of the magazine.
  To give you a very obvious example – don’t send fashion images to a landscape magazine.
  And if that’s too obvious – if your editorial is perfect for ID – don’t send it also to W Magazine.
• You need to keep your pitch short and sweet, because those people are receiving emails like this on daily basis. And they do receive hundreds of those per day.

So you’ve got to make sure that you have a catchy subject line and when they open the message they can get the info about you and your editorial in less than a minute.

If they see a mountain of text, trust me, they’re simply going straight to the next e-mail.
So you want to make sure that you keep it short and engaging.

• Don’t forget to introduce yourself, you can include a link to your portfolio, and they can open it in case they want.
• Make sure your e-mail is personal.
  When you do your research for the mails, make sure to write down the names of those editors, and when you start your e-mail, use their name instead of the usual “Dear, editor/Mr.Miss….”
  The more personal you make your email, the better is going to sound and the more attention it’s going to take.
• Don’t send mass e-mails.
  I know it takes a lot of time to reach out to everyone individually but it’s worth it.
• I wouldn’t recommend to you to send out links to WeTransfer, Dropbox or other sites like that. They might think it’s not safe to open links on their pc and because of that they might never see your images.
• Better just attach small images.
  And by saying small, I don’t mean thumbnail images, I mean small in size.
• Use format they will be able to see straight away.
  You don’t need anything fancy. Just a regular JPEG will do the job.
  The faster it works the better.
• Make sure to name your file appropriately.
  For example, my file is going to be called VirginiaY_The-name-of-the-editorial.
  And this is the way I’m going to name all of my images so that when they open them later on their computer, they will know who the photographer is.

This is something that not many people do and I don’t really understand why.
If you decide to keep your files original names, at least make sure the metadata of your files is correct and detailed.

• Another big mistake that I can point right away is when people are sending the same file in three different versions. For example a portrait in a little bit yellowish color, a little bit greenish color, and in black and white. Be professional and make sure your editorial is cohesive.
• Another very important thing is to make sure that your email is sent at the right time and day. For example in most if not in all of the Arabic countries the weekend is Friday and Saturday.
  So Sunday is the beginning of the week for them.
  And if you want to send your editorial to Vogue Arabia – Sunday will be absolutely appropriate day for that.
  However I wouldn’t recommend you to send Sunday e-mails to European magazine let’s say.
• Also – Friday is not the perfect day to send e-mails to magazines. Unless, of course you really want them to get lost in the pile.

Okay, you sent your email and now – this is the beginning of the movie called The long waiting.

It’s been 3 days since you hit the send button and there is no answer from the magazine…
I know you want to send a reminder, but make sure to wait at least 6-7 days.

The more popular The magazine is, the longer it’s going to take for them to respond.

The key is to keep busy with more and new work.
You probably should send a reminder in about 10 days, If you don’t get an answer to your reminder in about three to five days, you can just move on to the next magazine.
It can be the same size or a smaller magazine, or even your own social media channels.

Whatever you do, don’t let yourself to be disappointed.
Many people even organize photo shoots just for their social media. Because they can publish straight away and not wait for any publications, because the more people see work from you, the more they will want to shoot with you.

If there is a certain publication that you really want to work with and there is a fellow photographer that you know, who has already been published there, you can always just ask them, if the media have some restrictions or preferences.
I don’t recommend you to ask them for a specific email, because this is usually information that we all take a lot of time to find. And not many photographers are that willing to just share it for free. And that’s okay. You don’t have to be offended because of it, all you need to know is that if they have found the right e-mail, you can do it too!
And it’s not going to be that difficult, it’s going to be just a little bit time consuming.

If you get a yes, make sure you have all the needed correct credits for the editorial in hand, so that you can send them straight away. And I mean both – the team and the clothing credits.

It’s ok if you wait for the magazine to answer for 10 days, but it’s not ok to make them wait for you 10 days.

When we talk about publishing it’s all about deadlines, and you don’t want to miss any of those.

Having the correct credits beforehand will help you to work really fast with the magazine, but also to stay really organized.

I hope this was helpful for you. If you have any additional questions to the pitching process – don’t hesitate to ask them in our Facebook group called The Fashion Photography Podcast. Or of-course to share other topics that are interesting for you and that you’d like to hear in the next Friday episode.

Before the actual end of the podcast today – we’ve got some news!
There is a gorgeous new article on www.photographypodcast.net by the amazing fan of the show Kim Fisher and you can find it in our blog section!
She’s sharing some recent trends and inspiration!

We can’t wait to see you again next Wednesday!