Hello! My name is Stephanie Madewell, and I am an editor for Broccoli. Each year, I’m the first reader of thousands of pitches for our books and magazines. All three members of the Broccoli editorial team read each one, and I read most of them twice, if not three times; this is time-intensive but worth it, partly because reading pitches is so much fun, like getting to wander the stacks of an endless, glittering potential library, but also because we love to collaborate and share our thoughts on all the stories that could be. Because we’ve read and reviewed so many pitches, we have pretty clear opinions on what makes a pitch great. In this piece, I dig into what we look for in a pitch. These opinions don’t necessarily apply to other publications—most places have their own pitch guidelines—but they might be useful (and interesting), especially if you are interested in having us publish your work.
In the late 1800s and early 1900s, traveling salespeople faced a dilemma. People wanted to see whatever it was they were trying to sell, and while it was easy enough to tote a valise stuffed with brushes or pots or patent medicines from place to place, hauling cumbersome objects like dining chairs or cookstoves or new and improved grain threshers was impossible. How on earth were they supposed to get potential clients excited about buying what they had to sell? They hit upon an ingenious solution: models. These beguiling little objects were meticulously crafted, too big to be toys but too small to be of any actual use, though many did function. They acted as a tangible proof of concept.
A writer’s pitch is like one of these old-time models. It’s a miniature piece of work that shows what you can do. “Miniature” is an essential element here—a pitch is deliberately sized. It is not an already-written completed work or a full draft. Instead, it is an elegant, concise, small-scale demonstration of your writing. It is an introduction and calling card that embodies what you can do.
WHAT GOES IN A PITCH
Pitches come in all shapes, sizes, and formats. They are as varied as the writers who send them, but the best ones show and don’t tell.
It’s helpful when pitches include the following details:
★ Idea: What do you plan to write about?
★ Motivation: Why do you want to write this?
★ Approach: This encompasses length, format, and style. Will your piece be an interview? A reported feature? A braided essay? A text exchange? An epistolary epic? Are you pitching an article or a book?
★ Relevant sources: What supports your piece? Share a few reference points.
★ Links to your work: Nice to have, but not essential. Most writers do not have published work that reflects what they are capable of, and we only ever click links if the pitch is stellar in the first place. Previous bylines, no matter how dazzling, are not going to clinch a commission from Broccoli.
★ There is no way to “hack” pitching. For example, copying and pasting these bullets and adding your answers will not result in a good pitch. Mirroring the language in the pitch call doesn’t help, either. Don’t tell us your pitch is interesting and thoughtful; make it interesting and thoughtful. Care and thought are crucial here, and there is no shortcut to that.
THINGS NOT TO DO
★ Attachments: Do not send us attachments. Keep everything in the body of the email.
★ Audience insights: Don’t worry about explaining why your pitch is a good fit for our audience—instead, dedicate that energy to making the pitch illustrate your idea.
★ Biographical/personal details: Your life story is yours. There’s no need to recap it in your pitch unless it is crucial to our understanding of the story you want to tell.
Excessive brevity: Writers often send us pitches like this:
Hi Broccoli!
I want to write about X. What do you think?
Cheers,
Writer
Those pitches are always nopes from us. Broccoli gets hundreds of emails with thousands of story ideas in response to every pitch call we send, and we don’t have the time or resources to go back and forth to pry details from writers, especially when there are excellent pitches in the pool (and there always are).
★ Excessive length: Too short is bad, but so is too long. A pitch should be as long as it needs to be to convey your idea, but if it is more than a third of the length of the piece you want to write, consider condensing.
★ Late submissions: Pitching is really, really tough. One small way we try to make it more fair is by having clear deadlines, which is why we always reject late pitch submissions.
WHEN AND HOW TO PITCH BROCCOLI
We send pitch calls for writers whenever we start a new magazine project. If you want to keep up with those, you can sign up for our writer’s mailing list (find the form on our website's About page). We will also be posting them to this space, and our Substack called Publishing Dreams.
Every pitch call has a deadline. We don’t accept pitches for magazine stories after deadlines pass.
We are always open for book pitches. More on that soon!
All pitches should be sent to editors@broccolimag.com.
WHAT BROCCOLI PUBLISHES
One of the most crucial elements of a successful pitch is understanding the editorial vision of the publication you are pitching, so here is a little bit about us.
Broccoli makes beautiful, collectible art books and magazines showcasing singular creative visions tinged with wonder, joy, curiosity, and an engagement with the natural world. We call ourselves a publisher of unusual delights because that is our goal for every project—to make printed objects that delight people.
We focus on commissioning compelling nonfiction writing. This spans reported pieces like profiles and interviews to essay collections and more creative works. We look for pieces that feel like they might not find a home unless we publish them.
Reading Broccoli’s magazines and books is the best way to understand our editorial sensibility, but in a nutshell, we publish stories, not content.
Content is what happens when a competent writer covers a subject.
Story is something more magical and singular and human—a particular intelligence and sensibility delving into something in a way that illuminates unexpected meanings or emotions.
Please, please do not pitch us content! We are not in the content business. And we are not interested in work made using AI. Our magazines and books are made with love and care by humans for humans. Because we have long production timelines, we look for pieces that will be interesting to read now but also years in the future.
WHAT BROCCOLI DOESN'T PUBLISH
★ Academic writing: Pieces bristling with jargon and theory for specialist audiences are not right for Broccoli. Every piece we publish should feel like an open door, with writing that welcomes readers in.
★ Breaking news and trend pieces: Our production timelines span months and sometimes years, so we don’t commission work with a timely peg or current events angle—think releases, launches, events, reviews, etc.
★ Fiction and poetry: We almost never commission fiction or poetry for our magazines. Unless we send a pitch call specifically asking for these types of works, please do not submit them.
★ Service journalism: We do not publish advice, how-tos, or explainers. Opinion or “think” pieces Stories that might be published elsewhere: Many, many, MANY outlets focus on themes like beauty, fashion, food, pop culture, travel, wellness, etc. If you are pitching a story in well-covered realms, make sure that it has something that sets it apart from the general media scrum and makes it singularly suited to Broccoli.
ON PERSONAL ESSAYS
Far and away, most pitches we get are for personal essays—first-person narratives centered around the author’s experiences or feelings. It’s understandable; writing about yourself can seem irresistibly accessible compared to tackling other stories. But Broccoli only rarely commissions personal essays for our projects. If you want to pitch one, it should include at least two turns—not just what happened and what you learned, but what changed next. And make sure that it clearly relates to the themes of the publication.
Great writers can make anything interesting, though, so we encourage writers pitching us to look beyond their own experiences for ideas. In the end, all writing is personal—it is the product of a singular brain and sensibility. You don’t need to write about your life to create deeply personal work.
GETTING REJECTED
Almost every pitch we get is rejected, including some true gems. It’s cruel math, driven by the inflexible realities of page counts and small-business budgets. Making a magazine is like shaking out five jigsaw puzzles and finding a way to make some of the pieces fit into a new picture that only takes shape as you build it. Piles of unused pieces remain, the maybes and might-have-beens left out of a particular arrangement. Rejection does not necessarily mean that a pitch isn’t good—it just means it didn’t find a home in a specific project.
THE END (THE BEGINNING?)
This post covers a lot of ground, but we’ve probably missed something. If you have a question, reach out to the editorial team at editors@broccolimag.com.
Off to tinker with the models,
Stephanie Madewell
Broccoli Editor
Art by Bethany van Rijswijk from The Seashell Oracle
