Dos and Don'ts of pitching to the press (and why 'series' are your way in)
Hiya 🌊,
As it’s the bank holiday weekend, I’m coming in early before I take a few days off with the replay from our live Q&A with Ellen Scott.
(Reminder: we’ve got Steph Caswell on books, Lex Roman on newsletter sponsorships, and Seth Werkheiser on escaping social media coming up. Register here.)
Three takeaways worth stealing:
1.Editors are always scrambling to fill series.
If you pitch something that clearly shows you have read the series, you’re already ahead.
2.Most of the pieces she commissioned came from cold emails.
I will die on the hill that a brilliant pitch is always better than a connection, and endorse this point.
I pitched cold for series at The i and The Telegraph this quarter and both landed.
3.Reliability matters more than you think.
Reply quickly, meet deadlines, be easy to work with… and you’ll get asked again.
👉 Want the full breakdown?
Inside the full session, we get into:
- examples of what a series is and how they work from a press perspective
- what actually makes a journalist pitch stand out (plus subject line hacks)
- how journalists really feel about follow-ups, AI and the absolute no-nos
Paid readers can watch the full replay and catch up on previous live classes in the archive.
