Christmas is one of the very few seasonal
angles that appeal to virtually every publication. Come
December, and in some cases as early as November each year, you
will be hard pushed to find a publication on the newsstands
which doesn’t deal with Christmas in some way.
With many magazines producing bumper issues at
this time of year, there are obviously a huge number of
opportunities for the writer in all areas of the magazine world.
The key is to find a fresh approach and submit your ideas and
manuscripts way in advance.
You should really start thinking of ideas for
Christmas based articles in June, perhaps even earlier. It is
easy to think December is a long way off and there is plenty of
time to query, research and develop your features. Yet producing
seasonal articles and making sure they are in front of the right
editors at the right time is a bit like doing the Christmas
shopping: by the end of November you are in a panic, wondering
where all your spare time has gone.
Adequate preparation is the key to seasonal
success. I find it’s a good idea to have a writer’s action plan
each year, similar to the one outlined in this article. Follow
these steps, and next year you could well enjoy a boost in your
earnings.
Three steps to markets:
1 – Think about the markets for which you
regularly supply material. Whatever the magazine, whatever the
subject, you should be able to come up with some ideas for
Christmas articles which would be ideal for each one. You will
already be familiar with editorial policy and the editor will be
familiar with your work, so you should be able to make several
sales – so long as you choose a good angle for each piece.
2 – Make a point each year of picking up a few
copies of magazines whose Christmas issues appeal to you. Choose
ones you may not have seen or considered before, and when you
want an alternative to watching the big film on Christmas Day,
have a flick through and study them in readiness for next year.
3 – When you are inviting friends and
relatives round over Christmas, don’t let them in unless they
have with them a Christmas issue which you do not already have.
They may have access to magazines – especially where trade
journals and specialist magazines are concerned – which you may
not even have heard about.
Four preparatory steps:
1 – Once you have amassed your selected
magazines, make a list of the publications you would like to
target, which you can then refer to next June. As you become
familiar with each individual market, build up a file of
information on each one. Thus, as soon as you get an idea for a
feature, you can glance through your files to select a possible
home for it. This will save you hunting around for all your
Christmas issues, which will probably have been used to wrap
turkey bones in by then anyway.
2 – When you have studied your batch of
Christmas issues and listed all the market details you need,
take the scissors to them and add some useful cuttings to your
collection, which can be referred to when you start work next
June. The more cuttings you can amass and store at home – on
every aspect of Christmas you can think of – the less time will
be spent collating the information each year. In the long term,
a good cuttings library will always save you time.
3 – Note down the type of Christmas articles
each market tends to favour. Do they like home based articles on
how to cope over the holiday period with the minimum of fuss?
How about organising parties and preparing food for the whole
family? Or how to have a quiet relaxing Christmas getting away
from it all on holiday abroad?
4 – Make a point early each January of
compiling a list of possible starters for each magazine. It is
always a good idea to have two or three additional ideas in
reserve in case someone else beats you to the first one. It is
turkey eat turkey in the race to get into the Christmas issues,
so always make sure you have something else on offer.
These preparatory steps may seem like the last
thing you want to do each year, but if you put the time and
effort in, you will be rewarded with plenty of sales – and
plenty of published articles to show off over your Christmas
dinner.
Read another of Allison's Christmas themed
articles by clicking here
About the Author: Allison
Whitehead has been a freelance writer for 17 years, and has had
hundreds of articles published on many diverse subjects in both
magazines and on websites. She now works mainly for online
markets and shares her experience and sources at
http://www.squidoo.com/smoo_publishing
