Pitches wanted (craft of writing) | 30 to 50 cents per word

COMPANY/PUBLICATION: WRITER'S DIGEST

We urge writers to get creative in their interpretations of our 2023 issue themes. We offer a brief description of how we interpret them, but look forward to ideas we weren’t necessarily expecting.

MARCH/APRIL 2023

Theme: Exploring Genre Fiction

Genre fiction is successful for a reason: Readers know what to expect from their preferred genre and
love that predictability. What they don’t know—but also love—is discovering just how the author will pull off a satisfying story this time around. In this issue, we want to explore the complexities of writing to genre conventions—and subverting genre expectations.

MAY/JUNE 2023

Theme: Keeping It Short

Even when writing novels or nonfiction books, there’s plenty of short writing to be done, from query letters and taglines to back panel copy and individual chapters. We’ll cover all that, plus traditional short writing like essays (including essay collections), short stories, flash fiction, and other short form writing, like for podcasts or social media.

JULY/AUGUST 2023

Theme: Creating Structure

This issue aims to explore writing structures in all the traditional—and nontraditional—ways. Examples include the hero’s journey and the three-act structure to narrative arcs in memoir and poetry to non-Western story structures. Plus, articles about structuring your writing time and career.

GUIDELINES:

Send email queries to our Acquisitions Editor at wdsubmissions@aimmedia.com. Please do not send attachments—instead, paste your submission directly into the body of the email, below your query. If you have clips available online, please include links. Accepted freelance articles must be submitted in electronic form, in text-only or Microsoft Word. We expect writers to thoroughly check all facts in their stories and to submit documentation to support the information included in their stories.

Contributed articles and guest posts for online publication may be submitted to wdsubmissions@aimmedia.com for review. Please include a brief summary of your proposed article or guest post, or attach a Word document containing a completed article, along with a headshot, bio and any applicable book cover images.

For manuscripts, we pay 30–50 cents per word, on acceptance, for first world rights for one-time print use and perpetual electronic use. Should we want to reprint anything we've purchased from you in anything other than electronic format, we'll pay you 25% of the original purchase price per use. Contributor copies are sent to writers and artists whose work appears in that issue.

We do not offer payment for unsolicited online articles and guest posts, except in rare cases when the content is highly focused or unique. In such cases, writers may be paid $50-$100 depending on the depth and length of the work. If payment is not offered, we may agree to include links to the author's website, social media accounts, and book outlets.

Read the complete submission guidelines here.

CONTACT INFORMATION (please do not share the email address publicly):

• Submissions / Questions: wdsubmissions@aimmedia.com
• Website: https://www.writersdigest.com/

TO HELP YOU CRAFT YOUR PITCH:

• Learn more about the publication: Writer's Digest aims to help writers improve their craft, achieve their goals and recognize their dreams. Its mission  is to help ignite writers' creative vision and connect them with the community, education and resources they need to bring it to life. From inspiring prompts, practical techniques and insightful interviews, to instructional workshops, writing competitions and professional services—Writer's Digest helps writers of all genres and formats develop their craft and hone their business skills at every stage of their career. More information here.
• Read through its selection of recent articles/stories, categorized into: Write Better Fiction, Write Better Nonfiction, Write Better Poetry, Get Published, Be Inspired
• Review the submission guidelines here.
• Check out our collection of pitch excerpts on this page and find more sample pitches at The Open Notebook Database and at SuccessfulPitches.com.
• Do not forget to end your pitch with (1) a short introduction about yourself; (2) a paragraph highlighting your writing experience, relevant credentials and publication credits; and (3) links to your strongest work or portfolio, and online profile.

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