Yes, I know, Rapid magazine has nothing to do with scuba diving, it's all about white water paddle sports. But it does have several similarities to numerous diving magazines - just replace the word paddling with diving.
What caught my eye were their contributor guidelines.
You can find them here:
What I like about these guidelines:
If you have ever wondered what to write in a query letter follow these steps and you'll do just fine. You could even use the questions in the query guidance to help you formulate what you are going to write (for those moments when you just don't know where to start).
The feature guidance, "we are only interested in stories, not topics or destinations," is a golden nugget. One of the biggest mistakes a budding photojournalist can make is to think an assignment to, let's say, the Cayman Islands, is as easy as writing about the location's wreck dives, the wall diving, or maybe an account of what you did while you were there.
The Cayman Islands are a destination not a story, and the wrecks and walls are just topics within that story. By all means, they should be included, but without some kind of theme, which ideally should be about characters, your article will look like the hundreds of diary / guidebook type articles that cross the editor's desk every month.
Keep writing...
Brendan
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