If you were hoping to get published in Lonely Planet magazine you should have no excuse for not knowing what Peter Grunert's editorial agenda is. Before pitching to any magazine you should do as much research as you can to establish what the editor's needs are. If you are lucky these will come from contributor guidelines, but if the magazine doesn't have these it is possible to get more information by trawling the internet.
I spent a few minutes yesterday researching Peter Grunert's background and came across a recent interview in PR Weekly where he provided any potential contributor with several golden nuggets. Here's a selection of what he had to say:
"Who reads Lonely Planet Magazine?
Intelligent, thoughtful, interesting people with a passion for travel. They're mostly young professionals or empty nesters and share a hunger for fresh experiences
What is your editorial agenda?
We inspire our readers by helping them to get under the skin of the places they'd love to travel to. We accept that they won't just want to ‘fly and flop' - they're keen to learn of history and culture, to eat and drink something authentic and delicious, and to understand where locals enjoy visiting too.
What makes a great feature for the magazine?
Our readers should feel like every feature is feeding their urge to travel - whether it's set in the UK, somewhere easily accessible in Europe or far more exotic. We work hard to commission beautiful photography and atmospheric writing. In one of my favourite features Stephen Fry described encountering the often bizarre natural wonders of Madagascar, strolling along an avenue of baobab trees that "looked as if they were dropped from another world, a world close to the surreality of a Dalí and the silliness of a concept rock album cover, circa 1972."
Describe your online offering and how it fits in with the magazine.
Lonelyplanet.com is a website with a gigantic reach (over 6 million unique users per month) that in the main provides its users with destination advice once they've chosen where they're travelling to. The magazine has its own space within the website, explaining how we can inspire readers to choose where to visit in the first place.
To what do you attribute Lonely Planet Magazine's popularity?
Unlike most travel magazines we don't just set out to rate destinations - we provide a lot more depth and aim to ‘take our readers there' each month, which I believe accounts for our comparatively high proportion of subscribers (around half our circulation)
Describe the process of choosing your front-cover shot.
Our cover image showcases the best travel photography our readers can expect to find within our pages. Its location could vary from a hidden island off Norway to the Great Ocean Road in Australia, and it should always give that sense of a potential reader's lungs filling with fresh air as they take in a glorious view.
What are your own personal media must-haves (eg which mags and newspapers do you read, TV shows do you watch etc)
I love magazines with high production values, that commission photography I could always imagine looking better in the pages of a magazine than on a mobile or laptop screen - the likes of National Geographic, GQ and World of Interiors. I'm a complete day dreamer so I also appreciate the chance to let my mind drift off to the landscapes featured in BBC wildlife documentaries such as Life and Great Rift: Africa's Wild Heart."
Having read this interview a few times I think I've got an idea of what inspires and motivates Peter.
The next stage would be to read the Stephen Fry article and analyse its style, to read his own 'media must-haves' and to ensure my copy met all of the criteria he gives away in the interview: to inspire; to include something about history and culture, to mention what the locals like to do; try and make my words and phrases 'atmospheric' (fortunately Peter provides an example of what this means to him) and to provide an insight into some of the features readers might find bizarre.
Photographic submissions? If they can capture the above and provide the reader with, 'a glorious view' I would think I'd be in with a chance.
What editors are looking for is out there, you just need to know where to look. Time to Google!
Keep Writing...
Brendan
But do you know what rights are requested/demanded for the one-time fees paid? That matters, and LP is known to want the world. (Shame on the BBC for this.)
Posted by: A. Fotog | 03/01/2011 at 10:05 PM