Magazine submissions

[nwa2]

I have been reading a book by Lee Frost called "Photos That Sell, the art of successful freelance photography". The book has a lot of useful information on how to market photographic images to many different types of market.

Lee Frost says he started as a teenager touting images to magazines which gaveme the idea of offering images to magazines I read. A friend and I recently came back from a cycling holiday to Iceland, so I thought I might start with those images to various cycling magazines.

Lee's book is very helpful but it is a little out of date (2001), as a result he does not discuss submission of electronic media (only talks about slides and transparancies as the prefferred media).

My question for the forum is what is your advice on how to submit my digital images to a magazine on spec? What format to use (Raw; TIFF etc..) and how large should they realistically be. All my images are RAW files from my 350d, but I could convert them into TIFF if necessary - I would preffer this as it would fix all the RAW edits I have made in Lightroom.

Any advice??

[Box Brownie]

I have never thought or considered trying to submit to magazines but if I were and bearing mind that with the advent of email etc the typical (picture) editor may get a dozen submssions per day you have to be able to stand out from the crowd IMO.

So unless anyone has the defintive answer which as always I like to read here at POTN why don't you as first step ask the magazines (who there?) what they require as an initial submission and indeed what their budget for payment is?

I also read recently that many specialist mags like articles i.e. words & pictures. So were I in your shoes I would make an initial contact asking what "they" require because as I understand many 'on spec' offerings go straight in the electronics equivalent of the "round file".

Best of luck :)

[IndyJeff]

Photographers Market Handbook is available at most libraries and will give you contact info, whether they will even accept unsolicited submissions, format etc. That is the first place I would start. No need to send an email with a link to a gallery to a magazine which has no intentions of using an unsolicited submission.

[nwa2]

Thanks Jeff, that is a good reference I will look it up....

[Box Brownie]

The book I believe is the one published by the Bureau of Freelance Photographers http://www.thebfp.com/frames.html click on the 'books link at the bottom of the page.

The book can tend to get out of date very quickly so they are always adding amendments in their Newsletter.

:)

[IndyJeff]

The book I believe is the one published by the Bureau of Freelance Photographers http://www.thebfp.com/frames.html click on the 'books link at the bottom of the page.

The book can tend to get out of date very quickly so they are always adding amendments in their Newsletter.

:)

No, it is the Photographers Market Handbook. I have never heard of the book you mention.
Altho the one I referenced is probably more geared towards US based shooters and buyers I think.

[John Mireles]

You should understand that most photo editors are bombarded with junk. If you're lucky, you'll get 1.5 seconds of them looking at your images before they move on. That means, your stuff has to be well presented, easy to look at and very, very good.

Most magazines have very specific photo needs. They need a photo of a woman on a bike, some location in South America, a photo of Joe Blow etc. There may only be one or two spots in the entire book for a pretty picture so if you want to be published, you need to have what they're looking for. You should be able to get their list of photo needs pretty easily. (Good luck though on actually having what they want.)

Your best bet is to write an interesting article and then supply the photos to go along with it. That's actually how I got my first stuff published way back when. Magazines need stuff to run in their pages; you just have to give them what they need.

The magazine business is very competitive and not very profitable. It's also relationship oriented so once you start to work with the editors, you'll get more calls.

John

[Box Brownie]

No, it is the Photographers Market Handbook. I have never heard of the book you mention.
Altho the one I referenced is probably more geared towards US based shooters and buyers I think.

Well perhaps there are two very similarly titled because this was the one that meant
http://www.thebfp.com/images/books2/HBK-2008.jpg

:)

[LBaldwin]

There is the one from Writers Market written by Donna Poehner, and also the the ones written by Michael Willins.

Both have good intel but don't be suprised if you receive low or no responses from those listings. Of the 20 + years i have picked them up I think I have made only a few sales. The folks listed get inundated with story ideas as well as images. Market your images to subjects you know first, Get the info from the masthead inside the magazine. It is nearly always better intel.

Les