Here are, then, my top five ways to make sure an editor never reads anything your write!

1. Spell the editor’s name wrong – also use the wrong address, bad punctuation and lowercase letters only in your email.

Want to be impressive? Utilize your initial email like a business letter. Put your address in the header; put the date in the upper right hand corner; address the person you are emailing with “Dear ….”

2. Don’t state your purpose right away. Open your letter with a lot of information about yourself that isn’t relevant and then load up the letter with lots of links to articles you’ve written that aren’t at all relevant to the topic you are proposing.

3. Don’t study the publication before offering to write for it. In fact, send the same query letter that you’ve sent to five or 10 magazines and don’t tailor the letters at all to the publication.

4. Do include a list of other places that you’ve submitted the article idea to that have rejected it. This will guarantee you a freelance offer! In fact, you might also want to pepper your letter with references to how long you’ve worked on the article, how many of your friends think it’s a great idea or how much you expect to be paid for said article.

5. Do insult the editor if he or she doesn’t believe that this article your proposing is the best idea they’ve seen in a long time. For example, I’ve seen letters that end like this: “If you don’t think that I’m the most qualified person to write for your publication then I’ll be happy to take my work elsewhere.” My response? “Please do!”

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