Copyright 2003 by Scott
Hays
Magazine: ASJA Monthly
Topic: Writing for Men’s Health
& Fitness Magazines
Byline: Scott Hays
Last year I received an assignment from
Men’s Health for a piece
on busy executives—the governor
of New Mexico, a billionaire CEO, a TV
talk-show host. Men who had as much, or
more, on their plates as the rest of us,
but who also took time to stay in shape.
“These aren’t typical men,”
read the introduction. “But then,
neither are you. Find yourself in the
profiles here, then steal their tricks,
try out their tips, and toss the old time-crunch
excuse forever.”
This wasn’t the first piece I’d
written for a men’s health, fitness,
and lifestyle magazine. Over the years
I’d also placed a number of articles
with Muscle & Fitness and
Men’s Fitness, among others.
Now I’m not a bodybuilder, or even
a fitness buff. I just realized early
in my writing career that the health-and-fitness
market, though demanding, is popular with
both readers and writers, and offers good
opportunities for freelancers.
The Men’s Health assignment
arrived as a result of a 20-year friendship
with the magazine’s fitness director,
Lou Schuler. He and I first butted heads
in the 1980s, when he served as editor
of a regional magazine in Orange County,
California. He ripped into a story I’d
submitted to his magazine, and I invited
him to lunch to learn how to deal with
rejection from an editor I respected.
It was the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
The Big Secret
Most of us know at least a little bit
about what it means to be healthy and
fit. And that may be enough to get your
byline into one of the national men’s
health, fitness, and lifestyle magazines.
Too, many of these magazines offer stories
on alternative healing and therapies,
including medicinal herbs, health foods,
and holistic mind/body strategies.
Razor, for example, is a growing
men’s health, fitness, and lifestyle
magazine that buys freelance articles
on fashion, culture, technology, and all
things “shockingly new.” Outside
inspires men to lead “fuller, more
rewarding” lives through year-round
coverage of participatory sports such
as hiking, biking, and adventure travel.
Men’s Journal is “the
ideal playtime resource for men.”
Other magazines in this category include
Gear, FHM (For Him
Magazine), Flex and Details.
There are also specialty publications
for runners, jet skiers, boxers, and the
like.
“I receive thirty to forty queries
every day,” says Craig Vasiloff,
editor-in-chief for Razor. “We
buy maybe ten freelance articles per issue.
And even though we’re a lifestyle
magazine, with a focus on men not boys,
any pitch that comes with the word 'sex’
in the headline goes immediately into
the trash.
“I look for investigative pieces,
story ideas that show the writer has put
some work into it. What defeats most writers
is they assume we’re the same as
every other men’s magazine. Unless
they put research into understanding our
magazine, they’re just going to
shoot themselves in the foot.”
It’s not even always necessary
for the writing voice or point-of-view
to be male, even with magazines where
the readership is way north of 80 percent
men.
“As a successful and profitable
advertising medium, we are gender neutral
when it comes to contributors,”
says Outside Editor Hal Espen.
“Good writers bring their whole
repertoire and point-of-view to bear on
the subject. So there’s no worry
for women coming to us for ideas.”
Although many of these magazines prefer
writers who are “experts”
in their fields, that shouldn’t
stop you from pitching ideas. Experience
is valued, not required. Some editors
prefer to work with established writers,
but most are open to professional submissions
and creative story ideas from any writer,
especially one with a unique style or
voice.
“Often, we’ll come up with
the idea and then contact the writer,”
says Jerry Kindela, editor-in-chief of
Men’s Fitness. “The
writer then has to come up with his own
sources, using accredited individuals.
However, I’m not against people
contributing ideas, assuming that they
display in the query an understanding
of our magazine and the story concept
they’re trying to pitch.”
Health, fitness, and lifestyle articles
can cover anything from great toys for
men to leisure-time activities. A grasp
of what’s new is helpful. There
are innovations in these areas all the
time: unorthodox workouts, new ways to
burn calories, salad-bar survival hints,
hangover cures, tips to a lifetime of
great sex. It’s not enough to write
about how you lost 30 pounds on a low-carb,
high-protein diet (unless it’s an
inspirational piece). Better you find
the experts who can speak on the benefits
and dangers of a low-carb, high-protein
diet.
“Our definition of health extends
beyond the purely physical to include
the challenge and paradoxes of how a man
feels about work, women, sex, beer, cars,
and himself,” says Schuler of Men’s
Health “To provide this sort of
detailed information is usually beyond
the accumulated knowledge of most freelance
writers. That’s why we rely so heavily
on experts. The job of a freelance writer
is to find these experts, distill their
knowledge, and then convey it to the reader
in an accurate and entertaining form.”
Never expect to “scoop” your
editors, who maintain an extensive network
of trainers and nutritionists, and scan
the medical journals and wires daily.
But so long as your pitch promises to
provide the reader with a timely topic
and useful information, the editor will
consider your story ideas.
Most of these publications pay roughly
one dollar a word for new writers, depending
on such things as research time, number
of interviews, and deadline. All will
pay more after you’ve worked with
them for a while.
Freelance writers should know a magazine
front to back. Once you understand a publication’s
brand, you can produce a carefully written,
informative query on an appropriate topic.
Make sure your query will grab the editor’s
attention in just a few words. Dig deep.
Consult experts. Find facts to support
your query. Provide the editor with something
you possess that more experienced health
writers don’t: personal experience,
a unique voice, a local story the national
press hasn’t discovered, access
to inside information. Editors look for
writers they can trust to deliver carefully
reasoned and researched articles.
If you can marshal clips from major national
magazines, send them. If you can’t,
don’t worry. Editors will still
notice you, for two reasons: your ideas,
and your writing skills. Without a track
record, your query becomes the only way
to showcase your facility with the language.
Make it count.
“If the first sentence of a query
begins with 'My name is John Smith,”
or there’s a line in there about
how this particular idea is going to sell
more issues, those go straight into the
garbage,” says Kindela of Men’s
Fitness. “Most editors look
for quality of idea, an understanding
of the magazine and the material you’re
pitching, and the rhythm, pace and structure
of the writing itself.”
Outside magazine also remains
open to freelancers. “In fact, we
depend on freelance writers,” says
Espen of Outside. Despite a distinguished
roster of contributing editors, the adventurousness
of stories in Outside means the
magazine remains wide-open to the “alert,
enterprising freelancer who’s going
to bring to our attention a story or person
or breaking issue that we’ve somehow
missed,” says Espen. “We still
read unsolicited story ideas and manuscripts.
And we’re quick to winnow out submissions
that portray any lack of awareness about
our magazine’s mission or the types
of stories we cover. And sadly, the majority
of submissions have that sense that the
writers are more enchanted with their
own writing style than with quality story
ideas.”
Negotiating the Maze
You must also direct your pitch to the
appropriate editor. A lot of people who
want to write for health-and-fitness magazines
start too high in the pecking order, says
Schuler. “Our magazine has a circulation
of 1.65 million, we have a worldwide brand
where we publish in more than 20 languages,
more than two dozen countries. We have
our own line of books and an extensive
online presence. This is a huge operation,
which means a freelance writer has more
hurdles to overcome to get inside.”
It’s often easier to break into
a new magazine with a smaller, front-of-the-book
department piece, rather than a feature.
The editors of these sections are almost
always looking for material. The hardest
sections to crack in Men’s Health,
for example, are those on nutrition and
fitness. “It would be endless frustration
for a freelancer to try and break into
something that’s so core to our
magazine. A story on abdominal muscle?
It’s just not going to happen,”
adds Schuler.
Schuler recommends freelancers approaching
his magazine start with the “Male
Gram” section.
Kindela of Men’s Fitness
recommends freelancers approaching his
magazine start with one of the departments—fitness,
training, health, flexibility, energy.
“I prefer the query go to the individual
editors, not directly to me,” Kindela
adds. “You want to pitch a fitness
idea, go to the fitness editor. And whatever
you do, make sure you put Men’s
Fitness on your query, and not some
other magazine. Happens all the time.”
Espen of Outside also recommends
freelancers approaching his magazine start
with one of the departments—Disptaches
(news stories), Destination (short travel
tips with an adventurous edge), Body Work
(the magazine’s fitness section),
and Review (gear equipment and hardware).
The Path to Glory
A freelance writer can choose an easier
path than contributing to Men’s
Health or Men’s Fitness
or Details. These magazines expect
a lot from their writers. That requires
effort. If you think two interviews will
be enough, do four. You may end up quoting
only one person in your finished article,
but if you’ve talked to half a dozen,
your piece will be stronger for it. Give
a little extra, and it will show. And
make the fact-checkers’ job easier.
Provide names and phone numbers, copies
of studies, research materials, anything
you used in crafting your article.
“Look at how densely-packed the
information is in our magazine,”
says Schuler. “A freelance writer
is never going to have three to four paragraphs
to be funny or entertaining. We hire writers
who can give us information that’s
tightly packed. There’s a referenced,
useful fact in every paragraph. That’s
our style, our brand.”
Espen says freelance writers pitching
a new magazine should save their “subjective,
self-expressive” writing for later
in their careers. “Freelance writers
should really attempt with total empathy
to put themselves in the editor’s
shoes and figure how to crack the code
by coming up with ideas that make that
editor look good for his boss.”
Health, fitness, and lifestyle writing
is not for wimps. Editors can be cranky
and critical. Sometimes they’re
justified. Sometimes they’re not.
Stay focused. One of the toughest aspects
of freelancing is learning to deal with
rejection. When a submission is returned,
check your file folder for potential new
markets. Cross off the market that rejected
the idea, and immediately mail an appropriate
submission to the next market. The key
to surviving rejection is to remember
that it’s not a personal attack,
merely a judgment about the worth of your
work for that particular market, at that
particular time. Often editors reject
stories simply because they don’t
have the budget, or because they’re
in a bad mood.
There’s an extensive editing process
at all national and international men’s
health and fitness magazines. And let
me say this about that: as someone who
has been extensively edited, your ego
definitely recovers when you finally see
your byline in a national magazine like
Men’s Health or Men’s
Fitness.