Editor's perspective: How to get your pitches read quicker

Commissioning editor and freelancer Meera Dattani has some advice

Meera Dattani is a freelance travel journalist and executive editor at Adventure.com where she’s been commissioning writers since 2016. Her bylines include Condé Nast Traveller, Wanderlust, National Geographic Traveller, BBC Travel, Evening Standard, and the i paper, and in 2023, she founded TravelWritingWebinars, which is supported by Talking Travel Writing, to offer informal training to travel journalists through panel discussions with travel editors and industry experts. Her next webinar is going to be an open discussion between writers and editors on pitching, ghosting and following up, and the state of working in travel media right now. Tickets are FREE and the live webinar is on 5 December at 3pm GMT — get involved here. Recordings available after.

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Few things get discussed as much in our world as pitching, at all levels of experience. I've been commissioning travel features for eight years now while also freelancing, and sitting on both sides of the fence has taught me more about how to get your pitch read than anything else. It's subjective, but here goes.

Do you have a compelling ‘working headline’ as the email subject line?

A good subject line is more likely to be opened, and the headline approach gives the editor food for thought. A subject line ‘Pitch: Food heritage story in Thailand’ is not half as clickable as ‘Pitch: Pad Thai move over: The Bangkok food stands bringing gourmet cuisine to the streets’.  If you’re sending multiple ideas, is the subject line enticing in another way? As an example, something like Pitches: Bangkok’s surprising new street food scene / Electrik tuk-tuk tours on Thailand’s islands / Indigenous fashion all the rage in Chiang Mai. By the way, these are all made-up…

Is the hook — the ‘why’ — clear?

This doesn’t always mean an anniversary… it could be interesting data, news or an event. There’s always something, even if it’s simply a perfect-fit story that hasn’t been covered by the publication, but something that makes the editor know this would interest their readers Thinking in this way also helps you distil your idea into a tempting pitch.

Is the story clear?