Your article idea must be new — but not too original

Editors lie. They tell writers they want to fascinate their readers with what’s new and exciting. But if you read their magazines you see that they constantly recycle old topics, and if your article proposals are too edgy, editors won’t buy. For example, in 1995 I was trying to sell articles about the Internet to general-interest and women’s magazines. No sale. At that stage, the Internet hadn’t erupted into mass consciousness. That taught me that topics must be familiar to a magazine’s readers, but with a new slant.

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