A million years ago, I was getting ready to go to Burning Man. And my grad school thesis advisor, the late, great journalist Phil Patton, suggested that I write an article about the Burning Man art cars. He even said he’d help me pitch the idea to a few outlets.

I was reading a lot of Hunter S. Thompson at the time, and the pitch I wrote had a very Gonzo quality to it. I was going to bring readers “out into the post-apocalyptic desert” to experience “the future of psychedelic automobilia.” The word “freaks” was used repeatedly.

I sent it around to a few people and they all passed. I was mystified.

Phil asked to see the pitch. He offered one sentence of feedback:

“Just say you’d like to write about the cars at Burning Man.”

This seemed like patently insane advice. But I figured why not give it a try? Of course the next pitch was accepted.

What changed?

The original pitch wasn’t really about cars. It was about me. And as an unknown, relatively novice writer, I was of precisely zero interest to anyone but me. Phil’s feedback brought the pitch back to the subject. And the subject spoke for itself.

It’s not always so easy. Sometimes the subject is kinda boring. (Or it seems boring at first…) Other times you’re writing and you’re not entirely sure what the subject is.

If you’re writing for other people, though, you always have to answer one basic question: Why?

Why are you writing about this? Why should the reader care?

You find those answers by focusing on the subject. Not yourself.

PS: In case it wasn’t clear from the above, I’m no expert on pitching to publications. To see what goes into a really thoughtful pitch, check out this article.