How Magazines Get Material. Magazine articles come from (1) regular members of the magazine's staff, (2) professional or amateur free-lance writers, (3) specialists who write as an avocation, and (4) readers of the periodical who send in material based on their own experience.
The so-called "staff system" of magazine editing, in accordance with which practically all the articles are prepared by writers regularly employed by the publication, has been adopted by a few general magazines and by a number of class periodicals. The staff is recruited from writers and editors on newspapers and other magazines. Its members often perform various editorial duties in addition to writing articles. Publications edited in this way buy few if any articles from outsiders.
Magazines that do not follow the staff system depend largely or entirely on contributors. Every editor daily receives many manuscripts submitted by writers on their own initiative. From these he selects the material best adapted to his publication. Experienced writers often submit an outline of an article to a magazine editor for his approval before preparing the material for publication. Free-lance writers of reputation may be asked by magazine editors to prepare articles on given subjects.
In addition to material obtained in these ways, articles may be secured from specialists who write as an avocation. An editor generally decides on the subject that he thinks will interest his readers at a given time and then selects the authority best fitted to treat it in a popular way. To induce well-known men to prepare such articles, an editor generally offers them more than he normally pays.
A periodical may encourage its readers to send in short articles giving their own experiences and explaining how to do something in which they have become skilled. These personal experience articles have a reality and "human interest" that make them eminently readable. To obtain them magazines sometimes offer prizes for the best, reserving the privilege of publishing acceptable articles that do not win an award. Aspiring writers should take advantage of these prize contests as a possible means of getting both publication and money for their work.
Opportunities for Unknown Writers. The belief is common among novices that because they are unknown their work is likely to receive little or no consideration from editors. As a matter of fact, in the majority of newspaper and magazine offices all unsolicited manuscripts are considered strictly on their merits. The unknown writer has as good a chance as anybody of having his manuscript accepted, provided that his work has merit comparable with that of more experienced writers.
With the exception of certain newspapers that depend entirely on syndicates for their special features, and of a few popular magazines that have the staff system or that desire only the work of well-known writers, every publication welcomes special articles and short stories by novices. Moreover, editors take pride in the fact that from time to time they "discover" writers whose work later proves popular. They not infrequently tell how they accepted a short story, an article, or some verse by an author of whom they had never before heard, because they were impressed with the quality of it, and how the verdict of their readers confirmed their own judgment.
The relatively small number of amateurs who undertake special articles, compared with the hundreds of thousands who try their hand at short stories, makes the opportunities for special feature writers all the greater. Then, too, the number of professional writers of special articles is comparatively small. This is particularly true of writers who are able effectively to popularize scientific and technical material, as well as of those who can present in popular form the results of social and economic investigations.
It is not too much to say, therefore, that any writer who is willing (1) to study the interests and the needs of newspaper and magazine readers, (2) to gather carefully the material for his articles, and (3) to present it accurately and attractively, may be sure that his work will receive the fullest consideration in almost every newspaper and magazine office in the country, and will be accepted whenever it is found to merit publication.
Women as Feature Writers. Since the essential qualifications just enumerated are not limited to men, women are quite as well fitted to write special feature and magazine articles as are their brothers in the craft. In fact, woman's quicker sympathies and readier emotional response to many phases of life give her a distinct advantage. Her insight into the lives of others, and her intuitive understanding of them, especially fit her to write good "human interest" articles. Both the delicacy of touch and the chatty, personal tone that characterize the work of many young women, are well suited to numerous topics.