Pitches (Long Reads, Features)

I'm always accepting pitches for features at Cosmo. Some guidelines:

1) Story. The biggest reason I turn down a pitch is because it focuses on a topic or an idea rather than a story. Stories have narrative action and memorable characters. They tell me very specifically about something that happened to actual people. They have plots.

2) Surprise! So maybe you’ve got a narrative with good characters, but does the story play out basically the way I’d expect it to? This is so hard, because there are a lot things we *should* know about, but the way to make those issues or stories appeal to a broad audience....is to tell people something unexpected and surprising. In this vein, if it’s a story we’ve seen many times before or something that we’ve covered a lot, it’s probably not going to work for us.

3) Audience! Our target audience is women under 35. That’s a huge and diverse group of people, but there are things that just don't matter to them. I know this is tricky, and if you’ve got something that meets the other two criteria, shoot your shot, absolutely!

4) For the most part, we don’t publish personal essays, op-eds, or trend stories in the features section. Those do have a place at Cosmo, but I’m not the right editor for those pitches.

Some features have a first-person perspective, but those typically contain lots of original reporting and narrative. Ask yourself–does my piece have a narrative and characters, or is it an exploration of a “topic” or “idea”? If it’s the latter, it’s not right for us.

Would you consider international pitches? My understanding is…it depends. If you have a good story pitch, feel free to send it and if it works for us we can try and figure out a contract. Just keep in mind, the story needs to appeal to a mostly US readership.