How to Pitch a Story to SELF

SELF Staffers
·7 min read

CSA Images/Getty Images

Thank you for your interest in writing for SELF! We are always looking for new writers to work with and want to make the pitching process as clear and straightforward as possible. Before you pitch us, please take a few minutes to read the following recommendations and guidelines.

Jump to:

We look forward to hearing from (and hopefully working with) you!

About SELF

SELF is a service-driven health and wellness brand. Our goal is to help people take good care of themselves, their loved ones, and their communities. Sometimes we do that by reporting on individual actions that can make a difference; sometimes we do it by highlighting efforts to make systemic or institutional change. We pride ourselves on publishing trustworthy content that exemplifies our core brand values of inclusivity, accuracy, autonomy, and empathy.

To learn more about our brand, including our leadership team, editorial standards and practices, social channels, and newsletters, head over to our “About SELF” page here.

What to Pitch

Since SELF is a health and wellness brand, we’re looking for stories that explore personal, community, or public health, ideally with a service element. When pitching us a story, you should be able to answer the question: How is this helpful to the reader?

Before you pitch us, please search the site and our social channels to get a sense of our brand’s tone and philosophy (and also to make sure that you’re not pitching something we just covered). Our core verticals and areas of focus include: health (health conditions, mental well-being, sexual and reproductive health, and sleep); fitness (exercise tips and explainers, workouts, gear, and sports); food (nutrition, home cooking, and recipes); beauty (hair, skin, nails, sporty style, and aging); love (sex and relationships of all kinds); and life (travel, money, career, home, culture, and entertainment).

It may be helpful to know that we’ve published editorial packages and articles that advocate for specific positions in the service of public health, including:

Here are the types of stories we’re looking for from freelancers right now:

Reported Service

We focus almost exclusively on service journalism—stories that give people the information they need in order to take action. We’re typically looking for reported pieces that rely on lots of research and expert insights. Think how-tos, tips, advice, and explainers that people can act on. It’s not enough for a story to simply explain why something is the way it is; it should also help people understand what they can do with that information and how to apply it in their own lives in a practical IRL sense. A good service story should tell a reader: Do this, and here’s why.

Here are some examples:

Personal Experience–Based Service

We don’t accept pitches for personal essays that fall outside our core verticals, but we do accept pitches for wellness-focused stories that are based in part (or fully) on your nonexpert, yet still relevant, personal experiences.

The idea is to share a wellness-related experience or practice you have that made an impact on or accomplished a specific task in your life, and that you think other people might benefit from hearing about as well. These can be tricky to pull off, though—the key is that the experience or practice needs to solve a tangible problem or challenge, rather than simply be something that makes you feel good or better in general. Think of it as the hack-y, tip-y advice you give your friends who are dealing with something frustrating and somewhat mundane but that doesn’t necessarily require professional assistance. Some examples we’ve published recently:

Opinion and Cultural Criticism

We don’t accept a ton of opinion or cultural criticism pitches because those are mostly handled in-house, but we are open to them! The idea should be timely and relevant, and rooted in research, expert insight, or personal experience. We’re significantly more likely to accept an opinion or criticism pitch if you have an established expertise in the particular area, as well as a clearly stated opinion that you can back up with facts. We’re also more likely to be interested in an opinion piece if it’s a bit surprising or thought-provoking. We’re looking for opinions that will make people stop and think, Huh, that’s interesting—I haven’t considered that perspective before. Some great examples:

Features

We rarely accept feature pitches (when we assign them out, we develop the pitches in-house). But when we do, the key is that the feature will be heavily reported and also structured around a narrative. This means you should pitch a story you want to tell, not just an idea or trend you want to explore, or a person or organization you want to highlight. When pitching a feature story, you should have already done a good amount of pre-reporting on the idea itself, and also make it clear whether you have access to the sources in the story that you’re pitching. Tell us what the narrative is about and how that narrative ties into the health and wellness space.

What Not to Pitch

Some of these we handle in-house. Some of them just don’t make sense for our audience.

  • Personal essays that don’t fit into one of our core verticals (health, fitness, beauty, etc.)

  • Stories that don’t explore personal, community, or public health

  • Explainers without service (i.e., explaining a trend without also providing a practical takeaway for the reader)

  • Stories that parrot PR talking points without skepticism or diving deeper into the science

  • Stories about how to diet or lose weight

  • Stories that have been published elsewhere already

  • Fiction, memoir, or poetry

  • Q&As

How to Pitch Us

When reaching out with a pitch, please send and an email with the subject line “PITCH: Working Headline Here” and include the following:

  • A working headline or two that shows very clearly what the story is about.

  • A couple paragraphs with a description of the story, including why it’s relevant right now, how it can be helpful to people, and what your angle or approach will be. Be sure to also include the types of experts or the specific people you want to speak with and a word-count estimate—the more specific, the better.

  • A little bit about yourself! If we’re new to working together, it helps to include clips of relevant work you’ve done, as well as any information that illustrates your expertise in the topic you’re pitching.

Editors to Pitch

The following editors are currently accepting pitches:

Alisa Hrustic, Executive Editor (alisa_hrustic@condenast.com)
General health and health features

Theresa Tamkins, Health Conditions Director (theresa_tamkins@condenast.com)
Health stories through a condition-specific lens

Christa Sgobba, Fitness and Food Director (christa_sgobba@condenast.com)
Fitness (no workouts); sports; food, cooking, and nutrition

Cathryne Keller, Lifestyle Director (cathryne_keller@condenast.com)
Wellness lifestyle (home, work, travel, and culture; mental well-being; beauty and skincare); and relationships (family, friendships, romantic love, and sex)

Abbey Stone, Commerce Director (abbey_stone@condenast.com)
Shopping-related pitches, including gift guides

Our editors will make every effort to respond to your pitch within seven days. If you do not hear from us in that time frame, please feel free to pitch your story elsewhere.

Our Pay Rates

We’re making an effort to standardize our rates as much as possible. Fees are subject to change, but currently, our rates start at $450 for short and quick news stories. Reported service stories start at $500; features start at $800. As a general rule, we may pay more based on the amount of reporting expected for the piece, turnaround time, and special expertise.

This article was originally published on August 5, 2020, and was updated on June 10, 2024, to reflect changes in content types and editors to pitch.

Originally Appeared on SELF

Latest Stories