Categories: Marketing

Top Five Flaws in Magazine Article Submissions

When writing articles for magazines, you have to realize that the competition is fierce. You have dozens (if not hundreds) of authors who are vying for the same valuable magazine space. If you’ve found that most of your magazine articles come back with a rejection letters, you might be making a few mistakes that can easily be corrected. Aside from proper grammar, an interesting topic and the correct word count, there are five major flaws in many magazine article submissions.

Magazine Article Flaw #1. The introduction is too long.
Most people have a surprisingly short attention span, and if you take too long to get to the “meat” of an article, you could wind up with a rejection letter. The purpose of the introduction of a magazine article is too introduce the reader to your article’s topic and to ease them into the tips, advice, instructions or information provided. If you’re rambling on for five paragraphs, your readers (and the editor) will likely lose interest.

When crafting the introduction to your magazine article submission, keep background information and anecdotes to a minimum. One paragraph — two, at most — is sufficient to lead your reader into the important part of your article. If you find that you’re going on and on, go back and start pruning your sentences until they are a reasonable length.

Magazine Article Flaw #2. The article explains “why” instead of “how”.
The very act of writing a how-to article tells the reader that the subject of the article is important. You wouldn’t be writing a magazine article unless your instructions were for something the reader needs to know. For that reason, try to gear your magazine article submissions to answering the question of “how” instead of the question of “why”.

For example, don’t tell the reader why they should purchase a riding lawn mower for their large property. Instead, give them steps on how to go about purchasing a riding lawn mower. Include brief reviews of the top lawn mowers on the market and the questions they should ask before purchasing. This gives the reader something to go on rather than leaving them asking, “What do I do now?”

Magazine Article Flaw #3. The article lacks focus.
Magazine articles must be tightly focused in order to captivate editors and readers. The article should deliver exactly what the title promises and should never go off on “mini-tangents”. The editor of a magazine is far more likely to throw out an article that’s too broad than to return an article that has too much focus. As long as you can get the minimum word count, you’re doing just fine.

To focus your article, look at the title or topic after every bullet point or subhead. Remind yourself why you are writing the article and why your intended audience would want to read it. If you find that you’re going off-topic, read back through and eliminate extraneous text that moves away from your focus.

Magazine Article Flaw #4. The article lacks organization

The organization of your article — how it flows from one point to the next — is crucial to understand. There are several different ways you can organize a magazine article, but make sure you stay consistent throughout the manuscript. For example, if you’re writing chronologically, don’t jump from past to present to future. The same thing goes for an article that includes steps — make sure that the steps move in sequential order.

If you have trouble with structuring your magazine article, have someone else read it and ask if it makes sense. If not, reorganize the article until the structure is clear and focused.

Magazine Article Flaw #5: The article lacks a conclusion.

I’m guilty of this myself, as one reader pointed out in the “Comments” section of an article I wrote a few months ago. Try not to end your article abruptly when you’ve delivered all of the necessary information. Leave your reader on a satisfying note by concluding your article succinctly. A sentence or two is all it takes to wrap up the information you’ve delivered, and the reader will come away feeling like they got something from your article.

Magazine article submissions can be wonderful and still be rejected for one of the flaws listed above. Thankfully, however, they’re easy enough to correct if you know how to scrutinize your articles with a critical eye. Try employing some of the tips given above and then resubmit your rejected pieces.