Racked Made an Open Call for Pitches. Here’s What They Want

Fashion writers, rejoice.

Racked recently relaunched in February, and as editor-in-chief Leslie Price said, “There’s never been a better time to be a fashion writer.” No better time, indeed. Racked has begun publishing op-eds and personal essays, and two months ago, the publication made an open call for pitches.

The site started as a city-specific shopping guide in 2007, but its recent acquisition by Vox Media has led it in new directions with multimedia projects and more editorial pieces. Price and long-time editor Izzy Grinspan now head the operation, keeping Racked devoted to its original audience.

In the past, The Atlantic and Gothamist have made similar open calls for freelance pitches, and we provided insight from the editors about how to improve your chances of getting published. Keeping with that trend, we sat down with Racked Executive Editor Izzy Grinspan to talk about what freelancers can do to get a byline.

1. You recently became the executive editor after Racked’s relaunch, and the call for pitches came shortly after. I doubt that’s a coincidence.

I’ve been with Racked for a long time. When we came on board at Vox Media, we decided to focus on the national site. I have a hand in the individual city sites, but what I’m really doing is steering the direction of the national site, and in particular, overseeing op-eds and personal essays.

Personally, I love this. It’s stuff we could never really do on Racked NY as a news site where the emphasis was on service and making things happen really quickly. It was old-fashioned blogging—I was doing 12 posts a day. It’s been really nice to sit back and do a totally different kind of Internet.

2. How has the response been to your open call?

It’s been great. We just ran a story by a writer who wore a wig to fashion week about how guilty she felt about faking all-natural hair. She just came in over the wire, and it was exciting to have this awesome young writer just appear.

3. I saw your tweet about the Night’s Watch. What is it like vetting the pitches?

I feel a really strong obligation to our readership because there’s a lot of bad fashion writing out there. Some people think you just need a little text to accompany some pretty pictures, and I want to make sure we’re taking the text as seriously as the imagery. I sometimes feel like I’m protecting the audience from bad writing, but I also feel protective of the writers. I want to make them sound great and make sure the audience appreciates them. I want to elevate the whole enterprise.

I’ve been so thrilled with the quality of the submissions that we’ve been getting—that was a slightly crashing tweet. Writing about fashion and beauty is so complicated because you’re talking about identity. And when you’re editing, you’re always talking to people about these incredibly personal things. Part of the challenge—and I love this—is pushing people to question things but at the same time, I want an honest world view.

4. Do writers ever contact you over social media? Are you open to that?

Yes. That’s totally fine with me. I don’t love being contacted over LinkedIn, because I hate LinkedIn. I honestly don’t care how you get in touch with me. If you have a good idea, I just want to hear from you.

5. When you get the pitches, do you do any sort of research on the writers?

Yeah, I want to make sure they’re good writers. I look up clips and I look at people’s Twitter feeds to look at their sensibilities. I want to know, are you looking at things in new and creative ways? And are you funny? You don’t have to be funny, but it certainly doesn’t hurt.

6. What are some common errors you’ve seen in the pitches?

In terms of personal essays, people are always starting with their childhoods. My feeling is, unless your childhood was really, really crazy, it’s probably not the best place to start. Our readers are adults, and they want people who are talking to them about where they are. The tutu you might have loved when you were six might not necessarily inform the current trend that’s affecting your life. [The Hip-Hop and feminism article] was a beautiful exception to that rule.

For opinion writing—and I did this as a freelancer all the time—saying “I want to write a story about this cultural phenomenon, and what does it mean?” [isn’t specific enough]. What I’m really looking for is for you to tell me what it means.

At this point, I have the time to write back and ask the writer to explain. I want to write back to people, but having a fully formed thesis before you email, if you’re going to be making an argument, is really important.

I also go back and forth with the writers to develop things. I tend to sort pitches as soon as I get them into “yes,” “maybe,” and “no” folders. Almost nothing goes into “no” because I always feel bad and I always want to think through whether or not there’s a way we can make it work. Then I go through my “maybe” folder and figure out who I can work with and if there’s something there or if something will not fit for us.

7. It’s incredible that you’re still able to respond to writers and work with them. What is the volume of incoming pitches?

The volume is not crazy right now. My calendar is planned a month out at this point—it’s three stories per week. I’m also getting a giant firehose of pitches from publicists, and that is impossible to deal with. I would not be able to get through them if there were five of me. So I’ve seen the volume of pitches from the industry, and if pitches from writers ever get to that point, I would have to come up with a new strategy.

We just relaunched, and it will grow. But I feel like we’re in a nice place right now.

8. Can you discuss rates for the freelance pieces?

I can’t give direct numbers, but we go based on experience. We definitely believe in compensating people. It’s commensurate with what I’ve gotten paid as a writer at other places. You get what you pay for, so I want to make sure people are getting fairly paid for the amount of time and effort they’re putting in.

9. As a former freelancer, do you have any advice for freelancers?

The most important thing is to have a niche. It’s really helpful to have an area of expertise. For me, it was fashion, and it was easy to tell the editors that I knew fashion because I have the contacts.

The other thing is don’t get discouraged. You have to have a thick skin. People are going to say “no” a lot, and you can’t take it personally. I’ve been rejected from a publication and gone back with another idea and gotten accepted.