Thirty years ago, if you wanted to get an article published in The Atlantic Monthly your strategy would’ve been simple: write an article, type out a cover letter, fold the pages, and stuff in an envelope.
Lick a stamp and drop in the postal bin.
If you were lucky, sixteen weeks later you would have received a reply that went something like this: “Thanks, but no thanks.”
You’d be left on your own to figure out what went wrong. Was it the spelling? Lame idea? Poor execution? All of the above, certainly, but in the end it would boil down toauthority. Swagger. Did you have any?
If you were like me, the answer is no. You were only eleven years old and still chewing on crayons. You had some work to do.
We all start at the bottom
Your first objective: get something published in a local magazine. Let’s hope after a few tries you do. And after a year you’ve got ten articles to your name in the county paper and two town papers.
People in the street say things to you like, “I read your article in the newspaper.” You beam with joy.
The Guest Blogging Approach You Should’ve Been Using All Along
