14 Pitch Calls Paying $50→$1,350
Where to Pitch This Week (4.25.25) | Pitches wanted on running, fashion, nepotism, and more!
I’m so excited to bring you our new columnist, !
I first came across Catherine’s work when I saw this post from her Substack while randomly scrolling through Notes (which is usually a mildly annoying experience, but then sometimes you find gold, sigh).
I found her writing style electric and funny, leaving me wanting more in the very best way. I reached out to interview her (which you’ll all get to see very soon!) and we got talkin’ more and, well. I decided to go all in and ask her if she’d like to work together in a more ongoing way aaannd here we are!
So, without further ado, I’ll hand it off to Catherine!
Hey everyone,
For a long time, I had two jobs. One in email marketing. The other, freelance journalism. Because I am a genius, quick on the draw, it only took me about five years to spot the overlap—how pitching runs on the same lines as email marketing “best practices.” Two key elements have an outsized impact on your results.
Your subject line
Your send time
Are these unglamorous concerns, far removed from the world of The Paris Review, Guernica, or louche, gauzy fantasies about the writing life? For sure. But they matter. Spending time on them might help you get into the pages of your dream publication.
Your Subject Line
This matters so much because it gets you past your first, toughest obstacle, which is being read at all. Editors’ inboxes overfloweth. Freelancers crowd in there. So do PR shills. And being editors, they probably subscribe to even more publications than you and I, which is saying something. Unless your subject line is seriously grabby, demanding to be opened and read, you might be finished before you’ve started.
So while it may seem illogical at first to spend longer on your subject line than you do on your entire pitch, it actually makes sense. Your subject line is beachfront property, real estate too good to waste. It makes sense to labor over it and run it past friends—maybe try it out in Notes or Threads first.
Your Send Time
Send times are nearly as crucial. Before the pandemic finally scrambled everyone’s working life—back when schedules were more predictable—I saw reams of data suggesting that the two most valuable slots for email sends were Tuesday and Saturday mornings between 9:30 and 11:30, a phenomenon I came to think of as “after caffeine, before chaos.” A sacred window when inboxes soften, attention expands, and the editor becomes briefly one with the pitch. A golden hour of freelance opportunity. Why Tuesdays and Saturdays? Because people have more mental space at such times. Not so much Monday firefighting. Not so much Friday brain death.
I became religious about Tuesday mornings with my own pitches. Unless I had a news hook that couldn’t wait, I never pitched any other time. It’s 2025 now, and—for better or worse—everyone’s life makes less sense than it used to. These days, I’m more open-minded about send times, but the rule remains. Thinking through when your prospect is most likely to be at their desk or on their phone reading emails is a good thing to do. Do you want to drive when roads are clear or plow straight into a snowbank of unread email? Such is the difference between the most promising time and the least.
Do you like grimly practical concerns like these?? Do they spark joy for you??? Come sit next to me. I’ll be writing Where to Pitch This Week for the next while and I look forward to helping you apply market logic to your writing dreams helping you get your pitches noticed, responded to, and accepted.
Where to Pitch This Week: New Paid Writing Opportunities
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