/ed·i·tuh in rez·i·dense/ · noun
- 1. Me – the editor who used to decide which pitches got published, and now helps you get yours across the line. See also: your editorial double agent.
- 2. An editor brought in for a good time, not a long time, who arrives with a red pen and leaves behind better copy.
- 3. informal. Your freelance editor on the inside, who tells you what the desk will say before it gets the chance.
Origin: from artist in residence. Less paint, more track changes.
Eliza Campbell knows a good pitch*
(*and isn't afraid to ask)
Most brands and PR agencies think getting a pitch across the line comes down to what the editor likes. They're wrong. It's about what that editor's audience likes – and it's an editor's job to know exactly what that looks like.
I wish choosing pitches came down to what I personally find interesting. Wouldn't that be nice?
For the better part of a decade I sat on the other side of your inbox – at Halliday Wine Companion, Time Out Melbourne and Concrete Playground nationally – reading 80-odd pitches a day and running very few.
A modern editorial team lives and dies by data and conversion. Every story has to earn maximum reach and engagement, because that's what turns into commercial opportunity. Keep that in mind every time you write a pitch.
Understanding how publishing works also means understanding the limits of the team you're pitching to: how many writers they have, what they can shoot, how fast they can turn a story around. If your pitches, exclusives and assets aren't tailored to that, you're doing yourself a disservice.
Want to know what goes on in the mind of an editor? I'll lend you mine.
I took Concrete Playground from meh to cool in 18 months.
The receipts:
For years I was the yes (and, far more often, the no). Now I'm the double agent in your corner.
Social figures compare my first 18 months at Concrete Playground with the 18 months before.
Residencies run for three months or more, and one-off jobs are billed by the hour. Want an editor on your side of the inbox?
Write to me at [email protected] or find me on Instagram at @editor.inresidence.
Synonyms: double agent; former gatekeeper; the one who reads it first. Antonyms: agency; “We are thrilled to announce”.