Eleanor Cummins wants your rejected pitches
Stories have another chance in "We'll Have to Pass"
“We’ll have to pass,” are four words freelance writers know all too well. It’s the go-to response from editors who are always too busy to tell you why they aren’t interested in your pitch. It’s polite and a little cold and can tip over a domino string of self-doubt in any writer who is sensitive to rejection. (That’s all of us, right?)
So when I first saw the name of Eleanor Cummins’s new newsletter/publication, my heart sank a little. So many stories have died at the end of those four words.
But Eleanor is offering writers a chance to give life to previously rejected pitches. She launched We’ll Have to Pass to publish the stories writers have pitched again and again and just can’t place—even though we KNOW they’d be good. And while she has to pass on some of these, too, the concept seems to be an exciting practice in looking closer for the stories that should be told.
I was so excited when I heard about Eleanor’s idea for We’ll Have to Pass, and I was even more excited to hear that she’s now accepting some those pitches you haven’t been able to place elsewhere.
Not only is Eleanor the creator of this unique monthly publication, she’s also a former editor at Popular Science and now a freelance writer with bylines in The New Republic, The Atlantic, Vice, Slate, and many more. So I got to ask Eleanor about her exciting new venture and the role rejection has played in her own freelance writing career.
Writers, meet Eleanor!
I think all freelance writers can agree We'll Have to Pass is a great idea. But what motivated you to actually follow through on this and make it happen?
I love an experiment. This summer, I did a book club on the history of journalism, purely because it was a topic I felt I didn't know enough about, and I thought other people might feel similarly.
I think I'm also easy to egg on. I'd been joking around with my friend and colleague, Marion Renault, about starting an outlet for all those ideas writers love that editors seem to hate. She proposed the name We'll Have to Pass on a socially-distanced coffee date and, wanting to honor her brilliance, I tweeted about it. I thought my friends would sprinkle on a few likes, but it quickly spiraled out, with thousands of engagements. I figured if it really tapped into something, and people wanted to support it, we might as well give it a shot.
Can you give us an overview of how this will work? How are you picking stories? How often are you publishing? How are writers being paid?
Trying to make this thing operational has been harder than I anticipated. Right now, We'll Have to Pass is publishing one story a month. It's really all I can handle, both financially and editorially. I wanted to establish a floor for payments, with every writer making at least $100. I'm personally guaranteeing that at the moment. But the idea is that writers will ultimately receive the net income from that month's issue — after the photographers and illustrators (and, eventually, editors!) have been paid — and the proceeds of any Tip Jar contributions readers make to them directly. My hope is that, as this project grows, that will amount to much more than $100.
As for sorting through pitches, the first two pieces — Patrick Sauer's incredible oral history on the McCarren Park Pool Parties and a forthcoming story by Lauren Sloss on sailing the Pacific in the pandemic — were killed by other outlets. I felt the writers' visions were really clear, and I could do something tangible just by creating a space for them to publish their work. But going forward, I am commissioning original work, and I'm selecting those based on the difficulty the writer has had placing it elsewhere, their passion for the topic, and the novelty of the story. Obviously, with such limited bandwidth, I unfortunately "have to pass" on a lot of great ideas—though I would never use that language, and try to provide concrete suggestions for other outlets or editors that might be interested.
Tell us about a particularly difficult or memorable rejection in your own writing career. What happened to that story?
I've been obsessed for, like, three years with toilet seat covers—those plastic or paper "sanitary" sheets in public restrooms. They serve no real purpose, at least in the sense that probably zero people have ever contracted a disease from direct contact with a toilet seat. They emerged in part due to social stigma around syphilis. They are environmental disasters. And yet the psychology behind them is so strong that we continue using them—this, in a pandemic where plenty of people are refusing to wear masks. I've gotten positive feedback from a few outlets, but still to this day have not been able to sell the piece, which is always on my mind. I think that makes it the quintessential We'll Have to Pass story and, honestly, it might end up there soon!
Are there certain types of stories that you think are just unavoidably difficult to pitch and place? Despite potentially being great stories?
This is a great question, and something I'm constantly trying to game out. Obviously, editors are loath to give a second life to a killed story, which I think is a shame. Anything outside of the news cycle will always be a tougher sell. And once you're out of the news cycle, an idea-driven piece seems to be harder than something grounded in characters and a real sense of place.
These challenges are only exacerbated by media consolidation: The fewer publications we have, the narrower the range of sellable stories. The more turnover at the remaining outlets, the fewer editors there are with the institutional power to take a big swing. And so on.
There is SO MUCH pitch advice out there. I think sometimes we forget to point out that our pitches aren't always the problem. The problem is often the budget, or the bandwidth of the overworked editor, or the industry at large. But our pitches are one of the few things we can control as freelancers... so do you have any pitching advice for placing more stories?
So true! If you are passionate about a pitch, and maintain that over months or even years of rejection, there's almost certainly a good idea there, the stars just haven't aligned.
I think there's something to be said for jumping on surefire pitches—the overlooked angle on the news is how I make most of my money. When the inspiration strikes, you just have to act fast.
For more precious pitches, persistence is key, but we should all be aggressively retooling our pitches after each rejection. Look for opportunities to bolster your points with new developments, incorporate feedback from friends and peers, and if you have interviews for other, related stories, ask your source a question or two that might further flesh out your concept. My "unsellable" story ideas change a lot over time (all of which I track in a document dedicated to the pitch concept), but I think that is a reflection of the idea maturing. Hopefully, it all moves you closer to landing an assignment.
If you're at the end of your rope, it's totally fine to cut your losses. You may find a new relevance—and passion—for the piece down the line. But if you want to get it off your plate ASAP, it often pays to break one big idea down into smaller pieces that an outlet will more readily assign.
You have an impressive collection of bylines in publications including The New Republic, Self, The Guardian, Popular Science and lots more. What is your own pitch process like? How has your pitch/rejection rate changed over the years for you?
I started freelancing last August, after leaving my job at Popular Science. From the beginning, my goal was to carve out more time to tend the weird garden of ideas growing in my head. Most of the time, I arrive at my stories through slow accretion of material that suddenly—magically—aligns with the news cycle. I try to read things other people aren't, like old books, archived magazines, or weird scientific articles. I like to go to museums and historical societies and random lectures (at least when such things were possible). I am a big believer in following up on the offhand remark. I keep all of these kernels in a big document called "MASTERLIST: Story Ideas," and pluck from it whenever the opportunity arises. But my firsthand experience is almost always cut out of the pitch, which aims to convey the story as succinctly as possible, without losing the luster of the now-hidden "writer's journey." Essentially, I pitch my findings, but try to imbue it with the enthusiasm that led me there.
The pandemic has upended any processes I'd previously had in place. Early on, things were moving fast, and March, April, and part of May were a flurry of work. As budgets dried up over the summer, I got hit by a crushing sense of burnout. None of my pitches seemed to land, but I sensed I probably wouldn't be able to execute an assignment to the best of my abilities anyway. While my brain has started to feel better this fall, I haven't been pitching much at all, and instead have been focused on taking assignments. I think that will change soon, though. I can feel a few latent ideas finally blooming.
What is something you've learned along the way that's helped make freelance writing a sustainable career for you?
I try to separate myself from my LLC. Following up on emails is hard, getting rejected sucks, tracking down payments is awful. And it's all the worse because it feels so personal—like you are being rejected, ghosted on, or devalued. But at the end of the day, it's about the work. So when I have to have a tough conversation, or do anything else I really don't want to do, I try to approach it as though it's my business reaching out to another business. Dry, direct, and, ultimately, not really about me.
Are you worried about the future financial sustainability of freelance writing as a career? What gives you hope?
Absolutely. I feel like we're all always teetering on the brink of collapse, each of us individually and as a profession. But seeing other people find new ways to share their stories—like Defector, Discourse Blog, the OptOut network, or even my own hometown zine, Tumbleweird—and watching readers respond to those efforts with enthusiasm and actual money, has definitely given me hope. Whatever happens to We'll Have to Pass, I'm incredibly proud we're finding a way to get these first few stories the audience they deserve.
What is one story you've written that you're particularly proud of and why? What was the pitch process like for that one?
My biggest accomplishment this year is a story I wrote for The New Republic about the relationship between climate anxiety and the wellness industry. This is an idea I'd been nursing for the better part of 2019 and I pitched the editor, the incredible Heather Souvaine Horn, in a job interview. I didn't get the position, but she seemed interested in my ideas more generally, and we stayed in touch in my capacity as a freelancer. When I finally felt ready to sit down and write this piece, I reached out with just a one paragraph summary of what we'd previously discussed, and she let me run with it. I'm really grateful for that.
That’s all for today friends. A big thank you to Eleanor for sharing all of that helpful insight!
And if you’d like a little less rejection in your life, consider signing up as a paid subscriber to One More Question. You’ll receive monthly pitch feedback from me and weekly writing opportunities so you can make sure those pitches are going to editors who want them! Subscribers also receive my Ultimate Pitch Tracker for tracking and placing more pithes and a big list of 60+ editor contacts.
Stay inspired,
Britany