Copyright 2003 by Scott Hays
Magazine: ASJA Monthly
Topic: Writing for Men’s Health & Fitness Magazines
Byline: Scott Hays

Last year I received an assignment from Men’s Health for a piece on busy executives—the governor of New Mexico, a billionaire CEO, a TV talk-show host. Men who had as much, or more, on their plates as the rest of us, but who also took time to stay in shape. “These aren’t typical men,” read the introduction. “But then, neither are you. Find yourself in the profiles here, then steal their tricks, try out their tips, and toss the old time-crunch excuse forever.”

This wasn’t the first piece I’d written for a men’s health, fitness, and lifestyle magazine. Over the years I’d also placed a number of articles with Muscle & Fitness and Men’s Fitness, among others. Now I’m not a bodybuilder, or even a fitness buff. I just realized early in my writing career that the health-and-fitness market, though demanding, is popular with both readers and writers, and offers good opportunities for freelancers.

The Men’s Health assignment arrived as a result of a 20-year friendship with the magazine’s fitness director, Lou Schuler. He and I first butted heads in the 1980s, when he served as editor of a regional magazine in Orange County, California. He ripped into a story I’d submitted to his magazine, and I invited him to lunch to learn how to deal with rejection from an editor I respected.

It was the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

The Big Secret
Most of us know at least a little bit about what it means to be healthy and fit. And that may be enough to get your byline into one of the national men’s health, fitness, and lifestyle magazines. Too, many of these magazines offer stories on alternative healing and therapies, including medicinal herbs, health foods, and holistic mind/body strategies.

Razor, for example, is a growing men’s health, fitness, and lifestyle magazine that buys freelance articles on fashion, culture, technology, and all things “shockingly new.” Outside inspires men to lead “fuller, more rewarding” lives through year-round coverage of participatory sports such as hiking, biking, and adventure travel. Men’s Journal is “the ideal playtime resource for men.” Other magazines in this category include Gear, FHM (For Him Magazine), Flex and Details. There are also specialty publications for runners, jet skiers, boxers, and the like.

“I receive thirty to forty queries every day,” says Craig Vasiloff, editor-in-chief for Razor. “We buy maybe ten freelance articles per issue. And even though we’re a lifestyle magazine, with a focus on men not boys, any pitch that comes with the word 'sex’ in the headline goes immediately into the trash.

“I look for investigative pieces, story ideas that show the writer has put some work into it. What defeats most writers is they assume we’re the same as every other men’s magazine. Unless they put research into understanding our magazine, they’re just going to shoot themselves in the foot.”

It’s not even always necessary for the writing voice or point-of-view to be male, even with magazines where the readership is way north of 80 percent men.

“As a successful and profitable advertising medium, we are gender neutral when it comes to contributors,” says Outside Editor Hal Espen. “Good writers bring their whole repertoire and point-of-view to bear on the subject. So there’s no worry for women coming to us for ideas.”

Although many of these magazines prefer writers who are “experts” in their fields, that shouldn’t stop you from pitching ideas. Experience is valued, not required. Some editors prefer to work with established writers, but most are open to professional submissions and creative story ideas from any writer, especially one with a unique style or voice.

“Often, we’ll come up with the idea and then contact the writer,” says Jerry Kindela, editor-in-chief of Men’s Fitness. “The writer then has to come up with his own sources, using accredited individuals. However, I’m not against people contributing ideas, assuming that they display in the query an understanding of our magazine and the story concept they’re trying to pitch.”

Health, fitness, and lifestyle articles can cover anything from great toys for men to leisure-time activities. A grasp of what’s new is helpful. There are innovations in these areas all the time: unorthodox workouts, new ways to burn calories, salad-bar survival hints, hangover cures, tips to a lifetime of great sex. It’s not enough to write about how you lost 30 pounds on a low-carb, high-protein diet (unless it’s an inspirational piece). Better you find the experts who can speak on the benefits and dangers of a low-carb, high-protein diet.

“Our definition of health extends beyond the purely physical to include the challenge and paradoxes of how a man feels about work, women, sex, beer, cars, and himself,” says Schuler of Men’s Health “To provide this sort of detailed information is usually beyond the accumulated knowledge of most freelance writers. That’s why we rely so heavily on experts. The job of a freelance writer is to find these experts, distill their knowledge, and then convey it to the reader in an accurate and entertaining form.”

Never expect to “scoop” your editors, who maintain an extensive network of trainers and nutritionists, and scan the medical journals and wires daily. But so long as your pitch promises to provide the reader with a timely topic and useful information, the editor will consider your story ideas.

Most of these publications pay roughly one dollar a word for new writers, depending on such things as research time, number of interviews, and deadline. All will pay more after you’ve worked with them for a while.

Freelance writers should know a magazine front to back. Once you understand a publication’s brand, you can produce a carefully written, informative query on an appropriate topic. Make sure your query will grab the editor’s attention in just a few words. Dig deep. Consult experts. Find facts to support your query. Provide the editor with something you possess that more experienced health writers don’t: personal experience, a unique voice, a local story the national press hasn’t discovered, access to inside information. Editors look for writers they can trust to deliver carefully reasoned and researched articles.

If you can marshal clips from major national magazines, send them. If you can’t, don’t worry. Editors will still notice you, for two reasons: your ideas, and your writing skills. Without a track record, your query becomes the only way to showcase your facility with the language. Make it count.

“If the first sentence of a query begins with 'My name is John Smith,” or there’s a line in there about how this particular idea is going to sell more issues, those go straight into the garbage,” says Kindela of Men’s Fitness. “Most editors look for quality of idea, an understanding of the magazine and the material you’re pitching, and the rhythm, pace and structure of the writing itself.”

Outside magazine also remains open to freelancers. “In fact, we depend on freelance writers,” says Espen of Outside. Despite a distinguished roster of contributing editors, the adventurousness of stories in Outside means the magazine remains wide-open to the “alert, enterprising freelancer who’s going to bring to our attention a story or person or breaking issue that we’ve somehow missed,” says Espen. “We still read unsolicited story ideas and manuscripts. And we’re quick to winnow out submissions that portray any lack of awareness about our magazine’s mission or the types of stories we cover. And sadly, the majority of submissions have that sense that the writers are more enchanted with their own writing style than with quality story ideas.”

Negotiating the Maze
You must also direct your pitch to the appropriate editor. A lot of people who want to write for health-and-fitness magazines start too high in the pecking order, says Schuler. “Our magazine has a circulation of 1.65 million, we have a worldwide brand where we publish in more than 20 languages, more than two dozen countries. We have our own line of books and an extensive online presence. This is a huge operation, which means a freelance writer has more hurdles to overcome to get inside.”

It’s often easier to break into a new magazine with a smaller, front-of-the-book department piece, rather than a feature. The editors of these sections are almost always looking for material. The hardest sections to crack in Men’s Health, for example, are those on nutrition and fitness. “It would be endless frustration for a freelancer to try and break into something that’s so core to our magazine. A story on abdominal muscle? It’s just not going to happen,” adds Schuler.

Schuler recommends freelancers approaching his magazine start with the “Male Gram” section.

Kindela of Men’s Fitness recommends freelancers approaching his magazine start with one of the departments—fitness, training, health, flexibility, energy. “I prefer the query go to the individual editors, not directly to me,” Kindela adds. “You want to pitch a fitness idea, go to the fitness editor. And whatever you do, make sure you put Men’s Fitness on your query, and not some other magazine. Happens all the time.”

Espen of Outside also recommends freelancers approaching his magazine start with one of the departments—Disptaches (news stories), Destination (short travel tips with an adventurous edge), Body Work (the magazine’s fitness section), and Review (gear equipment and hardware).

The Path to Glory
A freelance writer can choose an easier path than contributing to Men’s Health or Men’s Fitness or Details. These magazines expect a lot from their writers. That requires effort. If you think two interviews will be enough, do four. You may end up quoting only one person in your finished article, but if you’ve talked to half a dozen, your piece will be stronger for it. Give a little extra, and it will show. And make the fact-checkers’ job easier. Provide names and phone numbers, copies of studies, research materials, anything you used in crafting your article.

“Look at how densely-packed the information is in our magazine,” says Schuler. “A freelance writer is never going to have three to four paragraphs to be funny or entertaining. We hire writers who can give us information that’s tightly packed. There’s a referenced, useful fact in every paragraph. That’s our style, our brand.”

Espen says freelance writers pitching a new magazine should save their “subjective, self-expressive” writing for later in their careers. “Freelance writers should really attempt with total empathy to put themselves in the editor’s shoes and figure how to crack the code by coming up with ideas that make that editor look good for his boss.”

Health, fitness, and lifestyle writing is not for wimps. Editors can be cranky and critical. Sometimes they’re justified. Sometimes they’re not. Stay focused. One of the toughest aspects of freelancing is learning to deal with rejection. When a submission is returned, check your file folder for potential new markets. Cross off the market that rejected the idea, and immediately mail an appropriate submission to the next market. The key to surviving rejection is to remember that it’s not a personal attack, merely a judgment about the worth of your work for that particular market, at that particular time. Often editors reject stories simply because they don’t have the budget, or because they’re in a bad mood.

There’s an extensive editing process at all national and international men’s health and fitness magazines. And let me say this about that: as someone who has been extensively edited, your ego definitely recovers when you finally see your byline in a national magazine like Men’s Health or Men’s Fitness.