How I pitched the stories I wrote this week

When I first started freelancing before I got a full-time position at Polygon, my favorite thing to do was to take off during the day — without letting anyone know — to bring my dog, Major, to the park. We’d sit in the grass and watch people pass on the nearby trail before I took him into the dog park to play with a group of sweet dogs we’d come to know from our daily visits. I’d chat with the people I’d become friendly with — who I knew only by their dogs’ names — about our lives and our animals. I met a man there who pulled out a brass fountain pen to write something down for me. I can’t remember what he was writing down; it may have been a book, or maybe even just his name. I’m so very grateful for that encounter. It’s why I love fountain pens so very much, and I’ve even got a brass fountain pen, the exact same one, of my own.

The shock of being laid off is starting to wear off, and I’m started to find a rhythm again with freelancing. Things are different this time around, though. Major is gone, and I no longer go to the dog park. But I’m still finding ways to leave behind my computer during the middle of the day — dodging the heat during public skate at the ice rink; walking around the neighborhood, coffee in hand, with my husband and our new pup; having lunch with my newly retired mother and my one-year-old nephew; or re-learning how to swim in a friend’s pool.

Unfortunately, I’m on a break from hockey for the next month or so. I dislocated my shoulder during a game — fighting for a puck up against the boards — and it tore my labrum and created an impaction fracture on my humeral head. Instead of playing hockey during the day, I’m now doing physical therapy to get better.

All of this is to say that I’ve been really busy over the past few weeks, and not only with writing. Working as a freelance journalist is very hard. But I’m trying to appreciate, every day, the flexibility it’s allowing me.

What I wrote this week, and how I pitched it

Because I missed last week, this is actually what I published this week and last week — and how I pitched those stories. I thought this would be a fun way to dive into the details of freelancing. My former co-worker and always friend Nicole Clark and I made a presentation for our former Polygon coworkers a few weeks ago, where we shared everything we’ve learned about freelancing and pitching stories. It’s been on my mind. I’m hoping this section will be helpful as a way to not only explain how to pitch, but to show what’s worked for me.

How one tiny gaming controller became an essential studying tool

Photo: Apoorva Sinha, via Endless Mode

Garrett Martin, who runs Paste Magazine’s new games website Endless Mode, reached out to me in May to ask if I wanted to contribute to the new website. Endless Mode covers all different sorts of kinds of play, which is why I decided to pitch this specific story to Garrett. It’s not totally games focused, but about how a game peripheral transcended game culture — it fit here because Endless Mode is not purely focused on video games, in my opinion. That sort of thing is something you’ll want to consider when you’re pitching. Make sure you’re pitching to both the right outlet and the right editor. Do research so you know what sort of stuff the outlet and section you’re pitching publishes. You don’t have to match the tone exactly, but pitch something that fits with what’s already there. Think of it this way: A business-focused publication isn’t going to pick up a story that’s player-focused, and an enthusiast site isn’t going to want something that’s so into the details of business deals.

Here’s exactly what I pitched to Garrett:

How one tiny controller became a studying icon: 8BitDo is known for its quality third-party peripherals, but one of its devices has made a big impact in an unlikely place — with students. Anki is a studying method that’s popular in med school and elsewhere. Basically it’s a fancy flashcard program. I’d like to map out the story of how an unlikely device (the super small Zero 2 or Micro controllers) became the hero of this super specific, but very large, studying community. I think it’s an interesting story of an unmet need (an easy way to control the Anki programs) and how the community tinkered to meet it.

The caveat here is that this pitch is a little more casual than I’d go on a cold email. I’d worked with Paste Magazine before, so Garrett is familiar with my work. But it has the general structure of how I’d approach a cold email pitch. This is how I might change it, if it was a “normal” cold pitch email:

Hi there,

My name is Nicole Carpenter and I’m a reporter covering the video game industry. I’m writing to you with a pitch I think would be a great fit for Endless Mode: “How one tiny controller became a studying icon.” It’s a story about an unlikely hero for aspiring doctors — 8BitDo’s micro controllers.

8BitDo is known for its quality third-party peripherals, but one of its devices has made a big impact in an unlikely place — with medical school students. Anki is a studying method that’s popular among students. Basically, it’s a fancy flashcard program. For Endless Mode, I’d like to map out the story of how an unlikely device (the super small Zero 2 or Micro controllers) became the hero of this super specific, but very large, studying community. I think it’s an interesting, untold story of an unmet need (an easy way to control the Anki programs) and how the community tinkered to make the perfect tool.

For the story, I’ll interview Anki users who use 8BitDo controllers to study. Through these interviews, and pulling in other research, I’ll explain what Anki is and why students love it — and why/how the 8BitDo controller rose to such prominence. I’ll also reach out to both 8BitDo and the creator of Anki for their perspective.

From here, I’d end on some links to stories that demonstrate that I can deliver on the promises I’ve made in the pitch. This is a really important step: Make sure you’re including one to three clips that demonstrate your ability. If you’re pitching a reported story, include reported clips. If you’re pitching criticism, show you can do criticism.

Star Wars Battlefront 2 is more popular than ever thanks to a dedicated fan community

Image: Electronic Arts

I write roughly two stories a week for Aftermath, so pitching happens more casually in Slack. Instead of talking about what, exactly, I wrote to pitch this story, I’ll walk through my thinking. I came to this story a little late in the news cycle; other reporters had already covered the massive player increase in Star Wars Battlefront 2. I knew I was late coming into it, so I knew I had to move the story forward in some way. I reached out to Electronic Arts to ask about the resurgence, but they didn’t get back to me. I also reached out to Kyber, the mod and server community that was supporting the game, and they wanted to chat. It was enough of a hook — the new details from the interview — to make it worth writing about even after the news cycle had seemingly moved on. It was no longer a story just about a resurgence in the game’s player numbers, but about how and why.

With Anthem’s impending server shutdown, I’m trying it for the first time

Image: Electronic Arts

Again for Aftermath, and again I was approaching a story that I was somewhat late to. The server shutdown was announced last week, and I pitched this story on Monday. It went up on Wednesday. Again, I didn’t want to just write about the news that the servers are shutting down. Everyone had already written that. One thing I kept seeing around the headlines was people surprised that Anthem’s servers weren’t already shut down. So, I decided to see if I could speak to players who have been there all along. I did — but also found people who decided quite recently to give it a try for the first time. I decided to do that, too. It’s a slight perspective shift — focusing on what it’s like to play the game in its dying days — that makes this story interesting.

Trump funding cuts ‘devastate’ video game research and development

Photo: The Strong National Museum of Play

This is the first of a twice monthly column I’ll be writing at Game Developer. I’m excited! There were lots of times at Polygon where I pitched stories that got turned down for being too business-y. (And that makes sense! Polygon is player focused.) It’s cool to be able to really lean into that side of things with this column. This is another story where I pitched more casually, on a call with Chris Kerr, who edited the piece. I had seen that Game Developer that the Strong Museum had a grant cut by the federal government and had been thinking they must not be alone there. Unfortunately, that instinct was right. I found a bunch of other researchers and institutions that had their grants cut. (I found them by looking at databases of grants that were cut and reached out to a lot of people.)

Cozy video games are on an unstoppable rise

Image: Numskull Games

This story is about the rise of cozy games, a genre that keeps getting bigger and bigger. I pitched this to Keza MacDonald at The Guardian with a much smaller scope, actually — about a trend I’d noticed among games that could be considered somewhat cozy. But Keza came back to me with a different, but related idea: The Guardian hadn’t yet covered the proliferation of cozy games as a genre, and its readers could benefit from a piece that covers how and why cozy games are so popular. This is a good example of making sure pitches fit the outlet; what I pitched was a little niche for The Guardian, which has a readership that’s quite different from a place like IGN or GameSpot — people who are very dialed into games and trends. I’m grateful that Keza was willing to tweak the pitch with me to make it fit for a more general readership.

Plushie maker suing over ‘emotional support chicken nuggets’

Photo: What Do You Meme

I love a silly lawsuit. I found this new filing this morning and wrote about it for Aftermath. I just think emotional support chicken nuggets heading to court is funny — similarly amusing as the legal battle between Squishmallow maker Kelly Toys and Build-A-Bear. I mentioned this earlier, but because I write weekly for Aftermath, I pitch a lot more casually. This one I pitched as a scoop about the lawsuit, but a story that hinged on explaining the context and popularity about these sorts of plush toys.

Freelancing in June and looking forward to July

Monthly, I’ll do a quick rundown of the numbers for the prior month. I wrote about this in my first issue, but in May, I had 16 pitches picked up. All of them have been published so far, except for two, which should be published soon. In June, I had 18 pitches accepted, and two have yet to be published. One is still in edits. Though I had two more pitches picked up, I made $1,500 less than May. That’s just how it ends up working out, I suppose.

My highest paying gig in June will earn me $700, for a story that hasn’t been published yet. It’s a reported story with multiple interviews and will be around 2,500+ words. My lowest paying job was a blurb, about 150 words, for $50. I haven’t done the math, but the average I was paid per story in June seems to be around $200.

Looking forward to July, I’ve got nine stories on the books so far. Three have already been published. I’m planning on taking an entire week off in July, so I’m not sure that I’ll be pitching much more than what I’ve already got on the books, aside from stories at Aftermath, where I write weekly.

I’ll give you all an update next week on how things are looking mid-July. And, as always, if there’s a freelancing topic you’d like me to cover, please let me know!