Top Five Flaws in Magazine Article Submissions

When writing articles for magazines, you have to realize that the competition is fierce. You have dozens (if not hundreds) of authors who are vying for the same valuable magazine space. If you've found that most of your magazine articles come back with a rejection letters, you might be making a few mistakes that can easily be corrected. Aside from proper grammar, an interesting topic and the correct word count, there are five major flaws in many magazine article submissions.

Magazine Article Flaw #1. The introduction is too long.
Most people have a surprisingly short attention span, and if you take too long to get to the "meat" of an article, you could wind up with a rejection letter. The purpose of the introduction of a magazine article is too introduce the reader to your article's topic and to ease them into the tips, advice, instructions or information provided. If you're rambling on for five paragraphs, your readers (and the editor) will likely lose interest.

When crafting the introduction to your magazine article submission, keep background information and anecdotes to a minimum. One paragraph -- two, at most -- is sufficient to lead your reader into the important part of your article. If you find that you're going on and on, go back and start pruning your sentences until they are a reasonable length.

Magazine Article Flaw #2. The article explains "why" instead of "how".
The very act of writing a how-to article tells the reader that the subject of the article is important. You wouldn't be writing a magazine article unless your instructions were for something the reader needs to know. For that reason, try to gear your magazine article submissions to answering the question of "how" instead of the question of "why".

For example, don't tell the reader why they should purchase a riding lawn mower for their large property. Instead, give them steps on how to go about purchasing a riding lawn mower. Include brief reviews of the top lawn mowers on the market and the questions they should ask before purchasing. This gives the reader something to go on rather than leaving them asking, "What do I do now?"