Fees: The magazine pays up to $2 a word for features ranging between 1,000 and 2,000 words. The digital site typically pays a few hundred dollars per piece.
Submit to: Marisa Cohen at marisa.cohen@hearst.com or Kaitlyn Phoenix at kaitlyn.phoenix@hearst.com. Both are deputy editors in the Health Newsroom at Hearst.
Website: goodhousekeeping.com
Owner: Hearst, a global, diversified media, information and service company with more than 360 businesses.
Readership demographics: Good Housekeeping reaches more than 51 million readers across their digital and print platforms. Most are women between the ages of 30 and 60.
Unlike Prevention — which shares some of the same editors, writers and content with GH — readers aren’t usually picking up the magazine expressly for health advice. Instead, they might be interested in gardening or kitchen supplies only to find a wellness story catches their eye.
Readers are “coming for other information about how to make their daily life better and easier, and the health content fits into that,” Cohen said.
Frequency of publication: The print issue comes out six times a year, and the website updates multiple times daily.
What editors look for in pitches: Editors are interested in “long-form narratives, deeply reported service pieces and personal essays that offer a compelling point of view, a personal story behind the news, a unique story rooted in the ideas of house/home or a deep-dive guide into a topic that will help improve readers’ everyday lives,” its own pitch guide says.
Rather than scientific stories about illnesses, Cohen said, the magazine looks for angles more about staying healthy on a day-to-day basis. Pitches should also match Good Housekeeping’s tone, which Cohen described as “like talking to your good friends who you trust for health advice.”
As for formatting a pitch, include the term “STORY PITCH” plus a short summary of the topic in the email subject line. Then, suggest a working headline and dek for your proposed story, and a brief outline of your piece. “We find that the best pitches are timely, well-written, appropriately researched and have a strong working outline,” the editors write.
Also, include your name, contact information, a bit about your experience as a writer (including if you’ve written for other Hearst publications) and links to some of your work in your pitch.
Common mistakes editors see in pitches: “People who haven’t looked at what we’ve recently published, and pitch the exact same story, or alternatively, pitch an idea that’s too specific to connect with the majority of our readers,” Cohen said.
Lead time: The time between an accepted pitch to a printed story can range from a few months to two years, Cohen said, noting that the staff keeps an “inventory” of evergreen stories they can run. Don’t panic: “I spent 20 years as a freelancer, so I always make sure people get paid as quickly as possible,” she added.
While print stories can go through several rounds of revisions, digital stories have shorter lead times and usually don’t require significant edits.
Best place to break into the publication: If you come across a timely health trend or conversation that needs debunking, it’s worth pitching as a quick SEO-driven explainer for the website. While those stories are often assigned, rather than derived from freelance pitches, the outreach could get you on editors’ radars for such assignments.
More broadly, Cohen said, “If someone has a great idea, I’m happy to give them a chance.”