Fees: This online publication covers the latest trends and innovations in science, technology, entertainment and culture. It pays $300 for single-source new stories of 400 to 800 words in length, and sometimes more depending on the complexity and amount of reporting required. The fee for an enterprise piece of between 800 and 1,000 words is $500 to $600. Features run between 1,200 and 2,500 words and pay from $800 to $1,000.
Submit to: For all health pitches, email Claire Maldarelli, senior editor, at claire.maldarelli@inverse.com.
Website: inverse.com
Owner: Bustle Digital Group
Readership demographics: Readers are evenly split between male and female and range in age from their 20s to their 40s. About half the audience is college educated. A significant number of readers have children.
Frequency of publication: The website is updated at least daily.
What editors are looking for in a pitch: Inverse has a technology and futuristic bent, said Maldarelli. “We are looking for stories that are on the cutting edge of health tech… and at the cusp of medicine that everyone is talking about now,” she said. Examples of rich areas to mine for story ideas include psychedelics in mental health, how the gut microbiome is influencing medicine and immunotherapies in cancer.
The publication also covers longevity, reproductive health and neuroscience. For example, it recently ran a profile of Tom Oxley, the founder and CEO of Synchron, a neural interface technology company.
For the pitch itself, Maldarelli said freelancers should include a lead and nut graph as if writing the opening of the story. “If it is a very trendy topic and a lot of people are covering it, that nut graph should spell out your specific angle,” she said.
Do editors accept pre-pitches?: Yes, but more often from writers they are already working with. New writers should probably email a full pitch.
Common mistakes editors see in pitches: “Either not giving enough information or giving too much,” said Maldarelli. “Editors only have a certain amount of time to reach these pitches.”
Pitch lead time: Maldarelli tries to respond to every pitch from freelancers. If she doesn’t respond within a few weeks, she might have missed the email, and writers should feel free to follow up. Time from assignment to publication depends on the timelines of the story, but writers do not have to wait for publication to get paid. Inverse pays upon acceptance of a draft.
Best place to break into Inverse: Probably a Q&A or a profile and also stories about less-covered medical studies.