ALWAYS ASK: ‘WHAT’S YOUR DEADLINE?’

Imagine, if you can, producing a monthly magazine. As a minimum you would have to allow time every month for getting all the news, articles, etc. sorted out, deciding what’s going on which page, what pictures to use and, finally, getting the whole thing off to the printers in time for them to print it and get it to the distributors by the due date. To facilitate this, editors and journalists have to work to tight deadlines – and so must you. This affects you in two ways:

• 1.If a journalist phones and asks for some information which you don’t have at your fingertips (or that you want to think about first), always ask: ‘What’s your deadline for this?’ It may be the end of this week; it may be the end of today. Whatever it is, honour it and you’ll earn yourself Brownie points.
• 2.Quite a few monthly trade and industry magazines close for copy round about the middle of the month before publication, e.g. if you want to hit April issues you will probably need to get your copy to the editor by about 10-12 March. This is only a general rule of thumb, and news stories mostly take their chances. However, if you are submitting a feature article requested for a particular issue of a magazine, do make sure you know what the editor’s copy deadline is. If he doesn’t tell you, ask him.