Claire Stern Milch is digital director at ELLE.com. In this role, Claire oversees content and...
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Todd Plummer is a freelance writer with bylines in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, ELLE and more.
During the episode, Todd discusses his career background as an attorney and writer, what he wants PR people to understand when pitching him, and his own creative process for pitching stories and staying organized.
Follow Todd on LinkedIn.
Click below to listen to the full conversation and read below for highlights from the interview:
Todd's Career History, From Lawyer to Prolific Writer
[0:01:41] TP: I actually started my career in New York City. I started my career as a society reporter for Style.com, which is one of those freelance beats that they put eager 22-year-olds on, because it requires you to go out all night, every night, and turn around a story for 8 AM the next day.
[0:01:59] BB: This is through the gauntlet, yeah.
[0:02:00] TP: Yeah. I did that work for a little over five years for a good portion of my 20s. After two years of doing that, I mean, long story short, my parents pressured me into going back to school and – I had that in my life, law school just made the most sense for me and the way I was able to swing it and I ended up getting a full scholarship to St. John's in New York City. I was able to keep my –
[0:02:26] BB: Okay, Todd.
[0:02:27] TP: I was able to keep my writing career and do my party reporting work by night and be in law school.
[0:02:32] BB: Oh, my God. Oh, my God. That sounds like a lot.
[0:02:35] TP: Again, it's the kind of workload that requires the energy of someone in their early to mid-20s.
I did that for a couple of years until I completed my law degree and the unanticipated consequence of keeping my writing career going while I was in law school with that by the time it came time to graduate, my writing career was really taken off and I was able to make a decent living at it.
I graduated and took the bar exam and said, “I don't want to go sit in a cubicle making money for some partner for a hundred hours a week. I'm going to go – “
[0:03:04] BB: Yeah. Seriously.
[0:03:05] TP: Yeah. At that point, I gave up my apartment in New York City, bought a one-way ticket to Bali and stopped party reporting at that time and transitioned more to travel writing.
Yeah. I left New York thinking it would be three or six months that I would be gone. I ended up being gone working from the road and using my career to finance my way around the world for two and a half years until –
[0:03:30] BB: Oh, fantastic.
[0:03:32] TP: I quit and I couldn't travel anymore at which time I moved home to Boston where I grew up and I am here now. That's the very abbreviated version.
[0:03:44] BB: Okay.
[0:03:45] TP: How I ended up where I am and why I'm a lawyer.
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Todd's #1 Recommendation for Connecting with Him
[0:10:48] BB: Well, it's gorgeous. Everyone should take a look. Okay. Okay. Is there a way, Todd, you mentioned your PR friends. Okay. How does one become your friend?
[0:10:58] TP: Tell the truth.
[0:10:59] BB: Tell the truth. Amazing. Tell us more.
[0:11:02] TP: Yeah. I mean, I can sniff through BS pretty quickly. I can sniff through PR smoke pretty quickly. If a publicist is trying to invent a trend or they pitch me something that feels too advertorial for instance.
I'm not interested in, I receive – I write a lot about hotels and travel. I receive a lot of pitches that come my way about “trends” and the only examples of such trends that arrive in the pitch email are from one hotel or one brand of hotels. It's very clear that it's only coming from their client. That's not super useful to me. It's – much more useful to me.
For people to draw the connection between their client and what is happening in the world. That's a much more compelling trend story to me [than] my client added a new menu item. This is a big trend. Write about it. It's yeah.
[0:11:58] BB: Yeah. My one. No, no. Okay, that’s a good thing. Anything else besides just tell the truth. Anything else.?
[0:12:06] TP: Oh, there's so many. I mean, me and my writer friends, we talk all the time about the awful, like national hot dog day, five places to get hot dogs. 10 green drinks for St. Patrick’s Day or happy –
[0:12:22] BB: Oh, God.
[0:12:23] TP: Just things that like don't really get covered for the publications we work for.
[0:12:31] BB: But they're really, really, really trying, like really.
Rapid Fire Pitching Preferences
[0:13:51] BB: Yeah. I’ll ask you more something, okay. I have a rapid-fire question set. Are you ready, Todd?
[0:13:59] TP: I was born ready.
[0:13:59] BB: Let's do it. Video or phone interview?
[0:14:02] TP: Phone. I'm old fashioned.
[0:14:04] BB: I am too. Bullet points are paragraphs and pitches?
[0:14:08] TP: Bullet points. Leave the writing to me.
[0:14:10] BB: Oh, short or long pitches?
[0:14:12] TP: Short. If I have to scroll and your email is too long.
[0:14:16] BB: It's bad. Images attached or Dropbox zip file?
[0:14:19] TP: I'm so glad you asked this. The answer is Dropbox, because you would not believe how quickly I run out of Gmail space. I purge at least once a month. I have to do a massive purge in my inbox. It's because people without me asking send me high-res imagery all the time. It's such a new sense.
[0:14:36] BB: See, I'm glad we asked this. Yes. Email or a DM of some sort?
[0:14:41] TP: Email. Do not DM me. Those get deleted.
[0:14:43] BB: Nope. There you go. I feel you are enthusiastic, Todd. One follow up or multiple?
[0:14:50] TP: The correct answer to this question is zero follow ups unless it is something specifically tailored to me. If it's an exclusive that you've offered me and you have a time sensitive ask, then it's appropriate to follow up, but on something that you're emailing a hundred journalists, like please do not follow up. You cannot imagine that havoc. It wrecks on my inbox when every publicist in the world just wants to circle back and see if there's interest.
[0:15:14] BB: Oh, gosh.
[0:15:15] TP: Yeah.
[0:15:16] BB: Press release or media kit?
[0:15:17] TP: Press release.
[0:15:19] BB: Direct or creative subject lines?
[0:15:22] TP: Direct.
[0:15:22] BB: Any sources you're looking for.
[0:15:25] TP: Any sources I'm looking for. I'm always –
[0:15:28] BB: Travel to Bali. I don't know.
[0:15:30] TP: I write about all sorts of subjects. I write about travel. I write about entertainment. I write about polo. I write about all sorts of – I'm always looking for passionate people who love what they do and are trying to make a difference in what they do. That is a type of story that I can place and it's a story for me.
[0:15:50] BB: Okay. Anytime that you read pitches.
[0:15:53] TP: Anytime that I read pitches?
[0:15:54] BB: Yeah. Is there like, hey, you know what, I would just like to read them nine to 10 PT or I don't know. Some people are very particular.
[0:16:01] TP: No. I'll read them as they roll in through the day.
________
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