Prepare
- Love writing. If you see becoming a Forbes contributor as $$$ or fame rather than something that will fulfill your passion for writing, don’t bother. It will become a burden rather than a blessing. The majority of those who thrive as contributors genuinely like to write.
- Write a lot. Showing that you’ve written 3-4 blog posts isn’t enough. Showing that you’ve written 100 blog posts, and several pieces that have been published elsewhere, is much better. One of the things Forbes wants to know is whether you will produce a piece every week, on average. That’s 52 articles per year. It’s a lot of work. What evidence can you show to prove you’re up to the task?
- Read a lot of Forbes posts. Especially the popular ones. No one style is right, but you’ll get an idea of what works on Forbes and what doesn’t. Then try writing a few articles of the type you would post on Forbes, if given the opportunity.
- Collaborate and develop relationships with other Forbes contributors. Reach out to those who are already writing for Forbes and offer to help them with their writing. No, don’t offer to write an article for them, but you might be able to help them with research, interviews, and other building blocks of articles. This will give you more insight into how the process works, and you’ll then be able to pitch yourself as having assisted other Forbes writers in putting together pieces. There’s a good chance you’ll end up getting quoted in an article or two along the way.
Pitch
- Know what to expect. Forbes wants one article per week. You don’t get paid. You need to know how to use WordPress. There is no pre-publishing editorial–you’re expected to write, edit, proofread, and publish all by yourself. Forbes will review your article after you post and sometimes makes minor adjustments, but in my experience this is rare. Forbes provides great group trainings, but don’t expect a lot of one on one attention. 99% of what Forbes gives you is a platform, it’s mostly up to you to figure out how to utilize it.
- Get an introduction. Don’t pitch an editor you’ve never met through LinkedIn or with a cold call or email. Get an introduction from another contributor. It may not work, but it will get your work reviewed by the right person. Note: I’ve pitched a few friends of mine to Forbes and other publications. These are people I think have great insights and would do a great job, and they were rejected. And some of them I pitched hard. To date, nobody I’ve pitched has made it through. And no, I don’t pitch on behalf of people I don’t know personally, sorry.
- Show your best work. Don’t merely send a link to your blog homepage as a pitch. Tell the editor “This is some of my writing that I think best represents what I can produce for Forbes,” and then link directly to 3-4 of your most compelling pieces. Bonus tip: Don’t just paste a URL, put the title of the article in your email and link the title. There’s nothing compelling about a link by itself, but one of your titles may catch the editor’s attention and make him click.
- Show your best, relevant work. Your best work may not be appropriate for Forbes. Don’t pitch that. You want the editor to read what you’ve sent and think “Wow, I wish this were on Forbes. This would be perfect!” That will only happen if your writing is something the editor could see copying and pasting onto Forbes.
There are 1,500 contributors at Forbes. That might sound like a lot, but for every person writing for Forbes, there are 50 who tried and failed. I’d like to say it was strangely easy for me to get on and perhaps I got lucky, but then again, I had been writing for 10 years before this happened. Don’t expect it to be easy, but if you prepare as I’ve outlined above, your pitch will be better than most.
