how to land your first fashion byline with these pitch templates
power to the substack princess.
“Cancelled my netflix subscription and subscribed to the molehill....I love reading your content and am excited to support you :)" — Ciara
Hi! This newsletter covers:
the most stylish person I saw at the grocery store this week
wtf is a substack princess and why is it her time to shine?!
how to leverage your newsletter to land that dream byline
examples of my previous story pitches to editors, that you can copy as a template
molehill mood ring ⋆｡𖦹°⭒˚｡⋆
Do you ever have those weeks that are completely absorbed by the never-ending task of feeding yourself, but never feeling truly satisfied?
It started with a craving for cottage cheese.
The store was out of my preferred Clover brand, so I got the Nancy’s brand instead. Upon the first bite of the probiotic slush I thought this is literally the rancid coconut milk suicide smoothie from White Lotus. Then, an unfulfilled hankering for pupusas because the restaurant hours were incorrectly listed, which set into motion an attempt to bandage the void with takeout shiro wot from a longtime favorite Ethiopian spot.
But when I peeled the foil back to reveal a newly-shrinkflated portion of the stewy legumes, I let a deep sigh as I prepared to polish it off in 5 quick bites and silence my growling stomach with wads of plain injera. Like tissue paper that makes a gift bag look more opulent than it really is. After a futile rummage through the fridge for a second dinner, I resigned to lying down with my laptop on my chest, knees bent, watching a video essay about how the original Gunne Sax building in San Francisco is now leased by a genetic testing company. Sad.
Which brings me to today’s grocery run. I did a Big Fridge Reset and enjoyed my lunch of kimchi and a pre-made unagi onigiri (under $5, file under Bay Area money saving hacks). The most stylish person I saw at Berkeley Bowl was an elderly woman behind me at checkout with veggies, bubble gum, and jasmine tea in her shopping basket. She had a 60s style bob pulled back with an magenta terry cloth headband. Her pale pink fuzzy alpaca sweater hit above the knee of her black leggings. And she had one of those souvenir birthstone necklaces they sell at places like the Santa Cruz Mystery Spot gift shop. New Age Tonya Harding.
My outfit matched my mood, which was blank and withdrawn and enhanced by three pregnant pimples on my forehead. A comfort turtleneck tee from Baserange, baggy vintage overalls and dog-walking clogs that only my neighbors have ever seen me in.
power to the substack princess ⋆｡𖦹°⭒˚｡⋆
I feel like for the first half of April, I was that annoying person who would bring up TAXES in every conversation about how things are going. For the self-employed, April feels like the *real* end of the year/beginning of a new one. A weight is lifted; the tension in my eyes and knuckles dissolves.
It’s time to slow down and sink into reflection. Catalog my flops and wins, budget brand sponsorship money to pay future guest writers, keep up with where fashion media is changing and constantly adapt. The microeconomics of running a newsletter full-time is not very glamorous.
But four years into The Molehill, I’ve experienced firsthand how the power bleed from legacy media to independent media has made it possible for writers like me to carve out a career. I say power bleed instead of power shift, because legacy media retains unique strengths (reporting resources, audience distribution, fact-checkers) that most Substack writers, including myself, simply don’t have. However, the scales have tipped towards independent writers in unanticipated ways.
In 2022, I was pitching stories to skeptical editors who did not view a newsletter as a legitimate writing portfolio. Thanks, but we’ll pass!
This year, instead of doing most of the outreach to editors, I started getting editors reaching out to me:
These are a few examples from my inbox, but the story here is far bigger than my individual experience.
The Substack princess is rising into power.
What is a Substack princess, you ask? Well, there’s no official definition—it’s a colloquial, tongue in cheek term that has somehow sprung from the loins of Notes in the past year or so. I neither love nor hate the term…it just is.
She is the epistolary heroine of the modern day bloggerati. She embodies this