Obtaining Newspaper Contacts for Your Self-Syndicated Newspaper Column

One of the first (and definitely the largest) task that a writer will face when working on self-syndicating his or her newspaper column is getting the right contacts at the paper. If the query doesn't cross the desk of the right person, it may not be seen by anyone. Newspapers get dozens of queries every day and yours runs the risk of being deleted if it doesn't get where it needs to go. Here are some things to keep in mind when gathering your newspaper contacts:

1. Don't buy contacts from a service.

There are many services out there who will gladly sell you a list of newspaper contacts for several hundred dollars. I recommend that you do not use one of these services. Contact lists must be managed regularly to ensure that they are up-to-date and correct. Unless these services deal with newspapers on a regular basis, you are likely buying a list of contacts that no longer exist. It wastes both your time and your money. Either buy a list from someone who is connected to the industry or build your own list.

Building your own list of newspaper contacts can take time. There are roughly 1,500 daily newspapers in the United States and 80 in Canada. You can find lists of the newspapers for free online in many places and put together a spreadsheet with contact information as you find it.

2. Always seek out the managing editor's name.

At most newspapers, the job of finding new columnists falls to the managing editor and this is always the contact you want to set up for your query. You can find contact information for the managing editor of most newspapers on their website. If they list their email address as editor@ or a similar generic address, call the paper and find out the editor's direct address. You can also deduce it in many instances by finding another staff member's email address and using the same naming convention for the managing editor.

3. Phone the newspaper for contact information if your query bounces.

After you have sent your query letter to the contacts on your list, follow up on any emails that bounce back to you as undeliverable. It may mean that you have made an error in the email address or that the managing editor has changed for that newspaper. If you have not made an error, call the newspaper to see what has changed.

4. Use a contact management program to keep track of contacts and to send emails.

One of the easiest ways to manage the query process (remember that you will be sending queries to hundreds of contacts for weeks) is to set up the contacts in a contact management program such as Constant Contact. This way, you send out an email automatically to all of the contacts on the list. They also have a way to opt-out of future emails from you which tells you that they are not interested in your column. Your emails can be sent in HTML with an author photo and other professional touches.