Deez Interviews: Meet the Meredith senior editor behind those special edition mags you always see in the checkout line

Oct 25, 2019

Happy Friday, Deezers! This week’s interview is with Alyssa Smith, one of the editors behind all of those special edition magazine issues you’ve seen in line at the grocery story & on newsstands. We talked about the “green flags” she looks for in good freelancers, how she pulls it all together in tight timelines, and her favorite projects from this year so far. Enjoy!

The interviewee: Alyssa Smith (follow her @booksandcorsets!)

The gig: Senior editor @ Meredith Special Interest Media

You’re in charge of ushering more than 60 projects in a year into print — and a lot of those projects have to be pulled together super fast in the case of a celebrity death. How the heck do you stay on top of it all?

There's no way any of these would make their way to print without the extremely talented teams we have internally and externally on each brand! I would say that the majority of my day-to-day relies heavily on being extremely, extremely organized and having a good sense as to what is an emergency and what can wait 'til later — and what you can assign to be accomplished months ahead. I look at schedules for all 60 titles every few mornings to make sure all parts are moving, and send so, so many reminder emails.

Our in-house team is lean, so we depend on outside freelancers and brands to deliver — and we use them a lot, particularly on long-lead subjects. For example, some of our history-focused titles pegged to a World War II anniversary can be written very leisurely while a tribute cannot.

In the case of a tribute issue, I am usually part of a very focused team who knows the brand's voice intimately. Those can pull together as quickly as three days with all sides (photo, design, edit, writers) working simultaneously on a very tight outline. Typically someone who warrants a tribute issue already has a lot of articles or biographies written about them already, too.

What is one project you've worked on this year in particular that you're especially proud of?

We just launched the first issue of a new partnership with PBS, beginning with an issue based on their long-running program SECRETS OF THE DEAD, just on newsstands this week! It's a very exciting brand to work with, and I'm very excited to see what lies ahead.

On the Entertainment Weekly front, I think our X-MEN issue, which was a backwards-looking issue across eleven different movies, captured some excellent writing in innovative ways. We even diagramed exactly how the timeline was altered.

Since you work with so many freelancers, I'm curious what you think are the ingredients of a good, long-term editor-freelancer relationship. What are the "green flags" of a freelancer you know you’ll rely on for years to come?

I always test out a writer on a smaller project — maybe one or two — before asking for larger gigs.

I like being asked questions ahead of time, when the writing is being assigned, vs in the middle or at the end of the assignment window. It shows they are invested right off the bat — and more importantly, that's when they have my attention! I can't guarantee a swift answer a few days from now, but when I'm making the assignment I'm all theirs.

Recommendations from a trusted source go a long way as well. Delivering on time in a form that requires little editing (watch those word counts) is crucial. If I liked you at the end of a project, I'll ask what other areas of expertise you have, then add you to a file to be called on in the future.

Finally, if a media newbie wanted to get into this line of work in print/magazine journalism that exists outside of the “regular" editorial calendar, what advice would you have?

I think this particular market is growing rapidly, so there's room for new writers, particularly ghostwriters. Books on demand — through Amazon or newsstand — are exploding, especially in areas of nonfiction. Look at Callisto Media or the new data-driven department of Penguin Random House.

You'll need the talent to become an instant expert on any subject and write about it well and engagingly. Showing that you are capable of writing longer pieces is important to any hiring editor — so at a minimum, you should have a portfolio of pieces that ran online. Unfortunately, it's all about who you know, in the end. Network with your peers.

Don’t forget to follow Alyssa @booksandcorsets, and have a v. special edition weekend!