How I Sold My First List Article

Author: Pat Stockett Johnston

A list article? The only lists I write I carry to the grocery store, I thought. Surely I hadn’t traveled to Mount Hermon Christian Writers Conference to learn how to improve those!

Before attending the Mount Hermon Christian Writers Conference conference I’d read lots of “How To” books on writing and sold many articles. But my 34-year missionary career had hindered participation in writers' conferences. After retiring three years ago I began to seriously focus on writing. Thus an ad for this conference grabbed my attention.

I knew little about the world of Christian publishing. I could only recite a few names of Christian publishing companies outside of my own denomination. And my limited knowledge of Christian magazines embarrassed me. Plus, I wanted to improve my own writing skills. So here I sat at Mount Hermon.

During several workshops on magazine articles the faculty members (all published writers) described a type of article I’d never written—a “list article”— which is formatted as a numbered or bulleted list. “List articles may vary in length, from 1,000-word feature articles to100-word sidebars[i],” they explained. My interest really perked up when I heard that list articles were not only an easy sell; they could often be resubmitted to another magazine as reprints. List articles also give editors freedom to prune down the list according to available space. I returned from Mount Hermon determined to include list articles in my writing goals.

I met Lisa A. Crayton in my sessions at Mount Hermon. She publishes Spirit-Led Writer, an online magazine written by Christian writers for Christian writers. Soon after returning home I googled the words "Spirit Led Writer". A list of available articles immediately appeared on my screen. Finding the website was simple and quick and no membership was required. The website seemed the perfect place to submit an article brewing in my brain about the new writing vocabulary I had learned at Mount Hermon.

I sent the editor a query letter that began with this pitch:

“I thought, as a published author, I had a well-developed vocabulary. But I just added some new meanings to old words during my first Christian Writers Conference at Mt. Hermon.”

Much to my delight, Lisa responded by saying she would love to see the article and gave me the deadline for submission. That’s how my first list article titled “Mount Hermon Conference Review: What’s That Word?” appeared in the next issue of Spirit-Led Writer.

The sale validated the Mount Hermon information on list articles. Next I submitted a Christmas article to a different publication about Mary, Jesus’ mother, set in Nazareth and titled “A Simple Yes That Changed the World.” My query included a sidebar that listed current facts about Nazareth, Israel. The editor accepted both article and sidebar.

Since then I’ve sold more list articles with sidebars and concur with the instructors at Mt. Herman, "list articles can open doors and get you published".

* And in case you're wondering, a sidebar is a paragraph (or short article) containing information that supports an article; the sidebar is printed in a box on the same page as the article.