One of the most common questions I amasked is “How do I make it into magazines?” or “How do I start my own successful beauty blog?”.
The short answer is: hard work, determination, perseverance, originality and an undying hunger to stop at abso-fucking-lutely nothing in order to achieve your dreams.
The long answer, which I think is much more beneficial, is the result of numerous consulting emails.
I’m a big believer in giving back, which is why I respond to every single reader’s email individually (even if it takes me a few weeks to do so and if I’ve ever missed yours, please forgive me – I am human), and why I’m also actively involved in mentor programs such as PropellHer.
And, at the risk of this blog post seeming somewhat narcissistic (something I’ll address in the form of ‘selfies’ a little later), I feel it’s important to detail exactly how I fell into the world of publishing and then, how I later, by way of accident, transitioned to the digital side of beauty blogging. Ultimately though, the best kind of advice comes when it’s the result of real life experiences so here it is for you, all in one post.
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I’m proof that a university degree is not essential
Fact: I don’t have a university degree. Bah! Shock! Horror!
After high school, I was accepted into two universities – one in Sydney and one in Queensland, where my parents had relocated to from the NSW Central Coast. At the time, I was also accepted to study a Diploma of Journalism at Macleay College in Sydney, which was an accelerated tertiary education which consisted of a full-time, one year Diploma of Journalism followed by a full-time, one year Bachelor of Arts (majoring in media and communications via Southern Cross University). Some of you might have heard me say this before and I can’t quite explain it but I always knew I wanted to work in magazines as a writer. I just knew. I probably knew what I wanted to do with my life from the age of 11 or 12, though it could be younger – I can’t be sure. To me, the thought of studying after school for another three or four years made my roll my eyes in that typical angst-y teen way. But, I was also mature beyond my years and more than anything, I was hungry to work. I was literally gagging to get into the workforce and all I could think about more than anything, was to work for a glossy magazine.
So, after some considerable thought and the support of my parents, I decided to accept and defer the Sydney University offer and instead I opted to undertake the accelerated Macleay College option. The idea of slamming out a degree five days a week over two years sounded like heaven to me. I know, putting that and an 18-year-old in the same sentence is almost laughable. As it seems, life would see to it that I didn’t finished…
Two weeks after graduating from my first year (my Diploma of Journalism) and four weeks before commencing my B.A., I was offered the role as Editorial Coordinator/Beauty Writer at Cosmopolitan Hair & Beauty, Cosmopolitan Bride and Cosmopolitan Pregnancy magazines. I remember that phone call like it was yesterday. I remember that being a pinnacle moment in my life where time stood still and I didn’t just see my dreams come true – I felt it too. My point is a university degree is not the be all and end all to scoring your dream job. What you do need is skill, smarts and tenacity.
Work experience isn’t just recommended – it’s necessary
Call it common sense but I just knew work experience was a Goddamn given. Who, in their right mind, thinks they can graduate from university and waltz into an industry with a one page CV (no, that high school job at McDonald’s doesn’t count and I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with McDonald’s either!) and without having completed any form of work experience or internships in the work place? Fools. I know it sounds harsh but think about it this way: you’re the editor of a magazine and you need to hire a new PA/Editorial Coordinator stat.
Do you:
A) Advertise the position, get bombarded with 300-plus applications and pick one out of the mix who has never worked a day in magazines?
B) Hire Jane, the girl who’s been interning at your magazine and assisting the beauty department one day a week for the past 12 months?
Yeah, I think I made my point.
Personally, around the time of completing my HSC in high school, I started emailing my favourite magazines asking for work experience. At the time, we had dial-up internet so emailing was a much slower, more tedious exercise. For the most part, I received rejections and lots of nothing: no responses at all. So, I kept harassing. Poor Editorial Coordinators would’ve been sick of seeing ‘Eleanor Pendleton’, subject line: ‘Follow Up: Work Experience’ in their inbox’s on a weekly occurrence (note: I was never stalkerish – just committed – and I knew the appropriate times of the waiting game). Finally, a lovely Editorial Coordinator by the name of Lucy Cheek phoned me from Cosmopolitan magazine. She told me she had received a cancellation and had a work experience opportunity available the first week of January 2007. Luck was on my side because usually magazines take on two or three students at one time, however, I was riding Hans Solo and utilised every bit of this to my advantage. I relished in fetching coffee for Editor, Sarah Wilson and Deputy Editor, Felicity Harley; I jumped at the chance of cutting out news clippings for Features Writer, Sarah Reid; and I practically ran (didn’t walk) to collect the deliveries for the entire editorial team from the mail room. On my last day of my work experience (which, like most, is a one week stint), Sarah Wilson offered me a six-month internship with then-Beauty Director, Zoë Foster Blake. Enter life changing moment here.
Yes, the life of a beauty editor involves lunches, lipsticks, celebrities and the occasional yacht but there’s always another side
Anyone who wants to work in magazines for money has their shit all wrong. For the most part, journalists (in magazines, newspapers, TV and radio) are underpaid. It’s just how it is. Now, I’m the first to admit there’s a glamorous side to the industry – I won’t deny this – and it comes in the form of weekly (sometimes daily) parties, events, press junkets or famils (business trips) and beauty products – lots of beauty products. Here, I would like to reiterate that the point I am at now is the result of eight years in publishing. As a bright-eyed 19-year-old Editorial Coordinator/Beauty Writer, I was not sent off to Paris to see how Bioderma Micellar Cleansing Water was made; I never sat front at fashion week; and I absolutely earned a salary so low, it would probably be considered illegal.
Like every beauty editor and editor before me, I started on the lowest rung of the ladder and I worked my way up. Nowadays, I see young girls who waltz around offices or events, assuming they’ll be styling shoots (yeah right, no worries – we’ll just shaft our fashion editor who has 15+ years experience aside, shall we?); drinking far too much champagne their little bodies to handle and ignoring what the actual purpose of a beauty function is for: to understand the new product being launched, the technology behind it, the market we’re in; decipher whether the product is suitable for your reader demographic and to develop invaluable relationships with the brand’s marketing and communications managers – not just eat cucumber sandwiches.
I would also like to take this opportunity to stress, I never got a helping hand. I never knew a friend of a friend’s mum or sister who would help me out and get me some work experience. Sure, if I had any contacts in the industry I certainly would’ve used but them I didn’t have any. Zero. Zilch. Nada. To that end, I schlepped three hours every day on the stinky old train to the Cosmopolitan office in Sydney CBD where I interned. I also did work experience at various other publications such as Girlfriend magazine and my local newspaper – don’t be foolish in thinking one internship can be enough. And lastly, if its freebies and beauty products that you want, let me tell you this: you will not succeed. For every glamorous post I upload to Instagram and every product launch or function I go to, I attend advertising meetings, editorial WIP meetings, pitch presentations, publicist meetings, more meetings, the occasional seminar and oh yeah, more meetings. I often can be found “on deadline” up to one o’clock in the morning or chained to my phone organising catering for a photo shoot and perhaps driving around town doing fashion returns. Moreover, the ‘freebies’ are not sent to me, they are sent to the magazines I freelance write for and Gritty Pretty, the website I edit, as a submission for possible inclusion in an upcoming story. Technically, they remain the property of the brand who sent them and are not mine to do whatever I want with.
IT’S A TOUGH INDUSTRY TO CRACK BUT WHEN YOU DO…
I was lucky – I worked hard, yes – but I was also lucky. For all the pivotal moments in my career thus far from being promoted to Beauty Editor at FAMOUS and scoring the gig as Beauty Editor at InStyle to seeing my name published for the first time in Harper’s BAZAAR, timing was on my side. Now, not only is it more competitive, but there’s less jobs to divvy around. Publishing is changing – there’s no doubt about that – and with digital expanding, the media landscape is shifting. I’ve had some average interns work for me and then I’ve had incredible, amazing and talented interns work for me. And, unfortunately, if you aren’t in the right place at the right time or you haven’t developed contacts with the right people, it can be years until you score an entry-level role. I know, it’s not fair. It’s not. But, at the end of the day, there are only 30 or so women in this country with my job, less than 10 of which work on ‘top-tier’ mastheads. It’s always been an extremely small, difficult industry to break into which is why doing as much as you can to make your CV stand out is critical. I don’t mean to scare you but rather prepare you for a hard and thankless slog if being a beauty editor is really what you want to do with your life. Again, I only advise you to pursue a career in media if it’s where your heart truly lies.
HOW TO BE A SUCCESSFUL BLOGGER
Like I mentioned above, media is changing. Beauty Editors are no longer dedicated to print – there are Beauty Editors in digital as well. In August 2013, I decided to resign from my position as Beauty Editor at InStyle to embark on a freelance career – I thought my decision through over six months and I just couldn’t ignore that I needed to be challenged. I needed to feel like I was being pushed. I don’t like cushy jobs and the idea of being bored or feeling stagnant, makes my hands twitch. I love to write and I wanted to write for the likes of Harper’s BAZAAR, The Sydney Morning Herald, body+soul and more, which I’m grateful that I did. At the same time, Gritty Pretty had been on a hiatus while I focused on my career at InStyle (which might come as news to new readers) so I decided to start the blog back up again. Within months, the site grew exponentially and I’m lucky that I now work on the website full-time and pick and choose between freelance print jobs.
Whatever your interest – fashion, beauty, lifestyle, puppies – blogging can present infinite possibilities. But, just like the world of publishing (or anything, really), it doesn’t happen overnight. Blogger friends of mine, like Sara (Harper & Harley) or Margaret Zhang (Shine by Three), didn’t just appear. It takes years to develop a brand, remain consistent and committed. Because the blogosphere is now so saturated, it’s now even harder to make it as a blogger. It’s hard to find a point of difference when style can so often be emulated.
My advice: find your point of difference. Narrow it down, hone in on it, write a business plan and establish an end goal: whether it be a certain number of readers or monetisation. And, like just like my point earlier on freebies, if you want to be a blogger for fame reasons: you will not succeed. Readers are incredibly intelligent and can spot a narcissist or fraud (thank you Instagram for finally exposing those with fake followers!) from a mile away. Those who seek out fame are the ones that either make their 15 minutes – or not – and then fade away. Be passionate about creating content for your audience and retain credibility at all times.
CONTENT IS KING
It’s important to understand what beauty editors and beauty writers do. I am not a makeup artist, nor have I trained in hair or skin. I’m a journalist who just so happens to write about beauty.
A lot of makeup artists contact me wanting to be a beauty editor, and while their wealth of knowledge in the field far exceeds mine, they may not be able to write. Journalists call on experts for every story they compile (in my case they are hairdressers, makeup artists, dermatologists, perfumers, etc.), and they are the authorities who give the story substance, while I structure the ‘copy’ (which is writer speak for the words) and pull it all together.
Sure, after writing about beauty for so long, I now know a lot about peptides and keratin, but I am a writer first and foremost. If you’re a makeup artist, consider trying your hand at vlogging. YouTube beauty vloggers don’t do any writing, but visually talk through their skills step-by-step on video. And, as we’ve seen in recent times, a career in beauty vlogging can be very lucrative.
AND, SO IS SOCIAL MEDIA
Content is king but thanks to internet, so is social media.
With any blog, integrating Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest platforms is a must. Consistency is key when it comes to building a social media following and also knowing when to post: morning, noon and night.
Before I relaunched Gritty Pretty, I had numerous readers who either followed my work at InStyle or stayed with me when I was editing the blog the first time around in 2009 – 2011, write in asking for a list of my favourite products, my skin care routine, what dry shampoo I used and so on. When I relaunched Gritty Pretty, it was then that I made the conscious decision to involve my face into the brand (I am the brand, after all, am I not?) and the most effective way to do this was through beauty shoots.
Beauty shoots that involve me portraying certain hair and makeup looks allow me to connect with my readers on a deeper level and establish relationships with each and every one of you. The same goes for Instagram. Yes, I definitely have days where I feel like crap and the last thing I feel like doing is taking a selfie, but if it’s the right time or place, then my logic is that it’s for the brand. My advice is to limit your selfie posts. For me, they’re uploaded every once in a while while beauty products and trends remain a key focus. Instagram can be a narcissist’s best friend (I’ve been known to unfollow plenty of them because I just can’t handle another bare leg shot) but it can also be an effective marketing tool. With most things, the key to Instagram is balance.
FOLLOW YOUR DREAMS
It sounds cheesy but whether it’s a career in magazines or blogging that you want, no one else can chase your dreams except for YOU.
I hope you found this post useful. As always, you’re welcome to email me with any questions or feedback you may have: info@grittypretty.com.
The post MY CAREER JOURNEY: HOW I MADE IT INTO MAGAZINES AND BLOGGING appeared first on Gritty Pretty.