#311: Nick Thompson -- Editor-In-Chief of WIRED
The Tim Ferriss Show
Chris Anderson's Story Pitch Process
The writer will work with an editor and they'll come up with a pitch. We try to make sure that they're under a page just to respect everybody's time. Editors will be signed in the stories, kind of sit around the main table. The story comes up and we talk about it. Afterwards, I'll speak with the executive editor, a couple of other editors. I will make a decision. There are a lot of discussions about the writers because an incredibly talented magazine feature writer is larger than someone who has more limited skills.
Nick Thompson (@nxthompson) is the editor-in-chief of WIRED. Under his leadership, Wired has launched a successful paywall, a Snapchat channel, and an AMP Stories edition; it has also been nominated for National Magazine Awards in design and feature writing.
Nick is a contributor for CBS News and regularly appears on CBS This Morning. He is also co-founder of The Atavist, a National Magazine Award-winning digital publication. Prior to joining Wired, Thompson served as editor of NewYorker.com from 2012 to 2017.
Before The New Yorker, Nick was a senior editor at Wired, where he assigned and edited the feature story that was the basis for the Oscar-winning film Argo. In 2009, his book The Hawk and the Dove: Paul Nitze, George Kennan, and the History of the Cold War was published to critical acclaim. In February 2018, Thompson co-wrote WIRED's cover story Inside the Two Years That Shook Facebook -- and the World, an 11,000-word investigation based on reporting with more than 50 current and former Facebook employees.
In this conversation, we cover a wide range of topics, questions, and skills, including:
- What makes a good pitch?
- How does a good features writer (or editor) "map" a story?
- How does writing get optioned for feature film, and what are important deal points?
- How can publishers (and website or blog owners) hire and pay good long-form writers?
- And much more...
Please enjoy!
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