As the editor of a (trade) magazine, part of my job involves finding pertinent topics for articles and good writers to cover them. One way to do this is to look through brochures for conferences and call presenters who are speaking on subjects of interest. Sometimes they’ll be able to adapt their presentation into an article. Other times, they have a suggestion for another writer, or are available for an interview on the subject.
And today, this happened:
“Hi, [X], I’m Gil Roth, the editor at Contract Pharma magazine. I was going through the brochure for [conference Y] next week and noticed that you’re speaking on [subject Z]. I was wondering if we could talk about adapting your presentation into an article for an upcoming issue.”
“What conference?”
“[Conference Y].”
“Really?”
“Yeah. They have you listed as a ‘distinguished speaker’ and you’re scheduled to speak at 2pm on the second day.”
“Hmm. Where is this conference?”
“[City A]. Ringing any bells?”
“Nope, but at least it’s not far from here. What’s the URL for the conference?”
“[Website B]. But that’s just the main site for the company.”
“I’ll look it up. Next Friday, huh?”
“That’s what the brochure says.”
“Well, thanks for letting me know. I’ll start adapting my basic presentation.”
“Sure thing!”
Amazingly, I actually did ask him to adapt the presentation into an article for the March issue. And he accepted! Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to set up my e-mail to send him a reminder every 36 hours until the deadline. . .
Too funny. A similar thing happened to me once, when I accidentally got a piece of mail for Terri Gross of Fresh Air, asking her to be a presenter at a huge NEA event. When I called to tell her, she invited me to a taping of the show! That was fun. Happy belated Birthday!