Sports Afield: Market Spotlight
For this week’s market spotlight, we look at Sports Afield, a bimonthly hunting adventure magazine.
Established in 1887, Sports Afield is a bimonthly hunting adventure magazine. It's especially devoted to people with a passion for big game hunting in North America and Africa.
The editors say, "Our focus is on adventure hunts for species such as sheep, elk, caribou, moose, trophy whitetails and mule deer, bears, African plains game, and dangerous species such as Cape buffalo, lion, and leopard. Coverage of fine guns, optics, clothing, and equipment is an essential part of the magazine. To a more limited extent, we also feature stories on upland hunting and big-game hunts outside North America and Africa."
This is a paying market, and they pay on publication.
What They're Looking For
Sports Afield does accept a few freelance features of up to 2,500 words, mostly "big-game hunting destination pieces and exciting, well-written hunting adventure stories." They don't tend to publish how-to pieces, but they do also accept some shorter pieces (500-1,000 words) on conservation-related topics and stories of world record animals.
The editors say, "If you have not written for us before, sending a completed manuscript is best. Queries should clearly explain what you'd like to write about, show the editor why the subject is relevant, and why you're qualified to write the piece. Whether sending a completed manuscript or a query, please tell us what kind of photo support you can provide."
How to Submit
Potential writers can submit their work by email to editorinchief@sportsafield.com. Writers can submit their query or completed manuscript as a Word attachment or in the body of the email.
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With print and online publications covering virtually every subject area today, and editors constantly seeking stories to run, along with dependable writers to write them, anyone with the right combination of skill, creativity and diligence can become a valued ongoing contributor and generate a reliable income stream from writing articles. In this course, we’ll talk about how to source, prioritize and develop topic ideas; compose and refine pitches to multiple outlets; stay tightly organized about submissions, follow-ups and correspondence; and execute assignments brilliantly – as well as why writers who query well, deliver on time and prove easy to work are gold to editors everywhere.
Robert Lee Brewer is Senior Editor of Writer's Digest, which includes managing the content on WritersDigest.com and programming virtual conferences. He's the author of 40 Plot Twist Prompts for Writers: Writing Ideas for Bending Stories in New Directions, The Complete Guide of Poetic Forms: 100+ Poetic Form Definitions and Examples for Poets, Poem-a-Day: 365 Poetry Writing Prompts for a Year of Poeming, and more. Also, he's the editor of Writer's Market, Poet's Market, and Guide to Literary Agents. Follow him on Twitter @robertleebrewer.
