“I have written some articles and am having no luck getting them into national publications. Any ideas?”

Yes. Stop submitting articles to national publications. That is, unless you already have a relationship with someone who works at the newspaper or magazine or you know these four things:

1. Whether they want an article on your topic.
2. How many words to write.
3. The deadline.
4. If they want you to provide a photo or graphic to accompany the article.

I suspect the writer of the question above has written articles and emailed them en masse to various publications. No wonder her efforts have failed. The one-size-fits-all, cookie-cutter approach seldom works. But if you’re willing to do a little research and give…