How to Get into O, the Oprah Magazine

SUMMARY: To get featured in O, The Oprah Magazine, your product must be visually stunning and professionally presented. Craft a concise and compelling pitch highlighting why your offering would resonate with the audience. Ensure your product images are professionally shot and easily accessible on your website for editors to review. Remember, making a mark in your community is essential to catch Oprah’s attention, and there are various opportunities for both newbies and established businesses or authors to be featured.

How to Get into O, the Oprah Magazine

Hi everyone, I’m Susan Harrow, media coach, marketing strategist, and author of Sell Yourself Without Selling Your Soul® and also Get Into O, Magazine. I want to talk today about how you can get into O, the Oprah Magazine. So many people ask me that and so many people still want to get on Oprah. As you know her show is no longer on the air and she’s on Own. People ask, how do I get on to Oprah and that would mean right now really Super Soul Sunday. So I want to say right off the bat that to get on Super Soul Sunday you really already have to be very famous. So let’s put that aside because getting into O magazine can is so powerful. Most people don’t realize how powerful that is.

But that can give you actually more exposure than Oprah’s old show. One of the reasons why is because people never throw the magazine away and there’s a pass on rate. So you’re getting to in front of about 16 million people. It’s absolutely enormous and it can have an instant effect on your business, get your phones ringing off the hook, getting people online and ordering your business, book, product, service or cause, whatever it is you’re promoting. I also want to let you know that I’m giving you How to Get Your Brand Featured in Oprah’s Favorite Things List, and this is even if you’ve just started your business or you have a self-published book there are some great places to be.

Your Product Must Look Beautiful

Let’s talk about how you can get into Oprah magazine. First of all if it’s a product it must be beautiful. I mean gorgeous, we’re talking the packaging, we’re talking inside and out because that’s one of the criteria’s that Oprah has. She really values beauty. That’s super important if you’ve got a product. There are plenty of places in the magazine where you can get your products in there. I’m going to be talking about that in a bit.

Now just in general, how do the editors want to be pitched? Most of them want to be pitched via email. What you would do is you would give a very short pitch, like a paragraph, to say what your offer is and your bio. So it’s very short. You’ve got to have a strong headline to capture their interest, what is it that you are promoting and why would their audience love it, and then a short paragraph and then your bio and of course your contact information.

Then they will then contact you if they’re interested and ask you to send in your product or yes we would be more interested in that. Then you start a conversation, so it’s much nicer to be invited than it is to send something in and then have it vanish into the ethers. It’s got to get to the right people.

Sending in Your Book or Product & Getting on Oprah’s Favorite Things

I want to talk also about the process, if you do send in something. So you want to start a conversation. Now if you do choose to send in your book or your product, whatever that is, the process is that when you find the right editor for it, it actually goes to an editorial board. What that means is that it’s not usually one person who’s gonna say yes, it’s got to go through a whole yes process, through an editorial board before they’ll decide that it’s something for them.

Often people ask me how do I get on Favorite Things? Because everybody wants to be in O magazine and get on their Favorite Things. First, you want to get featured in the magazine. You get the Oprah editors aware of you. Then what happens is at the end of the year the editors all get together and before when Oprah had her show on TV there was a particular process that they all go through to look at all the products that they’ve had for the whole year. They’re in a room discussing which ones are going to make the cut. And it goes through a whole number of cuts. So that’s the process, so you don’t just automatically get on Oprah’s Favorite Things either. There’s that process, getting in the magazine and then making all of these different cuts along the way.

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Newbie Or Not There Is A Place For You In O Magazine

I have The 15 best places for products, services and books to be featured in O even if you started your business or have a self-published book and that’s free. The link is right here for you. I’m going to talk a teeny bit about that but since it’s in a special report you can have that. You can find out all the best places for you because there are quite a few places and opportunities for you even if you started your business. Even if you’re a newbie, there’s still potential for that.

When I was talking about the other things that you need more experience at, like there is a tiny section for self-published books, so there is a possibility for that. But the main book review section is for books that are traditionally published. Just so you know that if that’s what you’re hoping for. Some people say, “Well I could be the first one or whatever,” but this is the process now and they’re not most likely going to change their procedure and their process at this point. So let’s go with what is.

Your Pitch Needs To Be Well Written + Memorable

We talked about Number 1, which was make sure that your packaging is totally beautiful. Number 2, that your pitch is meaningful. We talked about what went into a pitch. Number 3, your pitch must be well written. When we’re looking at what Oprah wants in the magazine, they have a chance to dig deep into emotional, physical, spiritual well-being. So they really want you to have that kind of depth, whatever it is. So whether it’s a business, book, product, service or cause, they want you to have some of that experience and be able to show your credentials.

One of the things that they look for, because a lot of people contact me and say you know I want to get in the magazine, and they’re starting to do some good in the world for example, but they haven’t yet made their mark. To get into the magazine you really need to have made a mark. First in your community, so it doesn’t have to be in the world. But you make your mark first in the community. In your own community. In your family. Then you expand to the state. And then you expand to the nation and maybe the world. So what Oprah’s editors are looking for is have you done something unusual, have you done something that is really helping people? Have you done something that is extraordinary?

Buy the Get Into O The Oprah Magazine System For Success to Get Featured in O!

An O Magazine Success Story

One of the people that I interviewed for get into O magazine was Genevieve Piturro. She created, Getting Kid’s Pajamas. What she had noticed, is she went into shelters and was reading kids books and they would go to bed in their clothes. She’s like what! Why are they in bed in their clothes? They didn’t even know what pajamas were! So she went on a mission to start collecting pajamas for these kids and said everybody should have a pair of clean, cozy pajamas to get into bed, and snuggle into bed and that became her mission. She got the attention of Oprah.

She started doing that in the community and then Oprah got the notion, Oh my god let’s put this on the show and see if other people can then go and do that in their community. It became this fantastic show of all of these people, in their own communities, getting pajamas for the kids who didn’t have them and for her program. That’s kind of a small example of an evolution of how things happen and how it can happen for you, in your community.

15 Best Places To Get Into O Magazine

I did want to talk about a couple of the places that you can be in O magazine. One of the places that’s really great is the O List, a few things that we think are great. That’s an opportunity you know for just about everything. So if you have a tech product for women, something that’s wellness-oriented, food, she loves, loves, loves food. She loves, loves, loves dogs. So if you are dog oriented, oh please, please, please, pitch O because since she loves dogs so much and whatever it is, if it’s a collar, if it’s a new food if it’s a training method, whatever it is, that is something that is so close to her heart.

So this is products so we are talking about everything from a carbon monoxide alarm, to bath salts, to popcorn, to chocolates. So if you have a food product that is a fabulous place to go. Now remember what I said before, is it needs to be beautiful, it needs to be gorgeously packaged, inside and out. And it needs to be shot professionally. I was working with a client and she wanted to get into O, one of the O editors had actually ordered her cookies and she loved them, But guess what, the packaging was not beautiful.

The cookies were delicious, she sent me the cookies, I ate some that are gluten-free and I gave them to neighbors to taste and we all agreed that the cookies were great and were also really creative. She had cookies for different occasions. But the shots were not professionally done, they had shadows. That is not going to get into O magazine.

So I said to her, the first thing that you need to do is get these professionally shot and create a place on your website where you have these beautiful photographs that can be downloaded. So when you pitch an editor you don’t send the photographs, you never send attachments. What you want is for the editors, if they want something, you give them a link so they can automatically go to your website and download those photos. So they do want to see them and then they’re going to make an instant judgment, is this beautiful enough for O?

Now if it is then you go on to the next step. If it’s not you’re nixed right then and there. If you do go on to the next step then they invite you to send your delicious, wonderful product in right. That’s how that goes. So that’s one section and I’m going to talk about maybe one other section. You’re welcome to get the 15 places for product service and books to get featured in O, the Oprah magazine. Remember if you’ve just started your business or have a self-published book there’s a place for you, so it’s possible.

Other Opportunities in O Magazine

Let’s talk about the other areas, we talked a little bit about the Reading Room. It has to be published traditionally for the Reading Room. Articles, now if you want to be a writer for O magazine and write your own article, if you’ve written a lot of blog posts and you’re an experienced writer, then that’s an opportunity for you. The other opportunity is to be written about. That’s what we talked about a little bit earlier, do you have a story that’s Oprah worthy, that you can pitch to the articles editor. I think that’s about all I’m gonna say for now.

I am going to wrap up I’m Susan Harrow, media coach, marketing strategist, author of Sell Yourself Without Selling Your Soul® and also Get into O magazine. The 15 best places for product services and books to be featured in the O, the Oprah magazine. Even if you’ve just started your business or have a self-published book so those are an opportunity for you. Thank you so much I’ll talk to you soon.

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