How to Get Featured in Southern Living and Reach 26+ Million Readers

‍Benefits of Getting Featured in Southern Living Magazine

Southern Living brands itself as “the ultimate insiders’ guide to Southern culture, recipes, travel, and events.” Its stats support this claim.

Just consider that the print magazine reaches more than 12.8 million people, a digital version reaches 15.4 million people, and social media reaches 8.78 million people every month.

So, getting featured in Southern Living can help you instantly get in front of millions of people in the South and around the country. But it also has some extra benefits for both businesses and writers.

We’ll walk you through them below.

For Writers

If you’re a writer, journalist, or blogger, publishing your story in Southern Living can help you:

• Establish your authority as a writer or a reporter on Southern culture or a particular niche, like home interiors or cooking
• Get more people and businesses to follow your work
• Get more opportunities to write for other high-authority publications

Take Lynn Coulter as an example. As an author and a freelance writer, she writes about gardening for Southern Living. She has also been featured in Better Homes & Gardens, HGTV, The Spruce, and other notable publications: 

Our point? Being featured in one authoritative publication makes it easier to get featured in others — and to get new business opportunities you wouldn’t get otherwise.

‍For Businesses

‍Businesses can also benefit from getting featured in high-authority magazines like Southern Living. A mention in the magazine can help businesses:

• Get exposure
• Sell more products or services
• Increase their websites’ authority and get more traffic (both referral and organic)

Consider this article published on the Southern Living website:

 

The article is promoting a particular beauty brand and its products. That should help the company raise brand awareness and make more sales.

On top of that, the article contains do-follow links to the brand’s website (we highlighted one such link in the above photo). And do-follow links help the sites they’re linking to gain credibility and perform better on search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo.

So, one article in Southern Living can help brands improve their SEO, increase their reach, and potentially sell more products. If that sounds good, let's now see how you can get featured in the magazine.

‍Southern Living Editorial Calendar

‍Southern Living's last editorial calendar includes the following:

1. January/February - 25 Places to Visit in 2025
2. March - Southern The Southern Home Issue
3. April - The Southern’s Best
4. May - Outdoor Living
5. June/July - The Summer Food Issue
6. August - Hidden Gems
7. September - Rules of Decorating (The Idea House Issue)
8. October - Fall in the South
9. November - Thanksgiving
10. December - Holidays at Home

The editorial mix of the digital Southern Living presence includes:

• Food - 41%
• Travel & culture - 29%
• Home & garden - 16%
• Holidays & occasions - 6%
• Beauty & style - 6%
• News - 2%

How to Get Featured in Southern Living Magazine: Two Ways

‍Generally, there are two ways to get featured in Southern Living:

• Pay to play: Pay for advertising space.
• Story writing: Write stories for the magazine.

We’ll look at both options in the rest of this section.‍

Advertising in Southern Living Magazine

‍Buying ad space is a better option for businesses than for writers.According to Southern Living’s media kit, brands can choose between several advertising formats:

• Contextually relevant editorial content: Articles that educate the audience about your products or services, the problems you solve, your industry, a particular step in your process, etc.
• Social, video, and email marketing programs
• Native content solutions: Content that looks and feels like a natural part of the magazine instead of a traditional ad.
• And more (see photo below)

You can also buy more traditional advertising units within the magazine. How much you’ll pay depends on the color and size of the unit you want:

If you’re interested in buying ad space for your company in Southern Living, contact deirdre.finnegan@meredith.com. Check this page for rates and more information on advertising in Southern Living.Submitting a Story (and 3 Types of Stories to Submit)If you don't want to pay for ads, you can get featured in Southern Living by writing and submitting an article.The magazine usually publishes three types of stories:

• Opinion pieces (op-eds):

• News articles:

• Informative articles:

Of course, the type of story you’ll submit will depend on the subject you want to cover. You can also consider switching between different types, especially if your initial pitch gets rejected.

We’ll talk about how you can pitch your story to the magazine in the rest of this guide.

‍Submitting Your Story to Southern Living

‍Learn how you can pitch your story to the magazine below.

‍1. Decide Which Section You’ll Write For

‍Southern Living publishes articles on a wide array of topics, from delicious recipes and holidays to house interiors and beauty tips. The articles are categorized into sections and subsections of the magazine according to their topics. For example, an article about perfumes and an article about lip balms would belong to both the Style section and the Beauty subsection.

You probably already know which section you want to write for. If you don’t, just choose one that best fits your niche and goals.

You can find all the sections on the Southern Living website: 

You'll see the subsections when you click on a section you’re interested in. For example, by clicking “Home”, we can see that the section is further divided into Idea Houses, Home Decor Ideas, Before & Afters, and other subsections: 

Make sure you know exactly where your story would fit before moving on to the next step.

‍2. Find the Right Topic

‍Once you’ve decided which section you want to write for, you need to come up with a topic for your article. It’s best to choose topics that already garner interest. 

You can find them using topic research tools like Semrush. Enter a niche-related keyword, hit enter, and let the tool come up with topic ideas for you: 

When we choose topics for clients, we ensure they also fit their desired business and marketing goals and have satisfying search volumes. If you want our experts to choose your topics for you, reach out here.

Notice the search volume is visible for every suggested keyword and topic in Semrush. This tells you if and how popular they are among users.For example, “living room” is more popular than “coffee tables,” and “coffee tables” is a more popular topic than “dining room.” 

Alternatively, you can also use Google Trends to see which topics are currently trending among online users. In this example, we entered a broad topic for which we want to find trends (home decor), and got trending queries and related topics as results:

Of course, you shouldn’t blindly follow these suggestions. Use common sense — and make sure you actually have the expertise needed to write about the topics you’re considering.‍

3. Adopt the Magazine’s Style

‍How you write is as important as what you write about.Your article should reflect your personality, but your style still needs to fit that of Southern Living.

That’s why we suggest reading through a few past magazine issues. As you read, take note of things like:

• The average article length
• The average paragraph length
• The average sentence length
• The tone of writing (formal, informal, authoritative, friendly, etc.)
• The average article depth (whether it provides a lot of detailed information or is kept brief)
• Whether articles are written from third- or first-person perspectives

If you’re writing for the travel, food, or similar sections, photography may be important, too. Consider if other contributors in your chosen section included original photos in their articles. If so, check if there’s a common thread between the photos and try to replicate it.

‍4. Define Your Offer

‍It’s almost time to pitch your story. Before that, get really clear about what you want to get from the magazine and what you’re giving in return.

Here are a few Qs that can help you get that clarity:

• Where do you want to publish your article? Print or digital, which section, which subsection, and which sub-subsection?
• What’s the benefit of the magazine? How are you helping their readers, or entertaining them?
• What will you submit? What topic are you pitching?

Answer these questions in your pitch.

‍5. Contact the Magazine

‍Finally, it’s time to pitch your story to the magazine. We’ll show you more ways you can do so, but let’s start with the most straightforward one: contacting the staff.

‍According to the Southern Living website, there are two ways to get in touch with its representatives:

• Phone number: 1-800-272-4101
• Email address: SLVcustserv@cdsfulfillment.com

Unfortunately, both contact options are mainly reserved for customer support.Still, customer support may be able to forward your pitch to the editors — or, at the very least, they may give you more relevant contact info.

‍6. Connect With the Editors

‍The easiest way to get published is to get your article accepted by Southern Living’s editors. So, why not contact them directly and send them your pitch?

Which editor you should contact depends on the section you want to write for. For example, if you want to share tips on house décor, you should contact the editor in charge of the Home section.

Here are all the editors of the Southern Living magazine:

• Travel and culture editor: Caroline Rogers
• Associate homes editor: Grace Haynes
• Senior homes editor: Betsy Cribb Watson
• Senior food editor: Lisa Cericola
• Digital news editor: Rebecca Angel Baer
• Other editors: Katie Strasberg Rousso, Betsy Cribb, Patricia S. York
• Editor in chief: Sid Evans

Finding them on social media shouldn’t be difficult. You can message them there, or you can try finding their email addresses using an email scraping tool like Hunter.io: 

As you see above, email scraping tools will look for (and, hopefully, find) the email addresses connected with a domain you enter. We suggest sending your pitch to emails connected with a specific person, like the ones we highlighted above.

The downside of this strategy is that editors usually receive dozens of unsolicited pitches every day. That means they may pay little to no attention to yours.

That’s more the reason why you need to ensure your pitch stands out. It needs to be persuasive, concise, and spark the editors’ interest. If you need help writing such a pitch, feel free to rework our template for pitching to bloggers.‍

7. Reach Out to Current Contributors

‍If reaching out to editors doesn’t work, don’t worry. There’s still one more method to try: contacting other contributors.

Again, you want to contact contributors that are most relevant to you—contributors that publish articles in the same section you want to write for.

Simply browse through the section you’re considering, click through a few articles, and check out their authors.

Your goal is to find independent contributors. These are writers that aren’t a part of the magazine’s staff but rather independent journalists, writers, or freelancers:

Just like in the case of editors, finding contributors on social media should be easy enough. You’ll probably also find other contact options by googling contributors’ names: 

Once you find a way to contact a contributor, try asking them if they could introduce you to the editors. Be ready to showcase your previous articles, as most contributors won’t be open to recommending someone with no insight into their work.

Most importantly, don’t get discouraged if you get rejected by one contributor. Simply reach out to another one.

‍If you're struggling, we can help you get your first feature in Southern Living.

‍How to Increase the Chances of Getting Accepted

• Write for other high-authority publications — Most Southern Living’s contributors have previous experience writing for high-authority publications like the Wall Street Journal or The Spruce. Try gaining similar writing experience before pitching to Southern Living. Our article on becoming a Forbes contributor may help.
• Connect with an editor — Some of Southern Living’s editors are active on social media. Follow them, engage with their content, and try to forge a relationship.
• Make your stories beneficial to the readers — Best articles are reader-oriented. For example, the best travel articles focus on activities or attractions the readers are interested in. As a result, they make the readers feel as if they’re visiting a particular place in the South that’s being described:

Think about what your readers would be the most interested in while reading, then give them exactly that in your article. The editors will take note of this.

FAQ

Who owns Southern Living magazine?

‍Dotdash Meredith owns Southern Living magazine.

‍Where to buy Southern Living magazine?

‍To order a subscription, it's best to visit magazines.com. You can subscribe via Southern Living's self-service page here or telephone assistance: 1-800-272-4101.

‍What happened to Southern Living magazine?

‍According to The State, the Southern Living Store, an extension of Southern Living Magazine, started closing its doors in South Carolina, Florida, and Missouri. Regardless of the brick-and-mortar stores closing down, the Southern Living magazine is still active.

‍Get Featured in Southern Living and Other Authority Publications. We Can Help.

‍You can’t get featured in Southern Living on your own? Our link building agency can help.

We’ll handle the entire process, from the back and forth with the editors to ghostwriting your article. You don’t pay us until we get you the placement you want, so you’re only paying for results and not the effort.

Sounds good? Schedule your free consultation to learn more about our offer or order your placements today.