Pitching Playbook: Tips from Maya Anderson

Maya Anderson, Home Edit Columnist at Sunday Times Magazine and the face behind home and interiors blog, House Nerd.  

Landing that coveted feature in your favourite publication can sometimes feel like cracking a code – but it doesn’t have to be. A well-crafted pitch can be your key to success, and your breakthrough moment that gets your product and brand in front of the right editors, journalists, and audiences who can turn exposure into opportunity. 

That said, pitching isn’t one-size-fits-all. Every editor and journalist have their own niche, research habits, deadlines, and ways of selecting content. Sometimes, if a pitch doesn’t land the first time, it’s not a rejection – it’s simply a matter of aesthetics, timing, or even whether a colour or texture fits the spread just right. Even if your pitch is practically perfect, it may take persistence, a little patience, and some creative tweaking to get it noticed. 

We spoke with Maya Anderson, the journalist behind The Home Edit column in The Sunday Times Magazine - and the face behind home and interiors blog, House Nerd - to uncover what makes a pitch stand out. From her beginnings as a freelance writer and blogger at House Nerd to running a much-loved weekly column for over six years, Maya has developed a keen eye for interiors, trends, and the products that capture readers’ attention. 

In this interview, she shares her top tips for pitching successfully, how she curates content for her column, and what brands - big or small - can do to get noticed. Whether you’re a PR pro, small business owner, or creative looking to feature your products in print, Maya’s insights offer a masterclass in persistence, presentation, and strategy. 

Thanks so much for chatting with us Maya. To kick things off, can you share a bit about your role at the Sunday Times Magazine and how you came to write the Home Edit column? 

I started out as a freelance journalist, specialising in homes and interiors, while also running my blog, House Nerd. An editor for the Sunday Times Magazine here in WA asked me if I would head a new column showing people ideas for achieving home design looks. A kind of ‘get the look’ often using international trends and homes, but with furniture and products available in Australia. I think I had a good reputation as someone who was reliable as a freelancer and also had knowledge of the home and design industry. That was six years ago! I am blown away by the support we continue to get from my Home Edit column. I will admit I expected the column to last about a year – I’ve had a few different columns now and longevity-wise they tell you to count anything over a year as a bonus! That I’ve now been getting to do this consistently every week for six years makes me so happy. It shows that even though so much is digital and online these days, print media continues to have its place and to have influence. (Hopefully I’m not jinxing it). 

Tell us about the Home Edit column and your readers. 

STM (The Sunday Times Magazine) in Western Australia is a style and fashion magazine that comes out in The West Australia and has a readership of around 204,000 readers a week. I always wanted to write for STM when I was a baby journalist! It always had a lot of prestige in Perth. It’s our weekly glossy – what you read when you’re relaxing at your favourite café on a Sunday morning.

How do you plan your content?  

In Home Edit, each week we feature a different inspiration image and put out a call asking people to submit product ideas for a ‘get the look’ page. I then send all the selected images to our graphic designer for layout, aiming to showcase a mix of affordable homewares alongside higher-end luxury brands. We also occasionally produce themed issues, covering topics like luxury, Christmas, and Mother’s Day. That said, I’m not always as organised with my content plans as I’d like to be, so sometimes I’m searching for the perfect inspiration image at the last minute!

Do you prefer to be pitched, or do you like to discover and reach out to brands yourself? 

I love being pitched to - especially when people send brand imagery hoping to get featured.  I’m always on the lookout for that or when they introduce products I might not have discovered yet. I wish more people reached out! 

What will make a pitch stand out to you?

As a journalist, I receive a lot of media releases and pitches, and it’s usually easy to tell when something is sent out generically versus when the sender has taken the time to understand what I actually like to see.  Having good quality photos included in your pitch is a huge pro too.  If you can, invest in creating high resolution, quality imagery, and check photographer’s contracts to see what you’re paying for in terms of rights and republishing, social media and ad usage.  Getting deep-etch photos – ones where the product is ‘cut out’ on a white background – can go a long way for magazine features.  

Also, I’m going to sound old-fashioned, but if you’re contacting someone for the first time, whether it’s through email or you’re sliding into their DMs, find out their name and use it – for example if you’re pitching to a magazine, look in the spine to see who’s the editor or who looks after the editorials etc. I probably sound a bit old here, but I think it shows you’ve made a bit of effort and separates you from spam!  
 
In Home Edit, each week we look for a pulled back ‘inspo’ shot of a space (internal or external) and then we choose ‘floater’ product and material images to tie in with the inspo. I cannot tell you how happy it makes me when I find gorgeous inspo images. I always tell people, invest in getting pulled-back-room shots if you can – not just close-up, in-situ product shots – it gives your products versatility, and you’ll have a chance of these getting picked up by magazines, blogs and social media accounts too.  

Fenton & Fenton is a superb example of a brand that produces consistently strong, beautifully styled room images (that are also immediately recognisable and always on-brand). TSL Co is another, so is Mustard Made and Madras Link. I love finding pulled-back-room shots like these - they are absolutely perfect for my page as the ‘inspo’! You don’t have to have a huge budget – if you’re a small business, style and shoot a corner of your own home or a friend’s. Or, if possible, consider renting an Airbnb or similar space for a short photoshoot – even if it’s just for half a day!  

Clipping of Maya’s ‘Home Edit’ in the STM

What are your top tips for brands when responding to call outs?  

My main piece of advice is - keep pitching! I get emails from so many local and small businesses who want to be featured in my column, which I love, and we genuinely want to support them. However, so often people will contact me, I’ll add them to my call-out list, and they’ll submit one product once. If it’s not featured that weekend, they seem disheartened and never try again. My advice - please keep pitching! 

Sometimes, it’s truly just a numbers game. Some call outs, I might receive 200-300 submission images, which I then send onto our graphic designer for her to make selects. Other call outs, I may only receive 40-50. If you really want a product featured in print, it can also help to pitch to inspo images or themes that you think might not be as ‘popular’. Don’t take it to heart if you’ve submitted imagery a couple of times and nothing has landed, keep trying.  
 
I work with an incredibly talented graphic designer, Kim Marocchi, who makes doing my column a dream – she has the graphic design eye I don’t have. From working with her, I know that the inclusion of the next right product might just be something as simple as, ‘We need something round for that corner of the page’ or ‘Ok we need something really textural in that colour to highlight that colourway in the inspo’.

You’re also probably not going to feature three throw cushions on one page (unless it’s specifically a page of cushions!). That’s why I always tell brands in my callouts that I’m open to their suggestions, even if the product isn’t in the inspo image. Think outside the box! I love it when people send in ideas, I might not have thought of. For example, if the inspo is a calming living room, maybe your beautiful incense or soy candle would fit perfectly with that vibe - so send it in! There’s no harm in trying, and it could end up being featured. Also, feel free to pitch multiple products to a single call-out - you can definitely send more than one. 

I do keep imagery on file, so often I’ll go through past folders and place previously submitted product into a new column, but if you want your product at the forefront it’s just better to keep sending in your products to call outs - journalists don’t always have time to check if archived products are still available/in stock before they place them on a page. Don’t just send one item or one image either – send us a few! Again, truly a numbers game. Also, please read the parameters in the call out – caption images if required, include a price and stockist if you’re asked, make note of the deadline date.  

What lead time do you work to?  

In a dream scenario, the process takes about a week. I’ll put out a call-out the previous week, then on Monday morning I send our graphic designer a selection of products to choose from. She’ll work on the layout that day, I’ll submit the text on Tuesday, it goes through subediting on Wednesday, and by Wednesday evening we’re off to print for the Sunday run! 

How do you select the themes for each of your columns?  

I look at social media for ideas a lot – I am definitely guilty of being glued to my phone sometimes! I look for image and trend ideas on Instagram, Pinterest, magazines and Flaunter. I am always keeping an eye out for, and trying to spot trends, but I do also feature classic looks and rooms from years ago. Covering trends like ‘bookshelf wealth’ h, Mediterranean, 'dark academia’ or 'grand millennial’ is always fun – but there’s a lot to be said for a timeless, classic space with an interior style that doesn’t easily date.

Maya on the cover of STM

As well as your role with STM, you also have the much-loved blog, House Nerd. Can you tell us about your blog’s journey and who your core readers are today?  

The blogging landscape has certainly evolved since I first started House Nerd. Back then, Instagram had only just launched, and I didn’t even know what a hashtag was – my little sister had to show me! Since then, a lot of my core readers have stayed; some have even become real-life friends. A lot of my readers were older than me and in different stages of life, some were younger, and many were around my age – going through the same milestones at the same time, like buying a house, renovating, decorating, getting married, starting a family, or even becoming a soccer mum (haha).  

I have two busy kids now and a copywriting business as well that keeps me busy, so I don’t get around to posting on Instagram or my blog enough, but I hugely appreciate the contact base I have on there.  Starting House Nerd has changed my life, my direction and has given me so many opportunities, new friendships andnew jobs that I wouldn’t ordinarily have. I would highly recommend most people in our industry use at least Instagram or even a blog (yes, old school, but people do still read blogs!) as a kind of mini portfolio.  

Having been in the space for over a decade, what are the major shifts you have seen in the home and interiors landscape, and how have you changed the way you work?  

Google Lens is a game changer! Haha but seriously it does help us a lot. I think the major shift we saw for a while was the rise of the ‘Instagram home’ – where every second house was white, boring and looked exactly the same as the last! But I feel like we’ve finally moved away from that, and people are owning their quirky sides a bit more. I think a lot of us have become more minimal with our belongings and that is showing in our homes. I love it when people are bold in their homes and do what THEY love – not what they think other people will love, what will look good on the ‘gram or even what will keep resale value. The way we work too has changed – it’s great to see people get more flexibility in their roles. I have been WFH/running my own freelance business for 20 years, so I was WFH long before COVID and before most of my friends!  

We would love to chat to you about brand partnerships. What are some things you look for when partnering with new brands?  

I think the fundamental thing is this: does it feel like a big yes? Does it excite you? And are you getting green flags in the planning stages as you liaise with the client? I’ve done plenty of campaigns where I pushed past red flags and ignored them - telling myself, ‘Oh, they pay so well,’ or ‘Well, I’ve committed now,’ - only to seriously regret it later.” A couple of times in recent years I’ve had a bad feeling about a campaign and have pulled out as kindly and graciously as I can (even if it means a loss of money on my part or I’ve already started creating content). I think my main thing is, does it feel like this brand or PR agency genuinely trusts me to create content that I feel is an organic fit, that showcases their brand well and that my readers will love? When brands trust you to create, the content usually performs really well. But when they try to micromanage every detail, it can really backfire- I’ve definitely experienced both! 

How has affiliate marketing influenced your approach to brand collabs and content creation?  

I haven’t done too much affiliate marketing yet but it’s something I hope to do more of. When I began looking into it (years ago) we didn’t really have great affiliate programs in Australia – it’s a completely different level in the US - but the affiliate landscape is changing a lot here and it’s great.  

And finally, how does Flaunter support your work, whether it is sourcing content, discovering brands or streamlining your workflow?  

The team at Flaunter make my job such a pleasure! They always know exactly which products suit my page themes and consistently send me things I’ll love. Nothing is ever too much trouble - they go the extra mile for their clients every time. Flaunter really is PR for brands worth its weight in gold. 

Quick picks:  

Go-to podcast: Diary of a CEO. Clutterbug when I need a body double to listen to while I tidy up our house!   

Favourite Instagram accounts: @amberinteriors @advicewitherin  

Last book that you read: Currently on a Lucy Atkins binge after loving Magpie Lane and just finished The Missing One. 

To connect with Maya Anderson on Flaunter, you can visit her profile page here.

Links:

House Nerd | https://house-nerd.com/