Arti­cle and book pitches — both suc­cess­ful and unsuc­cess­ful — can give you a small insight into an editor’s selec­tion process and the sales-side of a writer’s mind, as well as help you learn to write more effec­tively. As such I’ve started to col­lect sites fea­tur­ing pro­pos­als and pitches.

A recent addi­tion to this list is the pitch data­base from The Open Note­book; a col­lec­tion of writer-submitted pitches for sci­ence arti­cles that have been accepted for pub­lish­ing in many of my favourite places, such as Ars Tech­nica, Atlantic, Lapham’s Quar­terly, This Amer­i­can Life and Wired.

Of par­tic­u­lar note is a pitch from David Dobbs, writer of the Neu­ron Cul­ture blog. Pitch­ing Atlantic edi­tor Don Peck, Dobbs wrote an exten­sive pitch for The Orchid Chil­dren that led to the pub­li­ca­tion of a fan­tas­tic arti­cle, The Sci­ence of Suc­cess. Those who fol­low Dobbs’ blog will know that this in turn led to a book deal for The Orchid and the Dan­de­lion, Dobbs’ forth­com­ing book.