Have you ever flicked through a magazine and thought, “I would love to see my home in there one day”? Well, you wouldn’t be the only one.
If you’ve spent years building, renovating or decorating your home, it’s completely understandable. There’s a huge amount of time, energy, money and creativity that goes into creating a home you’re proud of, so seeing it photographed and featured in a magazine can feel like a really special way to celebrate all that hard work. And celebrate all the other people, suppliers and trades that helped create it.
But how do you actually get your home published in a magazine?
After working behind the scenes on magazine shoots and pitching editorial projects for years, I’ve learnt that it isn’t quite as simple as taking a few photos and sending them off to a magazine.
There’s a story behind every home, and knowing how to uncover that story, prepare the house, create beautiful editorial-styled photography and connect it with the right publication can make all the difference.
So, if you’re wondering how to get your home featured in a magazine, here are my top tips that I have learnt from my years working as a stylist.
Styling Wholehearted Studio | Photography Mindi Cooke | Publication Country Style
Ask yourself: is my home magazine-worthy?
This is the most important place to start and a hard question to answer. Being magazine-worthy doesn’t necessarily mean having the biggest budget or the most expensive furniture. Often, it’s the personality, originality and story behind a home that makes it interesting.
However, if your house is still half empty, looks like a fairly standard home that we have all seen many times before, or maybe it still has a long renovation to-do list of things still to be done, it might not be quite ready for a magazine… *just yet*.
And sometimes, a home just needs a little work before it’s ready for its close-up. Styling can make a huge difference in bringing a project together and getting it into shipshape before it’s submitted to a magazine.
That might mean adding artwork, flowers, books and beautiful objects, editing what’s already in the home, rearranging furniture, sourcing pieces that are missing or simply working out how to tell the visual story of the house.
But if it's architecturally interesting, beautifully decorated, genuinely unique, has a strong connection to the land, or has a story that sets it apart, there could be plenty of interest from the right publication.
The key is working out what makes your home worth sharing.
It’s not just about the photos; it’s about the story.
You can have the most beautiful home, but if we don’t know the story behind it, it can be much harder to pitch.
How did you find the house? What made you fall in love with it? What decisions did you make along the way? What did you want the home to feel like? And what were the tricky, unexpected or challenging parts of creating the finished home?
Over the years, I have found magazines love to know the backstory because it gives an editor a potential story angle from the very beginning.
If it’s a renovation, for example, an editor will often want to know about the challenges as much as the beautiful end result. What was the most difficult part? Did you have to work within an unusual floor plan? Do you have a list of the materials, finishes and suppliers you used, so the magazine can share those details with readers?
The styled photography is important, of course. But it’s the story that gives those pictures something to say.
Engage the right professionals.
Having a professionally styled shoot to pitch to the magazines is by far the best way to create beautiful imagery to showcase your home.
While you wait to hear back from the magazines, you’ll have those beautiful photos to use for your own website, social media and other purposes too. Beautiful, considered imagery gives an editor something tangible to look at and helps them see the potential of the home before they have even looked back up from their computer.
After years of working with magazines and online publications, I’ve built a lovely network of editors, creative directors, journalists, photographers and other people across the industry. So, engaging a stylist and photographer who already have connections with the magazines you’d love to be featured in can give you a very strong head start.
A professional photographer will know how to capture the architecture, light, spaces and details of your home in a way that works editorially.
And a stylist can help bring all of those elements together, making sure the home feels considered, cohesive and authentic while still looking beautiful through the lens.
A final word of encouragement.
If you’ve been quietly dreaming about seeing your home in the pages of a magazine, I hope this has given you a little more insight into what happens behind the scenes.
You need a home with a story. Something that feels considered, beautiful, personal or genuinely interesting. And then you need to find the right people to help tell that story beautifully.
Because ultimately, getting a home published isn’t just about seeing your own house in print. It’s about celebrating the people, ideas, creativity, products and decisions that went into creating it.
And for me, as a stylist who loves helping other independent Australian brands and makers get featured in those shoots, it’s also about shining a light on them, and perhaps inspiring someone else to create something unique of their own.
The good news is we work behind the scenes on magazine editorial shoots, bringing together creative direction, styling and beautiful imagery to help tell the story of a home or project.
So if you have a home, renovation or project you think could be a great fit for an Australian interiors publication, we’d love to hear from you.
