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Freelance Pitch Triage

Example prompt: "Every weekday at 9am, look at new emails in the pitches@ Gmail inbox from the last 24 hours. For each one, work out whether it's a pitch (ignore press releases, newsletters, and vendor emails), pull out the headline idea, the writer's name, and any clips they've linked. Compare the idea against our current beats list in the 'Beats' tab of the editorial Google Sheet and rate the fit as strong, maybe, or not for us. Log every pitch to the 'Inbound Pitches' tab with the rating and a one-line reason. For anything rated 'not for us', draft a warm decline email in Gmail. For 'maybe' or 'strong', draft a reply asking the specific follow-up question I'd normally ask at this stage. Don't send anything — leave them as drafts and post a Slack summary in #editorial with the counts and links."

The Problem

Editors at even modest-sized publications get dozens of freelance pitches a week, and the triage is a real time sink. Most pitches aren't a fit, but every one deserves a quick read, a sensible response, and a record in case the writer circles back with something better later. Doing this well by hand means an hour or two each morning spent copy-pasting, writing polite declines, and logging things to a spreadsheet — work that has to happen before any actual editing can start.

How GloriaMundo Solves It

We build a workflow that triages the pitch inbox every morning and produces a reviewable stack of drafts rather than sending anything automatically. An integration step pulls new messages from the pitches inbox. An LLM step classifies each as pitch or not-a-pitch and extracts the key fields — writer name, proposed headline, links to clips, and any hook that's specific to a current story. A second integration step reads the current beats and commissioning priorities from the editorial sheet. An LLM step scores each pitch against those priorities and writes a one-line reason. A code step assembles the rows for the tracking sheet. A final LLM step drafts replies that match the rating: a warm, specific decline for not-a-fit; a short follow-up question for maybe; and a "let's talk" reply for strong. Everything is previewed in Glass Box, nothing is sent, and the edit team sees one Slack summary with the links to review.

Example Workflow Steps

  1. Trigger (scheduled): Every weekday at 9am.
  2. Step 1 (integration): Read yesterday's new messages from the pitches Gmail inbox.
  3. Step 2 (LLM): For each message, classify as pitch or not, and extract headline idea, writer, clips, and any timeliness hook.
  4. Step 3 (integration): Read current beats and commissioning priorities from the editorial Google Sheet.
  5. Step 4 (LLM): Rate each pitch's fit (strong / maybe / not for us) with a one-line reason.
  6. Step 5 (code): Assemble rows for the tracking tab, including the writer's email and today's date.
  7. Step 6 (integration): Append rows to the 'Inbound Pitches' tab of the sheet.
  8. Step 7 (LLM): Draft a reply for each pitch matching its rating and specific content.
  9. Step 8 (integration): Save all replies as drafts in Gmail.
  10. Step 9 (integration): Post a Slack summary in the editorial channel with counts and direct links to the drafts.

Integrations Used

  • Gmail — the pitches inbox and the destination for draft replies
  • Google Sheets — current beats list and the inbound pitches log
  • Slack — single daily summary for the editor to review

Who This Is For

Editors and commissioning producers at small-to-mid-sized publications, trade journals, and newsletters who receive 10-50 freelance pitches a week and want a consistent, kind response process without losing a morning to inbox triage.

Time & Cost Saved

Manually triaging 30-40 freelance pitches a week — reading, rating, logging, and drafting replies — typically takes 4-6 hours across a working week. This workflow reduces that to around 45 minutes of review: opening the Slack summary, skim-approving the not-a-fit declines, and editing the two or three replies that matter. The tracking sheet builds itself, so past pitches are searchable without extra work.