In fact, Getting published in O helped raise one entrepreneur's sales by 60% in just 30 days. But that was just the tip of the iceberg. The mention brought much needed awareness to a cause close to her heart--breast cancer. Thanks to Oprah magazine the issue is now visible on a grand scale.

Knowing how valuable it is to get published in O, you must consider your competition and understand that, just like The Oprah Winfrey Show, the standards at the magazine are some of the toughest in the industry. O magazine prides itself as a publication valuing beauty, courage, attention to the finer points of relationships, and people doing amazing things in the world.

Here Are 3 Things You Should Know If You Want to Be Published in O, The Oprah Magazine:

1. Your product packaging must be beautiful.

If your product packaging and product itself isn't an eye-stopper, it's most likely not going in O, The Oprah Magazine. Jeanine Boiko of J9 Public Relations, who placed her client Bonjour Fleurette in the magazine three times for three different products, has this rule of thumb:

"For a product to work in O, ask yourself this: if you walked past your product on the shelf somewhere, would it catch your eye and make you stop? It must have unique, attractive packaging that will photograph well. My advice, especially to new business owners, is to not play it cheap with packaging. At the end of the day, it's all about the draw of your packaging."

2. Your pitch must be meaningful.

So, before you make a pitch, heed the advice of The Oprah Magazine Executive Articles Editor Dawn Raffel who says the magazine teaches people how to live their best life: "It's about realizing your own greatest potential and also about making a contribution to others."

Whether you want to write about yourself, be written about, or write about someone else, ask yourself these two questions :

• Are you making a difference in a big way?


• Are you making a difference in a way that is important to Oprah?

Genevieve Piturro, founder of the Pajama Project, gets a "yes" on both counts. Her charity gives new pajamas to abused and poor kids, many whose mothers are in prison. Some of these children never owned any pajamas, and certainly not new ones. When you think about children going to sleep at night in a fresh pair of pajamas instead of tattered, dirty clothes, it conjures an image of safety and home.

Pitturo scored big on two points: She tapped into one of Oprah's key areas of importance: abused children. And she created a remarkable endeavor that attracted many people's interest, given the story's emotional pull. It made me want to hurry and buy pajamas and donate money to this worthy cause.

3. Your pitch must be well-written.

O's readers expect the content to dig deep into emotional, physical, and spiritual well-being on many levels. Oprah's magazine delivers on this expectation by seeking out top authors and freelancers from the best national magazines and newspapers in the country. They look for writers from publications like the New York Times to Wired to write on topics as diverse as women slavery to how men really feel about breast implants to the death of a beloved dog.

You can either be interviewed by these experienced writers or write a feature on a topic that touches the heart of the O magazine reader.

It may take you 1 to 2 years to get published in O, The Oprah Magazine. But I've haven't met one soul who said it wasn't worth it.

Henry David Thoreau said, "If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours." So if getting in O is one of your dreams, keep advancing toward it with all the steadiness of a tulip reaching toward the sun.