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… ‘cause you “never know what you’re going to get.” And I’m sure the agents and editor’s who came to Killer Nashville to hear pitches probably felt the same way when authors sat down across from them to make their pitches.
Pitches, for those who may not be aware of them, are where the author becomes salesman (or saleswoman). It’s an oral query letter, delivered in person, by you — and on the other side of the small table with the too-long table cloth is the agent or editor.
This person, whom you may have researched and read about, taken notes and taken the time to find out if he or she is on Facebook or LinkedIn is rarely going to match up with what you’ve gleaned, at least for the five to ten minutes you have to pitch to them. The World Wide Web makes products of us all and the flesh and blood, breathing and gleaning version now across the table from you, waiting on you to try to entice her or him is not going to match up. Similarly, you will feel that your pitch is not going to match up with your novel, your pride and joy that you’ve written and rewritten and rewritten again, cursed at and crumpled up papers over for months, if not years. From the moment you sit down, you are in a Twilight Zone where the pieces of reality don’t quite fit.
I guess you could pay somebody to pitch for you, or beg your best friend or a family member to do, but this ringer is probably not going to know the book as well as you, and you have to know it, to be prepared to answer questions beyond your oral presentation. And if an agent or editor is interested, there will probably be questions. For example, I was asked, “How many words is you novel?” “Have you had it critiqued by a critique group?” “Have you written anything else?” “Have you approached any other agents or editors with this novel?”Having written more than the novel you are pitching shows you are serious about writing. Having a critique group look at it is a sign that you are willing to take criticism and possibly willing to make changes in response to it.
First hard fact to deal with: a pitch is where your novel – your magical, wondrous world created out of imagination and toil, and conjured up with mysterious black marks on a white page – becomes a “product.”
And in case you’re wondering, I recoil at writing the above sentence. But the fact is, publishing is a business, and even more so today than ever before. As the community services manager for Barnes and Noble said during one of the panels at Killer Nashville, “Over 200,000 titles are published each year, and we only have space in our store for about 100,000 titles.” And not all that space is available for new books. There are some standards and classics they carry. The owner and manager of Mysteries and More, an independent bookstore of 1,000 sq. ft. in Nashville has even less space for books, recently published or not.
Second hard fact to deal with: You have 10 minutes or less to sell (pitch) your “product” to an agent or editor, and what you are hoping for is that the agent or editor will want to see the manuscript or some part of it.
Sometimes you have less than 10 minutes. For example, if the guy before you gobbled up more than his allotted time and the monitor had to go pry him out of the chair across the table from the agent you’re scheduled to pitch to. There are several key elements that make up a good pitch, which I may go into in another entry, but for now, I will recommend this book: Selling Your Story in 60 Seconds: The Guaranteed Way to Get Your Screenplay or Novel Read by Michael Hauge.
The idea of the pitch comes from Hollywood where pitches are used to sell screenplays to producers and directors. There are even pitch festivals, where you can pay to go inside and pitch you screenplay to one or many people who can make the screenplay a screen presentation. Pitches are writing conferences are usually free, assuming you have paid to enter the conference.
I signed up to pitch to three agents. My times were back to back to back, as were most other people’s who had multiple pitches. So, dry mouth, parched lips (It’s amazing how quickly my lips can dry out.), and clumsy-footed, I gracelessly stepped into the room. There were six small tables, three on each side of the room. Each table was the same small round table with the too, too long ivory table cloth draped over it. And, of course, the first agent I was assigned to pitch to was in the back of the room. Plenty of opportunity to pratfall before reaching my destination.
Third hard fact to deal with: Asking to see some part or all of your wondrous world created with mysterious black marks on white paper is not a promise to represent it or publish it. It is not even a promise to like it.
Now, that doesn’t mean the agent or editor does not want to like your novel. They have come to conferences like Killer Nashville in search of the next novel or novels they can fall in love with and want to represent or publish. They want to be taken away to wondrous worlds by way of the mysterious black marks on white paper. I’ll even include in that the one agent who said on a panel that when he receives a query letter (a written pitch), he looks for a reason to say no, but that is simply because he says he receives so many of them. Still, he was at this conference and he was taking pitches, so even he was looking for the magic that only a novel good novel can bring.
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