Pitching your book online
My desk before pitch time. Complete with encouraging post-it left by spouse.
Last weekend I participated in an online writers conference. It was my first time pitching a book online and my first time pitching multiple agents. My last pitch was in person back in 2019, and I was not nearly as prepared as I was this time, as I had just flung myself into that conference. This book is in much better shape also. Before this one, not only did I talk to a friend who had pitched her book last year, but I did a lot of online research about pitches in general. I found a lot that was dated—you know, to the Before Times, when online everything wasn’t assumed—and not much that answered some specific questions that I had, so I thought I’d add my own experience into the mix in the even that it helps someone else.
Things I Heard/Read v. What I Experienced:
Agents are more likely to say ‘sure send me pages’ because it’s more difficult for them to tell you no face-to-face. I did not find this to be the case. At least, they sure acted like they were giving this serious thought before saying yes to me. In fact, my first pitch was a very polite ‘no’ because the agent just didn’t like fae stories. More on that later. But with one exception, the agents who asked for pages all asked me several questions to make sure my book was interesting to them before giving me their submission links. The one exception happened to love fae stories, so she was willing to look at it, but did warn me that she’s picky about them.
Ten minutes goes by very quickly. Yes and no. A couple of agents talked to me very extensively before asking for pages. Those ten minutes were eaten up fast. The one agent who said no right away let me ask any other questions I had (and I did) and those ten minutes went by like a normal ten minutes. I still recommend a shorter pitch to leave time for discussion.
Agents are just people. Not true. Hahaha, just kidding, it’s totally true. During my second pitch, my cat came in and had the Guinness World Record holding hairball right next to my chair, while I was mid-pitch. I apologized and let her know what was going on—because it sounded like a human was choking to death on my floor—and she was totally chill. She also asked for pages. Another agent’s dog jumped right into her lap while we were talking. He was adorable.
Advice I Took That Was Spot On:
Keep your pitch short. This worked for me. The one agent who wasn’t interested would not have changed his mind had I kept talking. He didn’t like fae, and specifically the fact that they’re always stealing people and taking them to another place. That’s literally the inciting incident in my book. He was not for me. However, I didn’t waste time pitching for five minutes while he was sitting there being polite, and because the rejection was so quick, I got to ask him a lot of blunt questions about my work since I’d already been rejected. The two agents that I spoke to for a while needed that extra time to make up their mind about my book. The other two accepted fairly quickly, but let me use the rest of my time to ask questions, which I found helpful.
Have a list of questions. YEP! I was so stunned with my first rejection—I had done my research! No where on his website did he say ‘no fae’—that had I not had a list of questions at the ready, I may have wasted that time. Instead I got some very valuable information.
Carefully research your agents beforehand. This should probably go without saying, but I guess it wouldn’t be said so often if there weren’t some people who need to hear it. You want someone who’s going to like your work. They often have this out there so prominently that an easy Google Search will turn it up for you in seconds. This also helps break the ice when you’re coming into your pitch. You can ‘warm-up’ by telling them why you chose them. I went ahead and pulled specific phrases from their sites if applicable. I talk very quickly when I’m nervous and have to consciously remind myself to slow down. The intro gave me a moment to get myself under control before launching into the pitch.
Get your query letter ready beforehand. I hate query letters. I mean, they’re fine once I’ve got one, I can pretty much use it as a template and personalize bits of it. It’s just sitting down and doing it. But it’s basically your pitch. It also forces you to think about what you want this agent to know about you and your work so you’re ready for those questions. And then when they say to send them pages, you’ve got your letter ready to go.
Practice your pitch beforehand. One hundred percent, yes. I was an actor in Chicago for almost two decades, I narrate stories online regularly, I was a DJ in college, et cetera, and I still got nerved up doing this. If you have a writers group—even better if they’re remote—pitch them exactly as you plan to pitch your agents. Including your personal ‘why I picked you’ spiel. My group was very helpful in pointing out tweaks that strengthened my pitch, as well as letting me know that I needed to slow down. I also got a sense of how long I was actually going to be talking.
Things I Learned/Were Particular To Me:
If you have more than one book finished and ready, prep both pitches. I write very quickly, so I have a few works ready to go, but I wasn’t sure if this was appropriate. However, after my first agent told me he wasn’t a good fit for fae stories, I decided that wasn’t going to happen to me again. Fortunately, I had a pitch already for my ghost story, so I just pulled that up and threw it below my first pitch on the page just in case. And my third agent told me that she wasn’t crazy about fae. I said, “How about ghosts? I have a ghost story!” She perked up right away and said, “Ooo, yeah, pitch me that.” I did and she loved the concept and asked for pages. Another reason for a short pitch. I was able to pitch both books and give her time for questions all in ten minutes.
Practice with the mic you’re going to use a few times beforehand. Fortunately for me, I work remotely, and meet with two different writers groups remotely. I also did a ton of beta feedback meetings in the month prior to the conference. At some point, someone told me I sounded fuzzy. I tried several different microphones during different meetings until I found one that worked every time and I was comfortable with. You don’t want them to be straining to hear you.
If you’re pitching the first in the series, and you’ve written the other books, don’t pitch it that way. This was some of the great insight I got from that first agent. As I’ve mentioned, I write very quickly. I tend to get obsessed with stories and bomb through them. I also revise pretty quickly. So I happened to be pitching the first in a planned trilogy. I also happened to have finished the second book and be partially into the third. I am well aware that these books will change drastically in ways that I haven’t even fathomed once the first book gets picked up. However, agents get scared—and I understand why—when someone has written so much because they feel that this person will be unwilling to change their books. I am very willing, and expect my books to change, so I’d rather this not be a detriment. I was advised to say that I had outlined the other two instead. This works for me as another idea recently popped into my head that I’m obsessed with, so I was taking a break from that story anyway and now don’t have to feel guilty about it.
I don’t think it hurts to reiterate that you’re willing to ‘slay your darlings.’ I had one agent that was a little concerned with my word count. I told him that I was sure there were things in there to cut, but after being immersed in it for so long, I was blind to them. I told him, in those words, that I was willing to slay some darlings and that I expected things to be cut and changed. On another note, if you’re not willing to make changes to your book, you may be better off self-publishing or going to a vanity press. The process will be faster and you’ll have much more control, you just may not get the distribution an agent would give you. You won’t get through an agent and a traditional publisher without making changes.
Now, as of this writing, I’ve already received two rejections. Form rejections at that, so nothing really constructive to work on. We’ll see what happens with the other two, before I make a final judgement on pitching at a conference in general. However, I will say that the conference itself motivated me to get my queries in order and start researching agents. Getting those initial requests to for pages also gave me the inspiration to focus on getting my synopses tweaked and making some final edits. So I do think the experience was worthwhile as a whole. From one end of this conference to the other, I’ve moved from someone who has written a couple of books, had them critiqued several times, and made changes, to someone who has done all of that and is now in the realm of querying professionals to represent my work. This is another step.
A selfie I took at my first writers conference three years ago. I had no writer friends. No reliable group to look at my stuff and critique. I just threw myself into it. I’ve learned so much since then.