Pitchpalooza Continues!

Um, so I'm completely obsessing about this pitch. I got some great advice from you lovely writer friends on the last post, and this post will continue with the terrifying theme of verbally pitching agents. Eleven days until my conference! The countdown has begun.

So, to summarize the tips you guys left on Friday's post, these are the major themes that developed:

• Practice, practice, practice
• Stay calm, remember to breath
• Remember you are just sharing your passion for your book
• Come up with one sentence that summarizes your whole book and memorize it

I hit the interwebs today to see what agents had to say on the matter. I was unsurprised that my pals Nate, Janet and Rachelle had excellent blog posts about this very subject. Double yay! Here's a summary of what I learned from them:

• Always start the pitch with a friendly greeting (don't just start rambling), introduce yourself, state your genre and word count
• Create three pitches: a one sentence, one paragraph and two paragraph
• Memorize them, but be flexible and allow the conversation to be two-sided
• There was some debate as to how long a pitch you should give - Janet suggested asking the agent what kind of pitch they like in conference settings
• Be prepared to answer questions (Rachelle's post has a good list of potentials)

Nate's has actual examples from his forthcoming Jacob Wonderbar book, which is immensely helpful. J.R.'s points out what should be different between a query and a verbal pitch. Rachelle has two posts on the subject, one with a very detailed do and don't list, and the other which points out the positives of a verbal pitch as opposed to a query.

I've started brainstorming my different length pitches and I'm going to post them here on Friday. I might do a vlog. No promises, though. Whether I do or don't will depend on a) if I can figure out how to use my webcam, b) if I can keep from LMAO while trying to record it, and c) how cringe-worthy I am on camera.

Two other bits of business. First, don't forget to sign up for me and Colene's SPD blogfest on St. Patty's Day! Second, Carol Riggs is doing a critique of the first 250 words of my novel Countless on her blog on Wednesday. Fun stuff! Have a great week fellow writers!