The Elevator Pitch

On the October 21-22, I’m attending the New Jersey Romance Writers "Put Your Heart in a Book Conference." I’m not pitching, but several of my friends are. When I saw this article “Prepare Your Elevator Speech” by Margot Carmichael Lester, MonsterContributing Writer on Yahoo, it got me to thinking about how these five points could be adapted to work for an elevator pitch with an editor/agent.

1—Focus on the book

If you haven’t done so, come up with a high concept, one-sentence blurb of your book. The higher the concept the better. Think about what makes your book stand out, and yet, what makes it the same. Focus on the goals, motivations and conflicts of your characters.

2—Do your homework

Know why you want published or represented by this person. What makes him/her special? Have you taken a workshop with him/her? What makes this person your dream editor/agent or publisher? What books by this publisher have you read? Or if it’s an agent, do you read the authors he/she represents? You may not have to bring up any of this, but if in the course of your conversation, he/she asks any of these questions, it would be better to be prepared.

3—Be professional

This should really go without saying. We all have the knack of pointing out a fake. Don’t tell the editor/agent you’re best writer ever. Don’t brag and don’t kiss up. If you’re published, bring it up, but don’t make things up. Don’t blame others. I know, sounds like common sense. But we all know how that seems to be in short supply sometimes…

4—Keep it short

We are all busy people and editors/agents are some of the busiest. Keep your pitch focused and interesting.

5—Practice

The best thing you can do is write out your entire pitch. Then practice, practice, practice. Aloud and in front of a mirror. Pretend your reflection is the editor/agent of your dreams. Make notes of where you can improve. Try to reduce your nervous habits. Make it sound natural by varying your tone of voice. Become familiar with the script, but don’t become so focused on memorizing the script until you can’t think of anything else. This is where knowing as much as possible about the editor/agent is important. If he/she asks you a question, you’ll still be able to keep your cool and give an intelligent answer. Have your friends—writer friends who are familiar with what you are doing are best, in my opinion—to critique your pitch. It might even be a good idea to have them role play with you by asking questions about your story that are not covered in the pitch, or to ask you one of the questions mentioned in Number 2 to practice those answers as well.

Good luck!

Pitch Room Panic

Back in October, I attended the Muse Online Writer's Conference. Have you enrolled before? There are a gazillion workshops to attend at your leisure, chat room workshops, and major downloads to be had. There is also an opportunity to pitch your work to both agents and publishers alike.

This latter prospect is done in a pitch room, which is in chat room format. I think they should change the name to panic room. Want to know why? Read my story:

Lea Schizas, the Muse Conference Creator, informed me via email of my time slot to pitch. I was watching the conversations flow in Chat Room 2, waiting my turn. The moderator announced I would be number two in the Pitch Room, a totally separate chat room.

The previous pitch session with another agent was still going on and I had like 5 minutes before mine started. Then I noticed not much was being said, no one was adding to the conversation scroll. So I wrote something on the chat board. No response. I clicked over to read my email - it says NO CONNECTION. Oh Crap-ola!

I closed the internet and went back in. NO CONNECTION. LOL! Talk about panic! Well hell, you know the feeling. I ran out to the garage where our wireless router and modem is and saw the modem was down. While I have the landline phone up to my ear calling the cable company (so NOT a good time for an outage right then), I'm disconnecting cables and wires and re-connecting as fast as I can.

The lights come on s-l-o-w-l-y as full connection is resumed. AHHH!!!

I run back into the house, opened the internet, zoomed as fast as my connection would allow back to Chat Room 2. And, I think I've forgot to mention - I had to pee so bad!

As soon as I got in and told the moderator what happened, she said, "Just in time. You're up next." Oh Man! Hands shook, heart's pounding, I'm wiggling in my chair 'cause I gotta go... Then I get the bold letters, all in caps: GO.

First you have to log out of Chat Room 2, then log into the Pitch Room with your password. My hands were shaking so bad, I could hardly type the letters in. Did I mention I had to PEE??

I pitched my MS online while standing up at my desk, praying the connection would stay. The publisher's rep starts asking me what my plan is to market my book. Huh?

Well it's a good thing I just read some marketing stuff from a Muse class that very day, because I would have said zero.

Pee is now slugging my bladder to get out, yelling at me to hurry, hurry, hurry!

As soon as I was asked to send the full, I beat it out of the Panic Room as fast as politely possible. Logged out of the Pitch Room, logged into Chat Room 2, and told everyone else in line for their pitch what my results were.

Then I posted that I wanted my transcript, if available. When I was told to wait on Lea, I started cramping. I HAD TO PEE!! Didn't the moderator understand that? To make sure she did, I posted just that. Now the whole chat room knew, not that I cared at the moment.

And then the Rep I pitched to (who turned out to be the owner of the publishing company) came into Chat Room 2. Now I had to stay and make nice-nice with her! Which wasn't hard since she was a very nice lady to begin with.

Finally receiving my transcript answer, I announced a good luck to all, thanked Betty the publisher for her time, the moderator for her great work, and left Chat Room 2.

My groan of pleasure in the bathroom was probably heard all over my side of town.

If you have a good pitch story to tell, comment and leave it. I'd love to hear all about it.