Writing Tip: How to Pitch Your Book

After you have finished your book, a fiction novel or a non-fiction book, you want to go that next step and have it published. You might want to go the route of a publisher or an editor. This writing tip is focused on publishers, but the idea is the same.

How to catch the eye of a publisher.

After your manuscript has been written, edited, rewritten and reedited and you finally feel it’s ready to present it to an actual publisher - how do you do it? How do you get a publisher to see the energy and excitement you see in your manuscript?

One way is to send a submission package to their office. To prepare a submission package, you must send the required material to the office. This way is the way to reach as many people as possible. The key is to learn exactly what they require for the submission and to the person’s name who will receive the submission. NEVER send a query package to – “To Whom It May Concern.”

The more direct method is to present your manuscript to a publisher in a ten-minute face-to-face meeting. The easiest way to do that is to attend one of the many regional writer’s/screenwriter’s conferences that are held every year. At these conferences you can schedule face-time where it is just you and the publisher. In this time, you present your idea, your manuscript.

A Scheduled Pitch

Ten minutes may sound like a very long time or it may seem very short. It depends on how prepared you are. In that ten minutes, you must:

• Greet the publisher and appear relaxed, like you’ve done many of these.

• Sit down and thank them for seeing you, again very relaxed.

• Tell them about your idea for a book.

• You must cover the title, the plot, the characters, the conflict and the resolution.

• And since you need to leave two or three minutes for questions, which you really want to be asked, you should make your actual pitch about three or four minutes.

You should be ready for any question. They may ask who you think would do well as the star. Or, what kind of car does the main character drive. Or, are there many car chases. Or, what other books do you have. (If they ask that, have an answer, even if it is on a rough idea. If asked a question - NEVER- say you don’t know.)

An Elevator Pitch

The Elevator Pitch is truly a forgotten art. It is what you say if you meet someone in the hallway, or walking into an elevator. If you happen to meet a publisher and it appears they are not busy, you have about fifteen to twenty seconds to get out the title, the conflict and the resolution. What you want from an elevator pitch is to have the person like the idea enough that they hand you a card and ask you to send a synopsis or maybe the entire manuscript to them.

Keep in mind:

• The 15 to 20 second limit is so short because you are in their down time and you do not want to intrude.

• They expect that at a conference, but do not push it.