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| Photo credit: nvk_ on Flickr |
The point of pitch events like #PitMad is, of course, to try to get some requests from publishing professionals, but there are a lot of other benefits that people tend not to talk about quite as much:
- Meet other writers. Events like #PitMad brings writers out from all corners of the internet. Making new friends and connections is the whole point of social media, and these events are the perfect time to meet new people.
- See what agents and editors like. I saw someone suggest that check out favorites from publishing professionals to see what they’re requesting, which I think is a really smart strategy. If you’re looking to query, for the next few days at least, you should be able to scroll through their favorites to see what they’re looking for at the moment.
- See what others are writing/pitching. Nothing reveals the querying trends like scrolling through an hour of #PitMad. Writers who pitch during these events are the same writers who are querying while you’re querying, and it helps to be able to see what agents and editors are seeing a lot of.
- Learn what makes one pitch more effective than others. Just looking at the pitches and determining which ones grab your attention and which ones make your eyes glaze over can be a big help when writing or rewriting your pitch later on.
Some things to remember:
- There will always be trolls. Whenever there are public events, there are going to be people who use the opportunity to spam, or put others down, or make fun of those participating. It happens, and the best response is to brush them off. Don’t let a few negative people get you down.
- Just because your pitch isn’t favorited doesn’t mean you shouldn’t query. Or as Agent extraordinaire Jessica Sinsheimer said:
Please don't assume that I have seen your pitch, and decided no, if I didn't favorite. There are so many, and it's a busy day. #PitMad
— Jessica Sinsheimer (@jsinsheim) September 12, 2013
Guess what? Sometimes even though you pitched twice an hour every hour, people don’t see your pitch. Or they see your pitch, and it doesn’t grab their attention, but when they see your extended pitch (also known as a query) and an excerpt, it does grab their interest. It happens, so don’t assume that just because you didn’t get a favorite doesn’t mean you can’t query any of the agents who participated in #PitMad.
Case and point:
I don't mind things like #pitmad. They can be fun & force you to conceptualize your novel. But a full query + sample pages is always better.So for those of you who participated or glanced at #PitMad (or have in the past), what did you learn from the event?
— Sarah LaPolla (@sarahlapolla) September 12, 2013
Twitter-sized bites:
Did you participate in #PitMad this week? What did you learn? Join the discussion at @Ava_Jae's blog! (Click to tweet)
One writer shares her post-#PitMad thoughts. What did you learn from the Twitter pitch party? (Click to tweet)
I didn't get any favourites, but it was very useful to create a pitch anyway. Summing your novel up in a sentence is hard but worth it. Plus, it was great fun!
ReplyDeleteI learned a lot from reading all the tweets and getting great feedback from your blog. I am grateful to all the writers who have been so encouraging. I even got two favorites from agents. Thanks so much for everything!
ReplyDeleteIt's definitely difficult, but I agree it's worth it. It really forces you to get to the core of your story, and as a bonus, you can always use it as a logline later on.
ReplyDeleteAnd the fun of the event is a great bonus. :)
Congratulations on your favorites, Betsy! And good luck with those submissions! ^_^
ReplyDeleteSo glad to hear that the feedback was helpful, and I agree that reading all those pitches is a great learning experience. Hope all goes well with you!
I read a lot of pitches yesterday and RT'd the ones that caught my eye. I think that's a great way to tell the writer they have a good pitch. It was impossible to read everything and I could hardly find my own pitches in the midst of all that madness. And I'm sure I spent way more time on Twitter than most agents.
ReplyDeleteYes! RTs are a wonderful way of showing support, particularly when favoriting is heart-attack inducing. And that's a great point about the deluge of pitches—the feed was flying yesterday all day and it was impossible to read them all.
ReplyDeleteAnd I also spent way too much time on Twitter yesterday. But so what else is new? :)
I thought it was an amazing event but next time I'll be better prepared. I really suffered for it. I've been up since 8am uk time since pitmad which started at 1pm for us and I haven't slept yet! It's now 8pm here - so I've been awake for 36 hours.
ReplyDeleteWhy?
Because I didn't think I'd get a request. All was good and well with the first request but the second asked for a synopsis which I had but didn't fell was GOOD and ended up working on it all night. It's a good problem to have but in truth there was no rush because I could have created a good synopsis in my own time but...you get faved...you get stoked...you panic like you'll be forgotten if you don't reply ASAP.
So whatever anyone does, just don't do that. Be prepared because you never know. That's the main thing I learnt even if I kind of already knew it, though this time it was a real jog.
The other thing I learnt is pitmad crits like yours (ava) are priceless.
Oh wow. Up for 36 hours straight? I hope you've gotten some sleep since then...
ReplyDeleteThat being said, CONGRATULATIONS on your request! That so wonderful, though I imagine it was pretty stressful to have to put that synopsis together last minute. So yes, definitely good to have your materials prepared before you enter an event, because you never know. :)
And yay! So glad the pitch critique session was helpful!
Just thought I'd update on those requests, I got two rejections *inhales, puffs out chest, brushes shoulders*
ReplyDeleteBut during that time I also submitted to another agent and got back a more personal reply saying he liked my concept but the writing didn't grab him. I was really glad to hear he liked my idea, so it wasn't all bad news :D
That's the spirit, Shay! Rejections are a unavoidable for writers, but I'm glad to see you're not letting them get you down. (And personalized rejections are really the best kind). :)
ReplyDeleteKeep submitting and good luck!