Hello
all! I’m putting together all my last minute stuff for the Pikes Peak Writers Conference this weekend, including practicing my pitch.
For
non-writers, at conferences you can request pitch appointments with agents and
editors. In these appointments you have a few minutes face time with an industry
guru. You give them a pitch—a short, intriguing explanation of your book—if they
like it, they might ask you to query them with a few chapters of your
manuscript.
Some
organizations and industry professionals advise you to memorize your pitch. For
the last few days I’ve been trying to do just that.
But
novels that fall under the fantasy category require extra explanation and my
story world is complex. As I ran through my pitch either in my head or out loud
in the shower, I kept flubbing it. So I’d go back and start with the easy part…
“Hello,
my name is Evangeline Denmark.”
I’ve
done this so many times in the last few days that now I cannot separate “Hello,
my name is Evangeline Denmark” from “Hello, my name Inigo Montoya.”
The
phrases are stuck together floating around in my overworked gray matter. Which
isn’t all bad. It worked for Inigo Montoya after all. His mantra saw him
through to the end.
But
somehow I don’t think shouting “Hello, my name is Evangeline Denmark” and
skewering agents with pens will get the desired result.
Thankfully,
this afternoon a couple of writer friends helped me break the mold I’d gotten
stuck in. They encouraged me to go for a conversational, less practiced,
approach. After all, who isn’t better at conversing than shouting prepared speeches
at the point of a sword?
Inigo
might not approve of my new tactic, but I hope it gets the job done.
So,
writers out there, have you had any memorable pitch appointments?
Non-writers,
share some interview stories. I once pretended, during a job interview, that I
was a celebrity being interviewed on TV. I did NOT get the job.
