Practicing Your Pitch

When I went to my first writers conference a couple years ago, I had my proposals and business cards and went prepared to sell.

I made an appointment with an agent, published author and editor. I shook their hand, had a seat and said, "I've got a book I'd like to tell you about."

"Go ahead," they said.

Then my cheeks caught fire, my voice broke up and I began to ramble.

I didn't know my story well enough to put it into a coherent pitch.

I hadn't practiced my pitch. I even fumbled when asked what kind of story it was. I wasn't really sure what category it fit in. Big mistake.

My second conference I did a little better but still froze up when I was asked what my story was about. Flustered.

This conference, I'm going to be ready. Besides my written pitch, (my query, synopis, and first three chapters, which make up my proposal), I've written a verbal pitch that I am memorizing.

I will know my pitch inside and out. A couple of critique friends and I are pitching each other to get used to doing it. We're practicing the sit down pitch we'll get to make with editor appointments. And we're practicing our elevator pitch. After all, we might get an opportunity at lunch or as we walk to class, to talk to an editor that would be perfect for our book.
We plan to be ready.
To know our pitch so well, we won't ramble on.

And we plan to be prepared for some questions:

Who do you see your novel appealing to?

What's the setting?

Who is your hero/heroin?

What do they want?

What is standing in their way?

How many words?

Who can you compare your work to?

That type of thing. I can't stress enough how important the verbal pitch is. I know published writers who received their first contract because of it. They probably wouldn't have if they came across as someone who didn't know their own work. If they couldn't articulate what their story was about.

Memorizing one pitch is going to be hard, but I've got two books I'm trying to place. Two spiels to memorize. Egads. I'll practice everyday until I can ramble them off without thinking.

I never would have thought selling a novel would be so difficult and involve so much. I just wanted to tell a story. And I guess that's just what I'll be doing at my editor appointments. The cliff-notes version, with as much pizazz and excitement as I can ooze.