Pitch Parties; April 26 2020
Twitter’s pitch events are fantastic ways to network – you get in touch with agents and editors who like the pitch of your book, and fellow writers show support when they’re interested in your premise, too. Earlier this week, I participated in #DVPit, which is a pitch event focusing on diverse authors and their manuscripts. Created by literary agent Beth Phelan, all that’s required to participate is your self-identification as a marginalized author.
Now, obviously, it works on the honour system. No one’s policing identities during #DVPit. But if you’re part of any minority group, then #DVPit is great, and I’d encourage you to participate!
Here are some other great pitch events I know of:
#PitMad, done by the creators of Pitch Wars, which is a fantastic mentorship program I also recommend looking into! PitMad is probably the most well-known Pitch party on Twitter, and it’s hosted four times a year.
#PitDark, created by Jason Huebinger. If your manuscript explores dark themes, this one’s for you! It can be a thriller, sci-fi, fantasy, or (naturally) horror. All that’s required is some twisted content!
#KissPitch, from AllTheKissing.com. If your manuscript is romance-focused, then I recommend KissPitch! It’s one I haven’t taken part in personally, since my manuscripts only have romantic undertones at most, but I see great pitches every time this contest comes around!
#IWSGPit, from the Insecure Writer’s Support Group! I love this one, myself. It’s a lot like #PitMad in terms of rules, which means your manuscript can be of any sort, so long as it’s polished and ready to go!
#SFFPit, by Dan Koboldt. Exclusively for sci-fi and fantasy works!
There’s a lot of advice out there on how to write a great Twitter-length pitch, but I recently received some advice that I thought I’d share. (Shout out to Chantel Pereira, who gave me this format and is undoubtedly going to be on the bestseller list some day soon!)
It doesn’t necessarily matter what order these are in, but you essentially want your pitch to hit these beats:
Protagonist (who the story is about), conflict (what's wrong?), antagonist (your villain in their way), stakes (why it matters. The risk if protagonist fails), and your setting.
For example, one of my favourite pitches that I’ve written looks like this:
What would drive you to kill?
For Jin, it's to bring back his dead little sister. He’s willing to get blood on his hands, but when he risks bringing about the apocalypse, he must find out how far he’s willing to go for her.
There you go! You know the entire gist of my novella, NECROWEAVER, in one paragraph!
What are some of your favourite pitch contests? Let me know if I missed any!