Making the Perfect Pitch: How To Catch a Literary Agent's Eye (2nd Ed.)

Introduction

by Katharine Sands

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Writing commercially has probably been a bane to writers since Pliny the Elder plied the trade. But, the truth is that today, writers can have the magical imagination of J. K. Rowling, the wit and wisdom of Frank McCourt, the perfect economy of Ernest Hemingway, and the ageless brilliance of (whoever really wrote) Shakespeare. But they still need to pitch, query, and propose before they can be published.

I’ve just returned home from a trip. A magical place of supreme beauty, Maui is home to an annual writers conference. Each summer, the island event resonates with the love of all things literati. A hotbed of writers converge on the picture-perfect paradise to meet with agents from leading literary agencies and editors of top publishing houses.

Within days we are all filled with the spirit of Aloha, festooned with tropical leis, and clothed in bright beautiful Hawaiian floral prints. The dreams of wordsmiths waft around us like the scent of plumeria. We are all infused with hopes of returning home with great finds from writers who have come to pitch us.

For, you see, literary agents are lovers of words and the people who wield them. We happily serve as speakers and motivational teachers for writers’ organizations, workshops, and publishing forums. We want to help writers to understand what they need to do to get their manuscripts published. And yes, we are always on the lookout for the next potential bestseller.

Making the Perfect Pitch is what writers most need when they enter the literary arena: a hands-on guide to the nitty-gritty details of crafting a successful pitch. Each of the 40 articles in this book, all written by top agents and other authorities in the publishing field, provides insights and practical advice on how to make that perfect pitch. All of these experts offer a unique take on who and what gets published, viewed through the prism of the pitch. To a man or woman, these assembled notables share the dreams of writers. We are always in search of the joie de livre of a special book—writing that takes a fresh look, writing that is insightful, observant, funny, or urgent. Writing that is transporting. Writing that makes you want to turn the page.

How do you get agents excited about what is exciting to you? You can hire a caterer, a hit man, or a dominatrix. But you can’t hire an agent. Literary agents must be enchanted, seduced, and won over to take you on as a client. They must want to devote their efforts to working on your behalf. This book was created to help you understand the ways we think, evaluate, and prognosticate. I am delighted to be agent provocateur for this book—corralling my colleagues into helping novice and veteran writers alike to navigate the how to get published landscape.

In today’s Zeitgeist, pitching skills are crucial to the business of writing. Yet few writers know how to pitch. Showcasing the art of pitchcraft, this anthology is chock-full of query critiques, proposal examples, revelations of likes and dislikes of agents and editors, plus a sampling of best and worst pitching tales and big-break stories. Making the Perfect Pitch delves into a wide range of fiction and nonfiction subject areas—from literary fiction to genre thrillers, from children’s books to octogenarian memoirs, from cookbooks to poetry—to bring writers wisdom on how to pitch with aplomb. You can study how to create plot and craft scenes, but without a strong, effective pitch, the chances of your talents showing up in a bookstore are minimal at best.

For the fledgling writer and the well-published professional, this is the everything-you-need-to-know guide to crafting pitches, queries, and proposals. You will discover how to blend passion with practicality to pitch your writing and sell your ideas. Explains Peter Rubie, We have an enduring love affair not just with books, but with ideas.

Besides chapters on how top agents think, other articles here offer perspectives from related fields, like leading book-jacket copywriter Deb Babitt who offers tips on copywriting from her work with novels by John Grisham, Olivia Goldsmith, and Steven King. Laurie Horowitz shares insight into which books see film-rights action in Hollywood. Phoebe Collins reveals what strikes a chord on the other side of the desk as an experienced acquisitions editor. And consultant Tonianne Robino tells how to pitch a collaboration project to a famous person who might benefit from a little ghostwriting.

Mostly, the agents all share their best advice for how to catch their eye, from Esmond Harmsworth’s courtship-ritual analogy to Joe Regal’s search for the providential diamond of discovery. Sheree Bykofsky wants to hear a diva do opera, while Sarah Jane Freymann is willing to be moved, seduced, amazed, or inspired. Each agent shares a separate vision; each offers commonsense, industry-savvy advice.

In my New York City office—sounds of the Maui surf now a memory—the oceanic tide of manuscript submissions is a daily deluge. In the leaning tower of queries (often referred to as the slush pile) are voices of every kind and description proposing books. Slush is mostly that: letters from prisoners proclaiming the story of their innocence, from people who think they are the Messiah or able to channel insights from unknown galaxies. The slush pile, testimony to human courage and survivorship, is filled with unsavory porn, memoirs of B-movie queens, has-beens, never-weres, and the people who loved them.

Wading deeper into the pile, I pull out a random sample; it’s a shark expert with an idea for a series about a sexy ichthyologist who solves crimes. But maybe, just maybe, the voluminous voices of the mail will yield something special. As Ellen Levine says, You never know what’s in the basket.

Inspiration is everywhere when you are a writer. The sidewalk plaque in front of the New York Public Library on Fifth Avenue reads, The universe is made of stories, not atoms. One quote, and poet Muriel Rukeyser has made the perfect pitch, inspiring me to read her.

In my office, I am inspired daily by three placards hung over my desk:

Imagination is more important than knowledge.

—Albert Einstein

Words are the Voice of the Heart.

—unknown

Imagination rules the world.

—Napoleon

Although Napoleon never achieved his dream to become a novelist . . . he might have if only he had known how to how to make the perfect pitch!

Publishing begins with a pitch. Literary agents and editors are forever on the lookout for writers who can bring new and interesting ideas to life. In a nutshell, pitching is about finding the right words and getting the right people to read them.

Use this eclectic collection as a treasure trove of our best ideas so you can make the perfect pitch for yours.

CHAPTER 1

A Morning in the Life of a Literary Agent

by James C. Vines

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Imagine for a moment you’re a literary agent. It’s 11 a.m., and you are ready to peruse the backlog of query letters. It’s got to be at least 100 new queries just today. This happens every day. You read 52,000 queries per year, and in all that material you’re hoping to find a few good new projects.

Back in ’98 you found and sold a record eleven first novels from the slush pile, but the average is much lower. You would rather reject a book that someone else might sell than take on something that feels iffy to you. You’ve got an hour set aside for this, and you’re ready to go!

Thankfully, your assistant has already culled all the inappropriate query letters. And so you begin. The first few don’t do it for you. One puts you off by the rambling, sardonic tone; another is filled with irrelevant and unnecessary personal revelations in the opening sentences, making it clear this author doesn’t know how to take advantage of the most important section of the email. And if the author can’t use the most important section of the email in an effective and compelling manner, then what is the likelihood that she will in her manuscript?

Another one opens by reciting the astronomical sales figures of Rowling, Clancy, Grisham, and McMillan, and stating that he will best those numbers because he’s got a great publicist (someone you’ve never heard of) and a burning desire to be the greatest author of all time. That’s all well and good, but this goes on for 20 lines. It’s only in the very last paragraph at the bottom of the email that he spends two sentences glossing over the briefest possible description of the novel, and summing up by saying the genre of his novel is impossible to classify.

Well, if he can’t classify it, how would Barnes & Noble figure out how to classify it? What this author doesn’t know is that the best way to sell you on the novel is simply by presenting an enticing description of the story’s main conflict and central characters.

Reviewing the first few queries has taken you less than a couple of minutes. Are you worried that you’re not spending enough time carefully considering each novel? Do you feel that you really have to read three chapters of each of these novels to give them a fair shake? Do you feel that you should have a meeting to discuss each query letter and chapters with your colleagues? No. Happily, you are deluged with query letters every day. And after fourteen years in the business, you know that you are best off waiting for the right query letter to stir your interest and to simply reject all those that miss the mark for whatever reason.

In the next message, the author has attached a photo of herself, which is irrelevant. In the first paragraph she mentions she’s written a nonfiction proposal for a dating book, so you quickly scan the rest of letter to find out what her platform is. Does she have a newsletter with 50,000 subscribers? Did she do 100 paid speaking engagements last year? Does she counsel movie stars on their love lives? Anything like that and she might have a winner.

She doesn’t mention any such thing, but she does mention that she has a website. This is a mistake. It would be so much better if the author would just give you the information you need in the query letter rather than sending you to the Internet to find out more. Once her website finally loads, you find out she doesn’t have a platform. This author does not understand that major publishers don’t want to help an unknown author create a platform; publishers would rather wait until the platform is already established and then make a book deal at that time. Reject with form reply. Next.

You go through the rest of them quickly. A science-fiction novella of 45 pages with a storyline that spans 800 years. Impossible.

Yet another hackneyed P.I. novel. Next.

A self-published e-book by someone who swears that every family member who read the novel loved it. Don’t even want to go there.

A novel in which every word in every line of dialogue is phonetically spelled to imitate regional dialects. Nope.

It goes on like this for the remainder of the hour, and just when you are starting to think the whole batch is bad, a great one grabs your attention.

Here is what grabs you: after the customary greeting, she just launches into the description of her novel. It’s written like the flap copy you’d find in a published book.

The first sentence establishes the main character and the central conflict of the book. The next sentence reveals how the character is attempting to overcome this conflict, and this sentence also introduces the main character’s love interest. From there, you learn about complications in the love story, and further complications in the conflict and plot. By the time you’ve reached the end of the email, even though the author doesn’t give you the details of the resolution of the story, you are already e-mailing a message to her asking if she will send you the full manuscript for an exclusive read for five business days. You still realize that as good as the query letter is, it is only the first step. But you still can’t help getting excited about it, because this is your job, and it’s what you love to do.

Although it doesn’t seem possible . . . the next one could be a winner, too. This query letter offers a nonfiction proposal on the future of the world’s energy by a strongly credentialed journalist. As you read further, you see that not only has the author already interviewed numerous leading scientists for the book proposal, he believes he could even get one of the most important ones to co-author the book with him if that would be more appealing to publishers. This is definitely promising.

Since it’s a policy book and not a how-to book, there’s no need to worry about whether the author has a platform. For this kind of nonfiction proposal the credentials of the writer, the quality of the writing, and the importance of the subject are what matters. You are compelled to pick up the phone and call this author right away.

And that’s it. Out of 100 queries, there are two possibilities. Not bad for an hour, and who knows, maybe you’ve just discovered the Next Big Thing.

And that’s why you love what you do; the possibilities are endless.

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JAMES C. VINES has been a literary agent in New York for several decades. He started in 1989 at Raines & Raines, where he worked with such authors as James Dickey, Bruno Bettelheim, and Cynthia Ozick. In 1992 he moved to the Virginia Barber Literary Agency where he worked with bestselling authors Peter Mayle, Anita Shreve, and others.

In 1995 he founded the Vines Agency, Inc., which represents many award-winning and bestselling authors, including Joe R. Lansdale, The Estate of Terry Southern, Snoop Dogg, and others.

http://www.vinesagency.com

CHAPTER 2

Notes to the New Writer

by Anna Ghosh

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Most of us find it difficult to assume or affect a salesman’s pluck, especially when selling ourselves. For a new writer, the process of querying an agent can become a frustrating and daunting task.

What do they want me to say? . . . they just need to read the book! Given how thick these people are, what can I possibly point to in my work that they might be capable of understanding?

Usually this sort of thinking leads nowhere. This is why it is so vital that the writer understand what really counts in a query letter. What can you do to seize the attention of an agent who is likely to be distracted, busy, and rather skeptical about you and your project?

Have Spirit

When the horse-trader glances for the first time upon the stallion, he gauges first the spirit of the beast, not the gait, strength, speed, or agility. These qualities are only fully assessed later. And while gait, agility, and strength are analogous to the constituent parts of a good book—a good idea, stylish writing, organization—the spirit of the writer is often the thing first noticed and perhaps most telling.

An effective query is a distillation of the work’s spirit or essence. It is not the place to impress with the minutiae of your research or to encapsulate all the twists in your novel. Rather than get bogged down by a synopsis or summary of your work, try to find that magical phrase or two that expresses its core idea, the key element that sets it apart. Show as much as possible of your voice, style, expertise, and ability to arrange the furniture. A query must inform, but it must also enchant:

Example 1:

Our human bodies are inextricably tied to our individual identities and to our everyday living. Consider, then, the strange wonder of the opportunity to look inside ourselves at the foreign landscape which permits us to eat, sleep, and breathe, as well as skip rope, play a violin concerto, and shoot a three-pointer. Body of Work; A Writer’s Experience in the Human Anatomy Lab offers a glimpse of this innermost world through the eyes of a first-year medical student who, as a poet, has been trained to describe and look closely at what she observes.

Example 2:

Both the collection of stories and the novel revolve around the theme of grief. In a way I believe I’m searching for the language of grief. Too, I want to speak for that minority that anyone can join at any time, the ill and the dying. I myself am diabetic, am partially blind, and I infuse my work with the notion of urgency in the face of a foreshortened life, yet with the patience and understanding that life is in the expanded individual moment.

Example 3:

As the daughter of immigrants and the granddaughter of weavers, I have always believed in crossing the lines. In Across the Black Waters, I will cross international and generational borders to tell the story of a vast globalized people: the Indian diaspora.

I will do so through the lens of my own sprawling family, setting our intimate dramas against the vivid backdrop of history.

Across the Black Waters will portray in human terms, the social forces that swept millions of people out of India: eastward to East Asia and the Pacific, westward to England, Africa and North America.

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Know Your Reader

Publishing—as opposed to writing—is a commercial endeavor and involves considerations quite removed from the writer’s intellectual or aesthetic concerns. An agent has to sell the writer’s project to a publisher. A publisher has to sell the finished books to booksellers. And finally a reader has to put down 25-odd dollars for their copy.

Because agents are the first link in the business, the writer’s query must help them see the potential readership and demonstrate a sound understanding of the publishing landscape.

Again, the horse with the best hope of winning has not only honed her skill, but knows the terrain and competition. What are the books that are similar to yours? How successful have they been? Does your book fill a gap in the current literature on the subject?

Short narrative books about scientific discoveries and technological breakthroughs have sold exceeding well as evidenced by Longitude and Galileo's Daughter by Dava Sobel, The Map That Changed the World by Simon Winchester, and The Invention of Clouds by Richard Hamblyn. The untold story about the invention of refrigeration and the profound impact it had on business, diet and society will appeal to this readership.

A query may point out a specific readership that an agent has not even considered:

An estimated thirty-five million Americans live in interfaith households at present and the numbers are on the rise. There have been a few guides for Jewish-Christian weddings (see attached list) but Interfaith Weddings will be the first book to address the need for step-by-step guidance and inspiration for interfaith couples. Though the core audience for the book is interfaith couples, the book will also appeal to atheists, agnostics, and people who have no strong desire for a particular religious ceremony.

Prove That You're a Writer, Not a Dilettante

New writers are always a gamble for an agent. Agents don’t get a penny until they sell the book to a publisher and actually receive the signing check. Before this happens, a great deal of time and effort may be expended. This is why agents will scour a query for concrete evidence of the writer’s abilities. Talent can be found anywhere, but the writer with even modest credentials will appear vastly more committed and prepared to deliver a publishable book:

Example from an unpublished novelist:

I am a recent graduate from the M.F.A. program at the University of Massachusetts. Last year Pulitzer Prize-winning author Carol Shields selected my story, [name of short story], for inclusion in the anthology Scribners Best of the Fiction Workshops. My work has also appeared in Quarterly West, Crab Orchard Review, and is forthcoming in the New Virginia Review.

Example from a narrative nonfiction author:

As a journalist and a poet, I believe I am uniquely qualified for both the intensive reporting and the lyrical writing that this story will require. I spent this past year as a fellow in the National Arts Journalism Program at Columbia University. For eight years, I have been an editor and reporter at the San Jose Mercury News.

My literary writing has been recognized through numerous publications and honors, including a Sundance Institute Writers Fellowship. I am a graduate of Stanford University.

Example from the author of the interfaith wedding guide:

[The author] is an ordained Interfaith minister and a charismatic individual based in New York City who has officiated at numerous interfaith weddings across the country. Her keen understanding of interfaith issues and extraordinary ceremonies has mended deep rifts in families, brought tears to the eyes of participants, and earned her an overwhelming number of referrals and features in Modern Bride, For the Bride, and Bridal Guide.

For certain types of books, the author’s credentials supersede all else. For example, a health book nearly always needs an author with an M.D.; a book of investment advice almost certainly won’t sell if the author doesn’t have a long track record in the financial field. You should understand early on whether you possess the necessary background to write your book or if there are any ways to compensate for the lack thereof.

At some point, all writers must contend with the impersonal rejection letter. The entire industry can seem like a soulless machine with a disappointing dependence on sales figures and marketing points. Is it possible to get a real human reaction to the work amid the crush to create bestsellers?

Fortunately, books, unlike the latest line of Nike shoes, are an ex­tremely unruly product. Each book is unique in its essence, and so a mechanical approach to evaluating and selling them is insufficient. The attempts of publishers to repeat success with clones of former bestsellers repeatedly prove unsuccessful. And in every season there is a completely unexpected strong seller, hand-sold by one reader to the next.

Your book will not be for everyone, and the most irresistible query can fail if the agent has no interest in the subject. Plumb every available source of information, be it other writers, publishing guides, or the Internet, to come up with the agents who are most likely to fully grasp the spirit and significance of your work. With a little bit of luck, your query will ignite the imagination of the agent perfect for you.

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ANNA GHOSH has been an agent at Scovil Chichak Galen Literary Agency in New York City since 1995 where she represents a variety of adult fiction and nonfiction. She is especially interested in literary nonfiction, journalism, history and books on social and cultural issues. She also has a keen interest in international and multicultural writers and in scholars writing for a general audience.

http://www.sgglit.com

CHAPTER 3

I Am Willing to Be Seduced,

Amazed, Charmed, or Moved

by Sarah Jane Freymann

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I’m a literary agent who, truth be told, doesn’t actually believe in the pitch. My gut reaction to the question, What is the perfect pitch? is to answer, Zen-like, The perfect pitch . . . is no pitch.

When Katharine asked me to write this piece, out of curiosity I looked up the word pitch in the dictionary—and this is what I found: to put, set, or plant in a fixed or definite position; to deliver to serve to the batter; to determine the key or keynote of a melody; to attempt to sell or win approval for, promote, advertise, i.e. to pitch breakfast foods at a sales conference, politicians pitching on TV.

Maybe it’s the breakfast-cereal and politicians-on-TV aspect of pitching that turns me off (although the concept of hitting the perfect note of a melody is intriguing).

While I am not interested in your selling me anything, per se, I am willing to be seduced, amazed, charmed, or moved. What I really want is for you to share your enthusiasm with me, your passion; to invite me along on a journey; to tell me something you, and you alone, know; to open my eyes to a truth that will enable me to see the world in a different way.

And, of course, to do so with beautiful writing.

As the unsolicited manuscripts and query letters pile up on my desk and computer screen, I am not so naive, so high-minded, or so much a romantic to ignore that some clearly grab my attention—while others fall either flat or over-inflated on the page.

What is it about the approach that works? What are the elements of the successful pitch letter? First, let’s face it—we’re talking about writing. The importance of elegant, finely honed writing, even in the introductory pitch letter, cannot be overstated. Nor for that matter can all the other aspects of good professional writing such as spelling, punctuation, grammar, and so on.

And while there are no hard and fast rules, I have come, over the years, to the following preferences.

1. Email, don’t call.

If you are introducing yourself to pitch an unsolicited work, do so with a query email. An email gives you the opportunity to organize your thoughts, list your credentials, and provide a flavor of your writing style. It also gives me the opportunity to digest, ponder, and re-read what you’ve written.

2. Do a little research first.

It doesn’t hurt to do a little research on which categories agents prefer. For instance, if you read Literary Market Place or Jeff Herman’s Guide, you’ll see that I don’t represent science fiction or category romances. You’ll save yourself a lot of time by targeting the right agents for your work.

3. No gimmicks.

Please, don’t under any circumstance resort to gimmicks like sending me ostrich feathers, scented candles, cute stationery, aromatherapy (or snake) oil, wands, cat pawprints, dried flowers, or family photographs. All of which, and more, I have received. What those little enticements say to me is that you don’t have faith in your own material. Be outrageous if you will, but be dignified.

Once we have begun to work together and I have sold your book, then—like one of my charming authors who has sent me an orchid for each of her books I’ve sold, or another who brings me freshly laid eggs from her hens whenever she comes to New York—you can send me chocolates, flowers, potpourri, or artisanal cheeses.

4. Be confident, not boastful. Be personable.

I am drawn to authors who, in their queries, demonstrate that they are confident but not boastful. It’s not a good idea to praise your own work, telling me how wonderful your book is.

It always amazes me how the flavor comes across in a query— not only of the work but also of the personality of the author. Whenever prospective clients start their query with: I am looking for a New York literary agent who will aggressively market my book, I read no further. I have learned from experience that this is not the kind of client I am interested in working with.

Being a literary agent is not just my work. For me, the line between work, books, writers, ideas, and my life is blurred.