The Best and the Worst by Diana Flegal

I was recently asked by a conference presenter if I could share with him my best and worst experience of a 15 min. pitch appointment. Here is my response. I thought you might find it informative.

 

Most Positive 15 minute appointment:

 

I was presented with a well crafted nonfiction one sheet, answering all the questions I might have asked. As we further discussed her book, she showed me her incredible platform. She had gathered thousands of blog followers, as well as an outstanding number of followers on her twitter and Facebook sites. She spoke three times a month on average and showed me where she had procured a VERY famous celebrity to write the forward of her book, along with several A list endorsers. A nationally known organization had already committed to ordering large quantities of her book and were offering to advertise it on their website.

 

Then I woke up. Unfortunately none of the above is true. :-(

 

I actually enjoy meeting with authors at any stage in their writing journey. But a good appointment is one where the writer is informed, comes prepared and is open to advice. There has only been two times that I signed an author at a conference in 8 years.

 

Worst 15 minute appointment I have experienced:

 

A woman sat in front of me and handed me a full proposal. After quickly reviewing her one page I said that I did not believe this was a book I could sell. She burst into tears, placed her head on her arms, and sobbed hysterically. Everyone in the appointment room stared at me like I was the meanest person. I later learned she had gotten the same response from many of her appointments. I was just the straw that broke the camel’s back.      

 

Unfortunately this is a true story.

 

She obviously did not come prepared and had not done her research.

You liked my book? by Terry Burns

You said you liked my manuscript, so why did you decline to represent it?

Good question.

I read a lot of projects that I enjoy the read but just don't have any place I can go with it. Has nothing to do with how good a story is or the quality of the writing, it has to do with being fair with the author.

All agents have different sets of contacts. Sure, we overlap a great deal, work with the same houses, but there are editors that are good friends of mine but they seldom acquire anything from me. Why? Because our tastes are very dissimilar and they tend to not like projects that I am drawn to. Other editors have much more similar tastes and as a result are much more favorable to the things that I've chosen to represent.

I work for my clients, but in initial contacts it is much more like I am working for the editors. I'm trying to establish those relationships, trying to understand what they are looking for, and work at helping them find it. But once I establish interest in a project then I am strictly representing my client. This task is much easier if we tend to like the same type of project.

I come from the writing side of the industry rather than the publishing side. I'm very sensitive to tying a project up and then finding I have no place to go with it. If that happens I have it tied up with little chance of success so for all practical purposes it is off the market. I wouldn't want anybody doing that to me and I don't want to do it to anybody else.

For that reason part of my process in evaluating a submission is to not only decide if I like the book and like the writing, but do I see a clear path for it? Not that I guarantee to sell one, just do I see some people in my contact list that I'm sure are a possibility for it. If I don't then another agent with a different set of contacts might be a much better match for it.

It's all about being positioned to effectively represent it.

Surviving the Pitch to Editors & Agents by Jennifer Hudson Taylor

With so many writing conferences coming up, and the ACFW National Conference around the corner, I thought it would be worthwhile to repost this from my blog. 

When are you ready?
1. When writing fiction, you don’t want to pitch until you’ve completed at least one book. Nonfiction proposals or articles can be pitched as long as you have a solid concept of your idea.
2. When you know you want to be published.
3. Do your research on the conference and know which editors and agents are going to be there. Visit their websites, try to find out what they like and dislike. What kind of works have they recently purchased? What are they acquiring?
4. You may not want to set up an appointment if there are only two editors and both are acquiring contemporaries and all you’ve written is a historical.

Pitch: Is a one-two sentence description of your story.

A pitch should contain four elements:
1. Two Main Characters
2. Goal
3. Conflict
4. Goal + Conflict = Hook

When meeting with an editor or agent in a one-on-one interview, be prepared to discuss the main plot points in your story, as well as goals and motivations of your characters. After hearing your pitch, they will ask you questions about your story and about your writing.

What to bring
1. Business cards
2. Sell-sheets or One-sheets
3. First five pages of manuscript (do not show unless they request it)

What to Expect
At conferences they schedule editors and agents all day long with back-to-back 10-15 minute appointments. You will want to arrive 5-10 minutes early to get in line. If a prayer room is available, you might want to visit it ahead of time.
1. Dress like you’re going into an interview, but be comfortable.
2. Be professional
3. Introduce yourself and ask them how they are doing. Treat them like an individual.
4. You can take note cards with you, but you shouldn’t read from them. This gives them the impression that you’re not as familiar with your work as you should be.
5. Make eye contact. Talk to them like you’re chatting with them. You don’t want to sound so rehearsed that you remind them of a used car salesman.
6. There will be a monitor who will be keeping time. The monitor will tell everyone in the room that they have 1-2 minutes left. When this happens, wrap up the conversation and move on so you don’t take time away from the next person and put the editor behind schedule.

Possible Scenarios

If you only have one proposal, and they aren’t interested, what should you do?
1. Ask them what other genres they are looking for.
2. If you have time, chat with them and spend a few minutes getting to know them. After a while their eyes begin to glaze over from hearing one rehearsed pitch after another.
3. If an editor gives you ideas on how to improve your plot, please be courteous and listen. Ask if they would be willing to look at a proposal if you make their suggested revisions.

What if you have more than one project and you don’t know which one to pitch in your allotted time?
1. Tell them the categories you’ve written such as (contemporary, a Scottish Medieval, Regency, young adult, children’s book, etc.) Then ask them which one they would prefer to discuss.
2. Or choose the one that you feel is written the best or closer to being finished.
3. The editor or agent will guide you in their interests.

Editors and agents will ask questions. Examples include:
1. Why did you write this story?
2. Do you have any other stories or ideas?
3. Can you expand this into a series?
4. If we publish it, how do you plan to market it?

Remember
1. Leave your business card, even if they do not ask to see your proposal.
2. Make note if they ask for a query letter, proposal, or the complete. Send them exactly what they ask for and nothing more and nothing less.
3. If they refuse your sell-sheets, don’t force it on them.
4. Thank them for their time. Be sure to walk away with a smile.

Doing Workshops and Programs by Terry Burns

I do a lot of programs and workshops, generally one or two a month. I have some that continue to be asked for even though I have done them for several years, and I add new ones from time to time as they are requested or as they occur to me.

I have one I call "Too Shy to Pitch and Promote" which is one I have done the longest. I started doing it on the spur of the moment at one conference when I realized how many writers were there that were simply too shy to take advantage of the opportunities to pitch an agent or editor. Then I discovered that a lot of writers have trouble with that even if they aren't the shy type. They have trouble because they don't know how to present themselves as a writer. I touch on both in the program now. Maybe I ought to re-title it "Developing a Writer's Personna." Whatcha think?

One that has been very well received when I have been asked to present it I call "Writing to Reach the Unbeliever." I maintain that writing with that goal in mind is 180 degrees different from writing for the family of the faithful. Writing for the Christian market the readers expect to see very strong faith content and see it very early or they will probably decide the book is not what they want to read. With a nonbeliever strong faith content right up front will probably make them put it down. In this program I talk about why I think that happens and what to do about it to reach that market. I also believe that a "crossover book" is not one that is written to reach both, that usually ends up not doing a good job of reaching either, but one that does an awesome job of aiming one market or the other and manages to cross over and be read by the other market as well.

"Editor and Agent Pet Peeves" - Hartline agent Linda Glaz and I have worked on collecting these little gems from a variety of agents and editors, as well as from a lot of writers speaking of their pet peeves ABOUT agents or editors and we both do a program on them that is both enlightening and interesting.

"Just Say Yes" is my strongest faith based program. I've done it as a keynote, testimony, dinner speech or devotional, as well as a regular workshop. I was stunned to come to believe that when the Holy Spirit impresses on us the need to do something, there are just two possible answers, yes or no. Maybe, or later, or a variety of other excuses are not alternate answers, they are just another way of saying no. I really don't want to be saying no to God, so coming to this realization has greatly affected my own service to the Lord. This is also probably THE greatest hurdle for people to overcome in making a decision to be saved.

"Survive Your Way to Publication" is a program I did as a month-long online program for the American Christian Fiction Writers. I was asked to do it because of a statement I used to have in my email signature that said "getting published is not a selection process, it is a survival process." This program explores how to survive the many obstacles to publication. It also looks at a proposal not on WHAT should be in them, but why the items are in there and what we want them to do.

"It's Not My Job to Sell Your Manuscript." What? I thought that was an agents job. In this one I talk about the fact that it is OUR job to sell it, not just my job and what writers can do to work with an agent to improve their chances of success.

An agents panel or editor panel are always popular at conferences, but some conferences are too small for that and I do an "Agents Q and A" in such instances as a substitute. Of course I like to do all of my workshops in a Q & A format as much as I can to better reach the needs of the participants.

From time to time I add programs or replace them. Any of them sound interesting to you or do you have a suggestion for one you would like to see done? Have any agent or editor pet peeves you want to toss out?

Would You Read On? hosted by Diana Flegal

Today we have the first page of another Middle Reader title. Let us know by your comments if you would read on.

Thump.

Porter Booth’s heart answered with a thump of its own and then stopped. He was sure of it. No way could it beat stuck up in his throat.

“What was that?” his cousin whispered.

“Shh!” Porter switched off his flashlight and squatted in the dark.

“What are you doing?”

“Shut up! Get down over here next to me.” Porter reached for James and got a wad of sweaty t-shirt. He held his breath and tried to figure out what was scuffling. “Hear that?” he whispered. “Someone’s coming.”

Sounds must be louder underground when you can’t see, he reasoned. He knew it was people noise, but who and how many? Friendly or dangerous? Kids like himself and James, or a gang down here to take care of business. Whatever business that was.

Dad was right. He shouldn’t have come back to the slough.

His dad hadn’t forbidden the entire length of the Hendricksville slough that carried storm runoff to the Tule River. Just the tunnel part under Main Street. Just this exact spot where he and James were squatting, listening to someone shuffle through a mine-like shaft a few feet away.

He blinked and tried to focus, but it didn’t make any difference in the dark. The artery to the outside was all the way across a cavernous clearing littered with old furniture and wooden barrels. They couldn’t make it through all that junk and out in time.

Porter pulled James toward what he hoped was an old bar front they’d seen against the wall. “Come on, we can hide behind the bar.”

James whistled as he sucked in a mouthful of dusty air. “I can’t breathe.”

“Be quiet!” James’s damp t-shirt stuck to Porter’s fingers. And he could smell it. Is that what would give them away—the sweat? Or would it be the squeaky breathing?

Last weeks submission was offered for comments by the brave writer Lauren Claire. You can find her on Face Book and at her blog titled, Cascading Thoughts. Stop by and offer this young writer an encouraging word.

Would You Read On? hosted by Diana Flegal

We welcome your comments today. Scroll down for last weeks author reveal.

Chapter One

The thrumming in her head started at the Essex County line and crescendoed into a pounding by the time she'd reached State Route 74. She wiped one hand, then the other on her jeans and gripped the steering wheel of her rented SUV. She was in control. She was Emily Hazard, assistant art director at an award-winning New York City advertising agency. Not Emily Hazard, the klutz-queen jinx-deluxe of Schroon Lake Central High School.

She drove through Hazardtown, the four corners community in New York's Adirondack Mountains that her ancestors had settled two centuries ago. Little remained to show the bustling logging town it had once been. A new name on the diner told her it had changed ownership again. The gas station convenience store proclaimed Souvenirs Here in a big red, white and blue roadside sign. Kitty-corner, the Community Church sat as it had for the past one hundred and fifty years with its double entry doors that had originally separated the women parishioners from the men. As a teen, Emily had made a point of entering through the men's door. The newish brick volunteer fire department building occupied the fourth corner. Ironically, the old clapboard hall had burned down when she was in college.

Paradox Lake came into view on the left. A patch of blue nestled in the greens and browns of the hardwoods and mountains surrounding it. Her heart beat double-time. As she came around the curve to Hazard Cove Road, a mama duck and her ducklings waddled onto the highway. She hit the brake pedal and sensed the pickup truck behind her before she heard the screech of its brakes. The truck touched the back bumper of the SUV and nudged her forward just short of the little family.

Last weeks First Page was bravely submitted by author Cindy Sproles. Her agent is excitedly shopping around her manuscript.

Would You Read On? hosted by Diana Flegal

Critique groups and other writing blogs are challenging one another by asking the simple question: Would You Read On? We here at Hartline are happy to have been an inspiration to some of them and thank our readers for their critiquing comments and re-tweets.

First Page:

Early Spring, 1898 Wadalow Mountain, Tennessee

Married at 13, a mother at 14, widowed and childless by sixteen. Ain’t nobody should have to learn life like I did. No soul should have to claw their way back from the bowels of hell, scared and scraped up like I was. If I can keep that from happening to anybody else, then I can live up to my name—Mercy. That’s why I’m teaching you different. They don’t call me Mercy Roller for nothing and I’m givin’ you my side of the story. My story of redemption at the hands of a so-called godly man who made his bed with evil and called his actions righteous. Because of him, I became the very thing I hated most and the trek back through the mire wasn’t easy for a young girl in her teens. In one swift act of vengeance, I lost what was left of a childhood and I was bound tight with the chains of guilt.

I was never the same after the morning Pastor took on judge, jury and Jesus. I made some mighty harsh decisions—decisions out of fury, hurt and fear. Decisions I’d grow to regret. Decisions I’d have to find redemption for or learn to live with. I chose redemption.

Redemption’s a mighty big word for simple folk but that’s what I was after. That’s where I was going. The good book says we can get salvation through our works or at least get a start on it, so that’s what I did. I went to work.

Life ain’t much different here on the mountain than it is in the valley. A man’s lucky to have a horse and wagon, lucky to have a shack with a tin roof. There are sinners on the summit and sinners in the foothills and I reckon Pastor Roller planned on washing every sin from every man.

I spread a blanket over a stand of grass and brushed down the wrinkles. Momma carried an apple pie in one hand and a basket full of chicken in the other. The aroma spun in the breeze meshing with Mrs. Taylor’s fresh sourdough bread. It couldn’t have been a prettier day for a man to repent and then go down to the river for baptizing.

Would you read on?

Last weeks author shall remain anonymous.