A critical key to landing a book deal is the presentation of your idea in such a way that the editor or agent is completely sold out on the concept.
In musical terms, perfect pitch is the rare talent to name or pick out a note without having any reference point. This is illustrated by this youtube video where they clear your mind, then give you a tone, and ask you to name the note….most people fail this test. Just like most writers haven’t figured out the best way to pitch their idea.
Off Pitch
The pitches that are “off” are easier to reject. They aren’t “musical” at all. For example:
“I am a novice with an abundant bevy of stories, I am just happy for exposure.[sic] In the right hands I am sure my stories can be molded into gold.”
After naming a number of bestselling books the author pitches: My book “is what you might get if you mixed the DNA of their mission and writing styles. I’ve taken the best of their bestsellers, married them, and now…are blended together to form…”
Received a pitch for a novel written from a dog’s point-of-view. That isn’t so bad. But the material was mailed to my office wrapped in a plastic “Dog Waste Bag.” I felt the need to wash my hands…
The cover letter included in bold print the sentence “I do not want my work involved with anyone attempting to dominate it.” In other words, the author was not willing to be edited. At least they were honest about it!
Another topped the last one with the sentence: “If you think there are errors, you are wrong, there are none.”
A Little Sharp
Sometimes an author’s tone takes a strident turn or makes unrealistic claims. For example:
“This book is nonfiction with a message that is so remarkable that it could quickly and justifiably become recognized as ‘the most important book ever written.’”
The subtitle of the book pitched is “You’re Not Who You Think You Are” but the author is a collaboration of “by Holy Spirit and __author name__” I won’t reveal the name. Only that their claim of co-authorship is a little much.
In the description of the novel the author writes about how two boys, playing around, throw a “Molotov cocktail” at an abandoned shack for fun. To their horror they see someone is inside and is aflame. This terrible scene is vividly described. Therefore, what makes the pitch stop working? The last sentence of the pitch says “A novelist I hired to help polish the book concluded: ‘It’s laugh-out-loud funny.’”
The pitch described a “novel in the Christian Western genre. By that, I don’t mean a syrupy Amish prairie romance where the worst thing that happens to some hapless townsman is that he gets ‘drive-by’ hollered at. There are no quilting circles in this story…feminine characters of this work do not neurotically torture themselves into sleeplessness over ‘Does he really love me?'”
A Little Flat
Unfortunately I cannot provide examples of this kind of pitch since this is more commonplace. Just like when you are singing it is more common to be flat that it is to be sharp.
The “flat” pitches are those that are okay but they just lay there. They don’t have a unique storyline. Or a title that is “uninteresting.”
The hardest part is that the writing may be great. It is either the topic (for non-fiction) or the storyline (for fiction) isn’t strong enough.
Or the storyline or topic may be fine, but the writing isn’t good enough to support it.
Perfect
If you’ve ever watched the early season shows on American Idol or any of the other first round competitions you get to see what the judges see. The ones that are pretty good move to the next round and we all cringe at the “flat” or “sharp” or “off” pitch musicians.
But every once in a while there is someone whose presentation is amazing.
I’ve had pitches like that presented to me over the years. Their pitch was perfect. There was a combination of passion, personality, and giftedness that caused the tuning fork in my brain to start humming.
My hope is that your pitch will someday may and editor or an agent begin singing along…in perfect harmony.
Great post, and something we all struggle with. Or at least I assume that all of us writers have trouble here.
I think that our difficulty has two parts; first, we’re too close to the work we’re pitching. It might be better to ask a writer-friend to read it…and then let her write the pitch. After all, the mechanics of the pitch are not that hard; it’s like coming up with an aphorism. But the POINT of it is what we so often miss, and as writers we have a functionally very different relationship with our work than would an a query-reading agent, an acquisitions-evaluating editor, or a reader.
The second roadblock we face is a simple lack of exposure; we almost never read pitches, except in a post like this one, and we certainly never have the chance to tie the attractive pitch to the book that invites representation, and a eventually contract.
The back-cover blurb on a published book is about as close as we can get, but we still have some inside information to use if that ‘pitch’ is imperfect; we can look inside the book to see if the writing’s good or dreadful, we can look up Amazon reviews, and there’s always word-of-mouth.
Tough job, really. I would imagine it’s one of the hardest steps in authorship, and perhaps the fence at which some very good books fall, never to see the light of day.
Its a fair point you make Andrew, with a dog named Reebok. However, Nick Vuijick had every reason to feel humble and to assume some right to sympathy. Yet, he refused to even reveal his disadvantage and limited his pitches to phone calls, calling hundreds before he finally got an invite to speak at a school. In the process he learnt what works and what doesn’t. Like him, God led me into a most reluctant career move, selling, where I had to face endless heartache and disappointment that even my colleagues could not understand, until I started to find my sweet-spot. Getting someone else to write your proposal, will only get you found out later. Rather just keep trying until you get it right. When you do, you will be ready in more than obvious ways for the next step – not before. I suspect that even if the SLA rejects you, as long as you don’t burn bridges, they will review you objectively when you do get it right, so keep going until you do. That said, Andrew, I would truly love to see a book from you – really – you inspire me with your uncomplaining courage in the face of so much pain. Does that deserve to be accepted by an agent? Sadly no, we never deserve that – but I do sense that God has His hand on you, so keep going. Already you deftly string words of meaning together with class, so believe that God did not bring you thus far to let you die in this wilderness. You have a great untold story that is being written even through the valleys of rejection.
Peter, thank you so much for your kind and gracious words…I will treasure them, today and in days to come.
And you raise a good point about having a pitch ghosted, and the potential downstream troubles.
If it’s OK to say so here, there actually IS a book, “Blessed Are The Pure Of Heart”, and if you click on my name, it’ll take you to my blog, and more information. If the click-through doesn’t work, it’s
http://www.blessed-are-the-pure-of-heart,blogspot.com
Thanks Andrew. One day Satan will be loudly defending himself before God’s court until you walk in … I rest my case.
Andrew, it won’t link. Thought I would let you know. Will go via your posting handle.
Ahhh! I stuck a comma in there!
It’s
http://www.blessed-are-the-pure-of-heart.blogspot.com
Using idols as a metaphor, the inevitable feedback from judges relates to song selection. They never say what a good selection looks like. Its a kind of “you know it when you see it” or je ne sais quoi. Good song selection is ambiguous but it invariably reflects a good sense of self, of what your voice can do and how to stay within yourself. It relates to another very powerful observation: the singers who seem to do best are often humble, compared to those brazenly claim from the outset that they will be the next idol. It goes to the expression, “if you went up the way you came down, you would have come down the way you went up”. So, to me the principle is be true to yourself, authentic with un-contrived humility, soft spoken, realistic, never presumptuous, an expressed willingness to work with an agent and not that you know it all conveying a sense of teach-ability, objectivity and manage-ableness, all combined with conviction about your offering – after all, if you don’t believe in it, why should we. How do we interview for a job or win a girl? Through much the same mannerisms. That said, Steve, I honestly have felt so inspired by God throughout my journey that I really feel very happy calling myself a scribe and the pen of ready writer. I think what actually offends is misusing God’s name to assume a right to be heard, the way silly young men would say to a girl, “God has shown me that you will be my wife one day”.
I grinned at some of your examples of “off” pitches. I find it hard to create the perfect pitch. But, talking through my story with a friend helps me hone in on what about my story is unique and can be shared. This task usually takes me a number of hours and causes great angst.Being a perfectionist doesn’t help. 🙂
Steve, if you can put your finger on it, how often does a “perfect pitch” come across your desk? Is it generally one of ten manuscripts, of twenty, or even rarer than that? How often does something come in by a virtually unknown author (at least unknown to you) that came out of nowhere and “sets you on fire” with enthusiasm for the project if that happens anymore?
Lastly, would you say a “near perfect” pitch is a manuscript that is only slightly less valued than a “perfect pitch” or is greatly less valued than the very finest? Do you ever have a manuscript by an unknown that transcends the slush pile, passes go, and fast tracks to publication due to quality? Thanks for your insight.
… and then I got to thinking. The Beatles, “who needs guitar music anyway, its on its way out”, Dylan (can’t keep pitch), Van Goch (who?), Churchill (oh you mean that hopelessly sick and disinterested kid in the back row), Einstein (what, a clerk in a patent office, nah) or Astair (can dance a bit, not interested). Last I checked, diamonds come out of the ground looking like dirty quartz. No wonder Jesus sees diamonds where we see black, sooty carbon – because we judge on appearances not on the things that stir God – heart, soul, passion, character. Sure all the right pitches work in the science of routine publishing, but it takes real art to transcend that and achieve something glorious.
It is nearly impossible to be that specific. Partly because others could use the answer as a rulebook for “what works for Steve” … when there isn’t any such thing.
I do know that the opening chapter of Ginny Yttrup’s novel WORDS galvanized my interest. And after three re-writes of the full manuscript we sold it and it won a Christy Award for best first novel. (Buy the book and you will see the chapter I read the first time…it is the same.)
I can safely say that Jennie Allen’s pitch (non-fiction) at a Mt. Hermon conference was “pitch perfect.” Apparently I said, “Brilliant!” to her. She later provided a sample chapter that was incredibly powerful. We then spent six months developing the proposal and the vision for her multi-book project. The entire project was contracted by Thomas Nelson. And Jennie was an unpublished author at the time.
Cindy Woodsmall’s manuscript got a stellar review in-house. Written across the top of the cover page was a note by my reviewer that said “STEVE. PAY ATTENTION!” I did. And the reviewer was right.
The stories of “success” are many in number…of course I would hope so since I’ve been an acquistions editor or an agent for the last two plus decades.
Great stories, thanks. I loved that they were unknown etc.
Thank you, Steve! The selecting of the manuscript for representation by your agency appears to be only the beginning of the effort to perfect the work prior to presentation to publishers, quite a “value added” benefit.
I would bet that your “closing ratio” of presentations evolving into contracts is quite high. Kudo’s!
Its interesting M, to use the idols analogy again, how often the also-rans proved to the greatest successes and the winners not so. Cowell is a kind of acquisitions editor, who heard Susan Boyle and backed what was quite a rustic, unconventional soul, or Leona Lewis who was just a simple secretary. I sense there is a balance to be found between bread-and-butter books that are safe and pay the bills, and works that are taken on risk because the intuition of the acquirer senses something special.
Thanks for the funny examples. Recognizing the terrible is easy. Distinguishing the mediocre pitch that will fail from the superior that will win is the problem. One big hurdle in launching into a business beyond my normal expertise is understanding the unwritten rules. Design, analyze, redesign, reanalyze, repeat until successful – works in science and engineering but not so well in the creative arts. This feels so much more like “bring me a rock. I’ll tell you if it’s the wrong rock, but I won’t tell you what type of rock would be right or even if I want a flower now instead of a rock.” The blog postings from your whole team are helping me with this rock/flower problem, and I’m grateful.
I can hardly wait to read that Western. He (gender assumed but highly probable) did at least manage to clarify how his work was distinct from the competition.
“Recognizing the terrible is easy.”
I LOVE that, and it reminds me of a blind date which should never have taken place. (Opera patroness meets knuckledragger…great for a sitcom, not so good across candlelight.)
That is, almost word for word, what the lady said to me.
My husband and I went agate hunting in the Big Bend country with a ranch hand once. He looked like a honky-tonk redneck, but he played opera on his truck radio while we rested during the midday heat. I’d call him the ultimate Renaissance man. I think the term fits you, too. Good to have you back full bandwidth in these blogs.
Thanks, Carol…it’s good to be back.
“Passion, personality, and giftedness” is now at the top of the first page of my in-process book proposal, to help me balance the presentation as I re-read and re-work it. Thank you!
I’m also hoping for future perfect pitch and harmony.
Meantime – enjoyed the clarifying nature of this post.
Loved this perspective. And particularly this statement: There was a combination of passion, personality, and giftedness that caused the tuning fork in my brain to start humming.
Oh, I’m struggling with this! The hardest part is not knowing what exactly isn’t working. Is it the story concept? The writing? The pitch? If you just get the standard “reject” letter, it’s hard to know what to fix. Maybe it’s all wrong? Maybe I should just forget the whole thing? Or will just a small tweak here and there fix it? Or maybe the story is just not a seller. Ack. It tends to get a bit overwhelming and discouraging. Sigh….trying to keep my head up as I go back to the drawing board but it gets hard some days for sure.