Conference Report: The Perfect Pitch

Honestly, I hadn’t planned to go to this workshop. I’ve read articles, attended presentations, and done pitches already. Pitching is second only to writing a synopsis in my list of things I’d rather run through a swarm of angry bees than do. However, when I looked at the lineup of presenters, I decided it would be highly entertaining as well as educational…and I had a pitch to do later in the day so the timing seemed fortuitous.

The full title of the workshop is How to Make the Perfect Pitch (without Striking Out). The speakers were: Christie Craig, Faye Hughes, Caren Johnson, Christopher Keeslar, and Kim Lionetti. For anyone who’s never heard Christie and Faye speak, you should know that they are hilarious. And who better to discuss the fine points of pitching than the folks we’re pitching to: an editor and two agents?

I kid you not when I say that this workshop completely changed the attitude with which I approached my pitch later that afternoon. And you know, the pitch went ten times better as a result.

So what made this workshop so life-changing for me? First, they got us laughing with a video about how NOT to pitch, featuring Kim Lionetti and Chris Keeslar literally chained to their chairs in the “pitch room”. So that relaxed the audience.

Relaxation is the key. The single most important thing I learned was something I’d heard before but from a different angle. Everyone always tells you not to be nervous because editors and agents are nice people who don’t bite, and one pitch isn’t going to make or break your career. It won’t even generally affect whether they request the book or not. All very, very true, but none of it ever stopped me from developing a flop sweat before I went in to pitch.

 Here’s the point that revolutionized my thinking: Don’t make the agent or editor focus on YOU rather than your book. If you’re overtly anxious, shaking, or sweating, they’re going to waste time and energy trying to calm you down. You want all their time and energy directed toward your masterpiece.

 This comment was reiterated by all the industry pros on the panel. It makes THEM nervous when the author is nervous. They want to be able to relax and enjoy your pitch, not worry that you are going to have a mental breakdown at any moment.

Doesn’t that make total sense?

 Okay, on to specifics.

 Here’s what to include in your pitch:

1. High concept, as in, Godzilla meets Sleeping Beauty;

 2. Very short synopsis OR Goal/Motivation/Conflict for the main character, if that works better for you. This should be 2-3 sentences long and include:

    Situation

    Character

    Objective

    Opponent

    Disaster.

Another way to approach this is to answer these questions about the heroine/hero:

    Why are they appropriate to the book?

   What makes them distinctive?

    Why do we care?

    What’s most interesting about them?

    What’s the push and pull between them?

     What creates the dynamic for the relationship?

 3. A sense of the writing tone by comparing it to another well-known author;

 4. Word count;

 5. Genre;

 6. If you have publishing credentials which are relevant to the project you are pitching, mention them at the end of the pitch.

 Presentation Tips:

 1. Practice with someone who will give you a good critique.

 2. Practice pitching someone else’s book or movie. It can give you insight into what’s most important.

 3. Research who you’re pitching to so you can personalize it a bit. For example, mention you love an author they represent or edit.

 4. Breathe!

 5. Pay attention to your pitchee’s responses. Do they look bored? Concerned? Confused? Adjust!

 6. Be passionate about your work! Demonstrate why you care about this book.

 7.Convey the pitch in a short time so the agent/editor has time to ask questions and go deeper into what interests them.

 8. Show you’re a professional by staying calm and knowing what you’re trying to accomplish. Remember: you’re the expert on your book and present yourself that way.

 9. Talk in a natural way which means keeping the “blurb” short.

10. Feel free to ask business-related questions if you have time.

 Here’s what NOT to do:

 1. Do not rush through your prepared pitch.

 2. Do not read your pitch. Note cards are okay if you must refer to them, but this is supposed to be more of a conversational meeting.

 3. Do not include extraneous information. There’s no time for it.

 4. Do not pitch more than one project. You have to show that this project is your passion. If it’s one in a series, you can touch briefly on that fact at the end of the pitch.

 5. Do not mention you’ve self-published a book unless it sold 10,000 or more copies.

 Chris Keeslar noted that he will almost always request the book pitched to him if it’s in a genre he publishes. If your pitch really excites him, he’ll read your submission first. (He also mentioned he only buys straight contemporary romances if they have humor in them.)

 Kim Lionetti said you build relationships by meeting agents and editors at conferences over time. She feels the face-to-face meetings are valuable.

 All the industry pros confirmed that submissions made as the result of a face-to-face pitch go on the top of their reading pile. So you see, the angst is well worth it.

Conference Report: There’s a New Kid on the Publishing Block…

…and it’s Sourcebooks Casablanca.  I walked out of the Spotlight on Sourcebooks feeling truly excited about this new publisher.  Well, they’re new to romance publishing, having started the Casablanca imprint about two years ago.  Now they’re publishing 10 romances per month, which is an impressive output.

Sourcebooks is the largest woman-owned trade publisher in the United States and publishes roughly 300 titles/year.  The Illinois-based company has been in business since 1987 when founder and C.E.O. Dominique Raccah left her job in advertising and started her independent press.

Why was I so excited about Sourcebooks?

Well, you gotta love a company that publishes Georgette Heyer (the author who got me addicted to the romance genre in my youth), Jane Austen sequels, and, get this, poetry!  (My own R.W.A. workshop was about using the techniques of poetry to strengthen your prose so you can tell I’m a fan.)

However, as an author, this is what I was thrilled to hear Ms. Raccah (who is a real dynamo) say in her presentation to us writers:  We publish authors, not books.

To expand: Ms. Raccah’s advertising background has made her aware of the importance of building an author as a brand.  She understands this is a long-term career process.  Sourcebooks devotes 30% of the company’s resources to marketing.  That’s roughly three times what the big New York publishers spend.

Ms. Raccah believes in attracting a readership by fully supporting every book they publish.  The company regularly analyzes what’s working to build sales and what isn’t.  They understand how to use the internet but they also do hard copy advertising, i.e., advertisements in RT Book Reviews, bookmarks, etc.  Danielle Jackson, Casablanca’s publicist, says they send out 250-300 Advance Reading Copies of every book.  That’s amazing!

The folks at Sourcebooks feel that the publisher and author should function as a true partnership.

Oh, and did I mention that they have full distribution in all book-selling venues, that they actively pursue foreign rights sales, and they’re interested in reprinting your backlist? 

That’s the official party line, and Ms. Raccah is very convincing, but the proof is in the pudding, so to speak.  Well, I have a couple of writing buddies who are now working with Sourcebooks, and they have nothing but good things to say about the company.  The covers are beautiful, Deb Werksman (who edits the Casablance imprint) is a terrific editor, and their contracts are getting renewed.  That sounds pretty darn good.

Now that we’re all excited about submitting to Sourcebooks, how should we go about it?

According to Ms. Werksman, most of this information is on the Sourcebooks website here http://www.sourcebooks.com/our-authors/romance-fiction-submission-guidelines.html , but I’ll tell you what she said anyway.

Submission Guidelines

Email a full manuscript and synopsis (as attachments in WORD format with file names that start with the title of the book) along with your query letter to deb.werksman@sourcebooks.com .

She’s looking for all subgenres of single title romance fiction which have:

–a heroine the reader can relate to,

–a hero she can fall in love with,

–a world that gets created,

–a hook that allows Sourcebooks to sell the book in 2-3 sentences.

The books should be 90,000 to 110,000 words long.  Sourcebooks accepts both agented and unagented submissions.

Your query letter should include the usual information, plus:

–your career arc as an author, including sales figures of your previous books (if any),

–whether this book is part of a possible series (for branding purposes).

Ms. Werksman’s response time is currently 4-8 weeks, and she assured us we would absolutely hear from her with either a yes or a no.

Newsflash!

Ms Raccah announced that they are debuting a Young Adult imprint (as yet unnamed),edited by Daniel Ehrenhaft.

 So polish those query letters, synopses and manuscripts, and send ‘em in!

Conference Report: Leslie Wainger, Genius-at-Large

One amazing workshop I attended was A Look Inside the Editor’s Mind.  As a writer, I’m always trying to figure out what’s going on in an editor’s mind so the title was irresistible.

The description: Harlequin Editor-at-Large Leslie Wainger will cold-read up to 25 synopses and analyze their strengths, weaknesses, chances of being requested, and more.

That sounded pretty fascinating, especially considering the fact that I find writing a synopsis roughly equivalent to walking over hot coals barefoot.  I figured I could use all the help I can get.

It was a master class in synopsis writing like no other I’ve ever attended (and I’ve been to quite a few).  Ms. Wainger started reading at the top of her synopsis pile.  As she read, she commented on what she liked, what didn’t work, what could be stronger, what should be left out and whether she would read more.  The audience sat spellbound and groaned in frustration when the moderator called, “Time’s up!”  I think we all could have sat there for at least another hour because we truly felt we were getting to watch the inner workings of an editor’s brain as she evaluates a story.  Also Ms. Wainger happens to be very funny and engaging so the time just flew by.

Here are my notes.  I’m afraid they are a very minimalist summary of what I truly learned from Ms. Wainger.  I was too busy listening to jot down long sentences so this is a boiled-down version without any of the vivid illustrations we got from the workshop.  I strongly recommend listening to the audio recording of this presentation.

1. Do not waste time in a synopsis.  However, do fill in the blanks.

2. Editors don’t like coincidences or plotlines that feel contrived.

3. A one or two sentence encapsulation of the book right at the beginning of the synopsis can work well.  Just make sure it’s clear that the synopsis begins in the next paragraph.

4. Stick to the heroine/hero conflict and plot.  Minor characters should be kept to a minimum, if included at all.  Keep proper names to a minimum.

5. Starting with a dilemma, often in the form of a question, can work well.

6. Get the romance in!  WHY are they in love?

7. She requested a maximum of two pages, single-spaced, in a synopsis.

8. You need to show the tension in both plot and romance.

9. You need to feel the characters are driving the action, not vice versa.

10. Suspense has to be logical, i.e. no coincidences, etc.

11. You want to make sure you get the characters’ emotions across.

12. In contemporaries, try not to put in any references which will date them.  Contemps should be in “the eternal present”.

13. It’s all about the characters!

Do I need to add that I came home and immediately revised my synopsis?

Conference Report: Sightseeing

One of my college friends is a senior photo editor for National Geographic, a publication where photography is king.  Since we were meeting for lunch in D.C., she invited me to meet her at her office.

  Did you know National Geographic has a small museum that’s open to the public?  And it’s free?  I didn’t but what a wonderful discovery.

On display were the most fantastic, dramatic photos of lions and leopards, taken by Beverly Joubert, with videos filmed by her husband Dereck.   I took photos of her photos so you’ll see the occasional reflection in the glass covering the pictures.  Look at these incredible scenes!

The Jouberts are an interesting couple.  They started off running a luxury safari camp but got fascinated by the lions they sent their guests off to view.  So they sold the camp and now spend months at a time living in tents near the subjects of their photos.  It’s part of their effort to bring attention to the importance of preserving the habitats of the wild creatures they record.

After lunch, I strolled down to the Corcoran gallery, passing the White House.

At the gallery I found a marvelous exhibit of bronzes.  I like sculpture a lot so this was a pleasure for me.

These cowboys by Frederick Remington have such energy and vitality you can practically hear them hootin’ and hollerin’.

I love the beautiful curves of this antelope.  In fact, the artist said he found beauty only in curves.

There was even a bronze of a knitter, proving the everlasting appeal of the fiber arts.

One evening, needing a breath of fresh air, I hiked over to the Washington Cathedral.  It looks like I somehow got transported to Europe, doesn’t it?

I sat in the Bishop’s Garden while the sprinklers swished, a cute little dog trotted around greeting all comers and a not-too-distant trumpet played the day’s farewell “Taps”.  It was enchanting.

On the way home (I got lost!), I ended up on Connecticut Avenue.  As you know, I have encountered  llamas in Ohio.  Never did I expect to encounter a llama in urban D.C., even a cement one!

Conference Report: National Nerves

Last week I went to the Romance Writers of America’s national conference in Washington, D.C.

 Ordinarily, I only attend when the event is in New York City since getting there from New Jersey requires no white-knuckled, gut-twisting flight on an airplane (one of those metal tubes hurtling through thin air 30,000 feet above the safe, solid ground). However, there’s a wonderful invention called the Acela train which sweeps you smoothly–with tons of leg room and a plug for your laptop–between Newark, NJ, (no security check required—just waltz onto the platform fifteen minutes before boarding time) and the nation’s capitol. And I have friends and relatives in D.C. so the trip offered several temptations beyond the conference itself.

There was one more variable in my decision: presenting a workshop. I have given workshops for several regional writers’ groups and they’ve always gone pretty well so I thought maybe I was ready for the big time. I would submit a workshop proposal to RWA. If it was accepted, I would go to Washington; if it wasn’t, I would stay home. It was my own weird version of a coin toss.

 I chose my most esoteric workshop topic because I figured no one else would be submitting a competing one: How Do I Love Thee: Using the Techniques of Poetry to Strengthen your Prose. Not a lot of folks spent three years in college writing poetry and then metamorphosed into a romance writer (although more than you’d think, as I discovered at my presentation). Since I’ve given the workshop before, I already had handouts and a short description of the workshop. I uploaded the info and forgot all about it.

 Until I got an email from RWA, saying my proposal had been accepted and I would be presenting it at 4:30 on Thursday, July 16th.

 Excited, I made my reservation on the Acela, called my relatives and friends to set up dinner dates, and then it hit me: I had to stand up and speak in front of a room full of writers at all levels of experience from all over the world. Even worse, it would be recorded so writers at all levels of experience from all over the world could download and listen to it, long after the conference was over. My West Virginia twang, my ums and ahs, the deafening silences when I asked the audience to participate would all be preserved for posterity.

 AAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH! What was I thinking?!

 Long story short: I survived the workshop, thanks to my wonderful moderator Roni Denholtz who kept me calm and to a truly terrific audience who participated with talent and enthusiasm. I would even go so far as to say it went pretty well. The best part: it was OVER and I could enjoy the rest of the conference without losing any more sleep.