PITCHING

Despite the season, this is not about baseball.

Pitching is also what writers do. Writers pitch to agents and agents then pitch to editors. Editors pitch to acquisition committees. Once acquired, publishers pitch to booksellers. Lots of pitching goes on in the world of literature.

A pitch must be pithy and strong. Think of it as a strategic punch. It’s a craft all its own, and many a  good writer feels like a cow in a strange barn leaning to do it. But as wordsmiths who must use evocative language, it isn’t as far from our skillset as it feels.

Although I have a twitter account, I must confess I haven’t enjoyed it much. But it occurred to me that the site has prepared much of tweeting humanity for pitching. There are also pitching wars that go on regularly.

Check out #PitMad (next coming live 9/5/19, and also 12/5/19) for examples of energetic pitching. Read about it here https://pitchwars.org/pitmad/

[Disclosure: I’ve never done that^, but I have successfully pitched to editors and later to agents.]

 I now come up with a pitch for every story I write. I do it for my own clarity and because I’ve gotten to like it.

Have fun going to bat!

Writers as Marketers

{🙀The "you" in this post is mostly me waving a finger at myself 😼}

{😽You, the reader, are just fine 😻}

As one who gets inner-nourishment from creating stories, I understand other writers who say they are not marketers. The story’s the thing, right?

“I just want to write.” I’ve heard this often, and sometimes that came from inside my own head.

If you want readers, you want to publish. Whether it’s traditional  by a commercial publisher (i.e. be published) or self-publish, publishing means to make public.

“I don’t want to have to sell, I want to write.”

Yeah, right. Then write, baby, write. Keep it in the drawer, and then write some more. For the drawer.

But if you want to share your writing with anyone other than dutiful family and patient friends, you must market.

Let’s face it. If you want a crack at the door of the large and medium size publishers, you need an agent. You have to market your work to a legitimate agent, who will be compensates when your work sells.

That’s the least you must do. So no need denying you’re a marketer right there.

If you self-publish, you become a full time marketing team. No getting around that.

In other words, the notion that a writer is not a marketer needs bursting from the get-go. It’s a matter of how and how much.

Embrace it, and go forth.

Is There a “Best” Time?

If you hang around social media groups or chat boards for writers & artists, you’d have run into mentions of the best and worst times to submit work for consideration, and the questioning of whether there is such a thing.

I’ve read that “the holidays,” any of them, are not a good time. I’ve heard that international book fairs (unless you or your agent are part of the fair) are not a good time. I’ve heard that while neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night will stop the postal service, these are not good times for agents, editors and art directors.

If you believe all that, you’d have a dim view of the publishing world. It would appear these folks never seem to work.

But we know they work all the time.

In my personal experience, there are no “bad times” to offer your creative output to the world. But my personal experience is too limited, so I turned to a few much-published friends, and they confirmed that my experience is just like theirs. Acceptances come during the winter holidays and in the middle of summer heat.

So if you are using the fact that it’s summer as an excuse, (because we know that August is around the corner and, well, New York City shuts down in August, doesn’t it)—Please don’t.

The best time is when the work is ready.

Have We Got an Offer for You!

Or—

Ha! Yet another scummy scam L

We all know by now that the IRS doesn’t call us on the phone asking us for supposed owed cash, pronto. We know a Nigerian Prince or a Ukrainian billionaire is not in need of our urgent help to release his gazillion $$$ into our account if only we provide our bank account number, or whatever.

But recently I encountered a brand new one that required more sophisticated search algorithm on the part of the scammers. A message was left on my home phone telling me it was so-and-so from a literary agency who was so impressed with my published novel (perfectly named ) and whose agency wanted to promote in an upcoming literary mega-fairs, (also properly named real events) and turn into an international bestseller. If interested, could I please call (number and name) for further discussion?

I can imagine what further discussion would amount to. Invariably it would require some sort of financial information from me.

This operation was rather funny. I wrote a very good book. But to think it a potential international bestseller is a stretch to the point of a tear. In addition, I’m traditionally published, not self-published. Everyone who is anything like a literary maven knows to approach the publisher, not call an author at his or her home. But what made it creepy is that my home phone is not listed anywhere under my name. If fact, none of my phones are under my name. So somewhere, the connectors of cyberspace have gone to deeper lengths to tie personal information together.

Hopefully, writers know that fee-charging agents are schmagents. By now we know that publishers who charge us are vanity presses. This is a minefield, which is not hard to avoid if we hold firm to the principal that we don’t pay. Rather, we are paid.

But there seems to be no end to the crooks' inventiveness. I want to tell them they should use their ingenuity toward the betterment of humanity instead. But I know any engagement is futile and will only lead my information to the sucker-list of those who reply in the first place.

Stay safe, everyone. Stay vigilant and remember to laugh occasionally, which is what I did at this last offer to make me the next J. K. Rowling.