ETA: The first thing to say is that a pitch isn’t necessarily about selling your book to an agent/editor. Time to move out of that mindset! Read on…
Here’s another one to file under conversations from Twitter. This came up this past weekend in a conversation about Blood and Chocolate
Now, it’s been a few years since I read Blood and Chocolate so even though it’s one of the books I recommend often when someone asks for paranormal YA, I still had to stop and think how to refine it in an interesting way. Years after I’d read it. Hard!
I came up with: teenage female werewolf struggles to find acceptance in a world that doesn’t know about the supernatural. Moody, dark and emotional.
I don’t think it’s the best review/pitch but it does start to refine the ideas. I could make it punchier, ramp up the hook, really get someone interested. Let’s see…
Rebelling against her society. Searching for love. Desperate for a chance. Can this teen wolf reconcile what she is with who she wants to be?
Hmm, I’m not sure. I’m actually over by one character but I figure if I delete a space, I’ll be okay. What do you think? Better? It took me 15 minutes of fiddling to come up with that versus the first one, which I just popped off the top of my head.
But what I’m getting at is that it’s important to be able for authors to refine your book to its purest hook. The conflict, the angst, the info that’s going to make a reader, editor or agent want to pick it up to read, go find an excerpt, request a full or keep reading your query letter.
TV does this with what they call log lines. A one sentence hook meant to engage the viewer and get them to watch the show. Something that will easily fit in the TV guide or, for many of us now, on the guide channel. There’s no second chances when the viewer has only that guide to look at and base their decision off of. So the log line has to be good enough to convince the viewer to turn the channel right then and there, without a bunch of extranneous detail or someone saying “oh wait, that didn’t quite hook you? Well let me tell you just a little more”. The log line is it. The same should be considered true of the elevator pitch or, for purposes of my blog post, the Twitch (Twitter pitch. Ha! I’m funny).
At Samhain, we do something similar with each of our books’ blurbs, but we call it a tagline. If you go over to the website, the tagline is what you see on this page. Something to pique the interest of readers browsing our website, to entice them to click through to the book’s blurb and then excerpt.
I remember being at a conference a few years back and someone at our lunch table asking another author there about the book she wrote. I remember it was a historical but that’s all I remember because she spent the next 15 minutes talking, in depth, about the plot of her book and all the details. Ouch. Those are the times that I have to really struggle to pay attention. It’s harder if it happens during a pitch session because, let’s be honest, it’s hard for any of us to be talked to for 8 to 10 minutes without drifting off and thinking about lunch (unless you’re at lunch, in which case you’re thinking about your post-lunch nap and how much you’d like one). But I can be hooked by a plot refined down to its most interesting conflicts and ideas. Something that either makes me want to ask questions and find out more, or go buy the book and find out more.
In other words, the elevator pitch isn’t just for elevators. It’s for pitch sessions, query letters, the bar, NOT the bathroom, the bookstore, standing in line at the grocery store…well you get the idea. You’re selling your book. To whoever is your audience. Maybe it’s a reader, maybe it’s your dream agent. But the only way to sell it is to get them interested.
All this is to circle back around to what Twitter can do for your pitch. Twitter is currently the largest social media platform behind only Facebook and MySpace. But I believe it’s more open than Facebook or MySpace. Unless you have your Twitter account marked as private, anyone can read your Twitter page. Even those not “following” you. And you may end up with people following your Twitters that you might not have had the opportunity to communicate with/to anywhere else. But Twitter only allows you to type 140 characters (that’s spaces, letters and punctuation). It teaches you to refine your thoughts to the purest level and type only what you need to get the thought out there. And it’s because of those limitations that Twitter can help you refine your pitch. You only have 140 characters and you have a new book releasing, a new writing project in the works, etc (**please read side note at end of this post) and you want to tell people about it. How do you do that in 140 characters or less? You take your elevator pitch (you have one, right?) and you pare it down even further. No, it’s not easy, but once you do it, you can use it everywhere. Book promo, pens, websites, business cards, social media and in person.
Okay, you got it? So let’s hear your Twitch! If you don’t belong to Twitter and want to make sure you’re not going over the 140 character, open Notepad or something similar and let it do the count for you. If enough people leave their Twitter pitches in the comments, I’ll pull a few out and highlight their books/websites/blogs next week in a separate blog post. Ready, get set, Twitch!
**side note: please don’t query editors/agents on Twitter, Facebook, or MySpace. It’s really not the appropriate place because most of us use social media as a mix of work, pleasure and goofing off, and we’d prefer to get business related proposals that follow our submissions guidelines at our submissions email address.
Yeah those tagline things are HARD. I thought the synopsis was bad. Taglines *shudder* harder. Yet, I’ve never made the connection between tagline and Twitter (my brain is mush currently). This is something to ponder, especially given that three sentence query contest with The Knight Agency.
Best friend for life? Check. Guy with boyfriend potential? Check. Soul-sucking demonspawn? Time for a teen werewolf to stay up late working.
1000-year-old Viking turned underwear model finds new love with a woman who’s fast on her feet: All Fired Up from Samhain in Sept. (130 characters)
Elevator pitches aren’t the easiest. Here’s my go.
A warrioress accused of murder clashes with a highlander turn English border warden when she seeks his protection.
Oh. So the Facebook queries weren’t a good idea. It’s still OK to cc ten or twelve agents, right?
Sorry, I’m loopy from cold medicine.
Here’s my pitch.
A young woman throws herself a fake wedding while falling for her psychiatrist, only feigning insanity wasn’t exactly on her list of to do’s
(I think I could whittle it down further by leaving off everything past the comma. Not sure though)
Twitch: A rich do-gooder and a miner with a nasty past flirt with forbidden passion in the old west.
Only 92 characters, I think. I think Twitter’s been boiling my thoughts down too far.
i think it would be a great tweet series for an agent/editor to take pitch submissions on twitter. Just think you’d only have to read 140 characters and it would force author to summarize key points.
Oh, I’m twitching now! Here goes :
After a car accident, a discontented wife fakes amnesia in order to leave her unhappy marriage and go on an amazing dream adventure.
This tag line was written for our book “The Blue Vase”
Percy plans to kill his stepdaughter in an evil inheritance scheme. Morgan flees through swamps in a desperate effort to survive.
Less than 140 charactes.
I actually did this after you mentioned it on twitter…
Vigilante: The Princess of Elfa has to make a marraige alliance to save her world but falls in love with a vigilante on the way.
that fit in a tweet so it’s under 140 chars.
This was a very interesting exercise. Here is my twitch:
Group of teens, chosen to save the world from a mad god, must first save themselves from pirates, a monsoon, and their own growing powers.
Twitch:
Cullen Knight is a 7th grader with a 1400-year-old wizard trapped in his head. Literally.
This is fun!
Instead of editors/agents taking pitch submissions on Twitter, how about compiling them with the hashtag #twitch, so editors/agents can just look through the ones that are there and contact the author if interested in reading more? The twitch would have to be more like 130-132 characters. Still… could be done!
Okay – so #twitch might not be the greatest choice of hashtag…
This was tougher than I thought but I’m going to keep working on this with this novel & my others:
When a big city party girl has to head to a small town to take custody of her brother, she ends up butting heads with the bossy local cop.
(138 characters)
So far, I’d have to say that Kwana has the best.
After getting shot for Kiki, who won’t sleep with him, Vincent has weeks to pen an erotic book to snap his slump. Now she’s his only hope.
Great idea, Angela! Thanks!
For my 9/09 SMP release, Can’t Stand the Heat:
Sparks fly when a hotshot chef dares a snarky NY restaurant critic to spend a day in his kitchen. Will he teach her more than how to cook?
138 words. That was fun!
Twitch, Take 2: Cullen hates being possessed by a wizard, but he admits he needs him after Rowan’s vampire wife kidnaps Cullen’s favorite teacher as bait.
Another attempt.
I’ve been playing with this all day. And it still sucks! :gah:
Gillie dreams of her dead sister and a man she’s never met. When he walks out of her dream, can she trust him to save her from a killer ex?
Oh, and thanks! Nifty challenge. And I love your smileys!
These get easier the more you do them. Who knew?
Twitch#2: Murdered rock star stuck in Purgatory must convince a suicidal, empathic former nun to help him halt an underworld uprising by saving souls.
Twitch v2.0, ’cause really 140 characters is short enough:
Stranded in a mountain town, a Society girl on a mission to rescue soiled doves tangles with a mining tycoon who hides a hardscrabble past.
This was a lot of fun. I came up with some awesomely horrible twitches! I’m very excited about that. I’m settling on:
In retrospect, as Vic lay dying in a pool of his own blood, his homicidal lover on top of him, maybe he should have done things different.
This one was different from the others I wrote explaining the book itself. I feel like the kid who turns in a book report on the wrong subject.
Thanks for reading,
V.G.Clearwater
“The Green and the Gold” is a coming-of-age novel. Carrick has failed at nearly everything he has tried. But that’s just how it begins.
Forgot to include contact information! http://www.bartschaneman.com
Loved this! Reminded me of journalism classes and the school newspaper headlines.
For Chrysalis, what’s turning out to be an epic fantasy:
Terminally ill girl meets bug-eyed alien boy who whisks her away to his world to undergo a shared metamorphosis. Hello kick-ass winged hybrids.
For Romeo’s Dead But Juliet Faked It, an April release:
Spinster digs up vampire in yard while landscaping. Finds out town is filled with goddess-worshipping whack jobs who want them both dead.
For A Taste of Summer Magic, already out.
Ingredients: a chef, a Wiccan socialite, and a business man with a penchant for bondage. Add group sex, magic spells, and scheming ex. Stir.
For Smoldering Embers, whose sales made me cry, rant at the computer screen, and drink wine from the bottle:
Author burns pages of contemporary novel no one read: Reclusive, woodsy girl meets big-city land developer. Add stalker, romance, sweet sex.
Okay, had to try this out as I’m horrible at taglines, but am so freaking addicted to Twitter (under my day ego):
sex and business don’t always mix well & when an unknown enemy is thrown in, the resulting cocktail may be of the molotov variety
Even better: 11 characters left over. The twitch for the project I’m still plotting out is 3 characters over, but I can work with it
When Grace’s forest ranger father disappears,she uses her wilderness survival training 2 uncover a mysterious group plotting in NC mountains
When Gabby, a tween angel, is assigned to protect her ultimate high-school rival, she learns what can happen when you hate someone to death.
“The Deep Water Leaf Society: Harnessing the Transformative Power of Grief”
Mine’s non-fiction, but here goes…
A unique guidebook packed with tools for navigating life’s losses. This inspiring true story provides a roadmap through grief into healing.
(139 characters! That’s almost shorter than my title! LOL)
There’s a new exorcist in town who doesn’t want to kill demons, she wants to become one. And she has the means to make it happen.
Okay, here’s another shot at it…
When a young man overdoses in the county jail, how will his mother come to terms with her grief, guilt and rage?
12 characters to spare
*gasp* Karen, I want to read that.
I was reading through to get some ideas flowing on how to phrase my own twitch, but I felt Karen’s twitch was so interesting that she needed to know.
Hi Angela, Nice to meet you.
I think this is an excellent idea and will twit my manuscripts, given a goodnight sleep, or more, to ponder on.
Meanwhile I have started a thread on Twitter called Book of the Week upon which I twit daily. At the end of the week I put them altogether on my website- only done two so far Women in Love (DH Lawrence) and Pilgrimage (Dorothy Richardson) pioneer of the stream of consciousness process. In case anyone wants to see here’s the url http://www.freewebs.com/evaulian/twitterthreads.htm
I really liked a lot of these (empathic nun/bossy cop) but I really want to read T.Annes: “A young woman throws herself a fake wedding while falling for her psychiatrist, only feigning insanity wasn’t exactly on her list of to do’s”
I would suggest when using twitter to advertise, to keep it to a lower limit so that people can re-tweet you by going “RT @insertyournamehere *bookblurb*…”
High school senior, Katarina Jensen, clashes with her father, who happens to be the school principal, deals with ending an unplanned pregnancy, and nurses her broken spirit back to life after breaking things off with her first love in order to better plan her future.
No wait. I didn’t count spaces.
Twitch#2
Kat Jensen clashes with dad, ends pregnancy, and finds way w/ photog after dumping the boy who started the trouble.
After the sheriff dumped her family’s stuff and changed the locks, Mari (11) has big plans: move out of the motel, get her violin back, and stop her mom from playing poker.
Keeping her sister safe, finding her dad, not getting killed – nothing compared to the dangers of love when you’re sixteen and it’s 2150.
My 9/09 release, Wish for the Moon.
A medieval knight with a dark secret is content living in modern times—until an American woman drags him back to his past where he must protect her, even from himself.
For my contemporary fantasy, SAVING SATAN:
When Satan faces a mid-life crisis, he’s forced to choose between an eternity of crushing despair and a love that could destroy him. Damn.
Oh I love these. I think there were quite a few I wanted to read based on their Twitches (that sounds vaguely dirty).
I want to try one…
Looking for a fling, Mitch goes online and meets dating disasters till darling 19 y/o David rocks her world and her 4poster.
Thank you, W. Turland! Wow, that’s quite a compliment. It’s the premise for a sequel in the series I’m writing. I hope you really DO get to read it! :glee:
Great article. Right on information. Great work.
1Monica is overwhelmed fashion designer, Alexander, is in love with her in spite he is a murder suspect, but a greater obstacle is God
2 Inspired by life of Chino Bert, fashion designer who at the height of his career abandons all to don the habit of a Franciscan Friar
Love this idea!
Travel memoir, proposal in progress:
A journalist leaves behind job, life to backpack through Africa; this narrative will inspire readers to take leaps in their own lives.
Please let me change the no 45 Twit pitch to this one:
1Though Alexander was accused of murder, it did not deter Monica from loving him- however, she had yet a greater adversary to conquer- God
Title: A Greater Love
This was a fantastic idea and of course I had to immediately go and try it. It seems to me that the big challenge is not boiling down the plot — which is not really what draws readers — but the mood and tone, and THAT is hard to do in that many characters. Here’s mine:
In SHIVER (Scholastic 09), a searing, bittersweet story of first love, Grace falls in love with Sam, a boy who becomes a wolf each winter.
Here’s my logline for Bleeding Violet ~ Simon Pulse (January 5, 2010).
A hallucinatory teen reunites with her estranged mother in a sinister East Texas town where the monsters she sees aren’t just in her head.
Conciseness is my passion.
Too all those critics who say Twitter is a waste of time, they should read this post.