On Your Mark…

Since I’ve never gone to a writing conference before, I’ve had to spend some time taking a look at the material offered by the host organization so that I have some idea what I’m getting myself into.

And I’ve learned that pitching isn’t only important in softball (and, physically at least, not as hard!  Emotionally…oh boy…)

The “pitch” is pretty important—especially at a conference, so these materials have turned out to be immensely helpful.  There are a lot of things that agents want to see in a pitch and a great deal they don’t want.

If anyone’s interested, I’ve inserted some links below to the websites the Loft directed its conference attendees to.  Some of the advice (not all of it could be linked in, since some of it was in the emails) was surprising.  For instance, it’s important to have authors to compare your work to, and some people argue that the material you give to an agent or editor is even more important than the pitch itself!

My favorite advice is to “be calm.”  I can be prepared, I can be professional, I can be practiced, but (inside at least, which I guess is better than outside) the last thing I think I’m going to be is calm!

 

 

Biggest Pitching Mistakes (Sounds fun, doesn’t it?)

What makes a good pitch.

This one you have to scroll down for a bit to get to, but the title of the section is What Happens in a Pitch Meeting?