SCBWI's roving reporter, Alison Peters was a willing 'guinea-pig' at the pitching session. She also tells us what it was like...
PITCH AN IDEA
THAT CAPTURES A PUBLISHER
Panel:
Lisa Berryman-
Publisher, Harper Collins
Brian
Cook-Literary Agent, www.theauthorsagent.com.au
Jill
Corcoran-Literary Agent, Herman Agency Zoe Walton- Publisher, Random House
Some of the session's highlights
This session was a fantastic insight into the mind of a publisher or agent- what exactly they might be thinking while you are pitching your story.
A handful of us
lucky ones had our names picked at random from those submitted and we gave it our all - in
return the panel gave us the guff, straight - what worked, what didn’t.
It was an
amazing learning opportunity and if you ever have the chance to submit
something to a session
like this at a conference I recommend you ignore your fear of public humiliation,
bite the bullet, and take this as the solid gold opportunity it is. Yes, the truth
can hurt, but not knowing how to get your work into the hands of publishers
hurts a LOT more, for a LOT longer. Suck it up and trust yourself, and them.
This panel in
particular respected us enough to be completely honest (eg That wasn’t a pitch,
in fact, I don’t know what that was) - Mental not to self: Strangle that BFF
who told you 'You ABSOLUTELY HAVE to do it in the first person from the
protagonists perspective'. ) So a bit like skydiving in the dark but so very
worthwhile. And safer.
Their responses
made it perfectly clear what they need in a pitch- they want it to cut to the
heart of what the story is about. (Jill Corcoran said, ‘If the you can’t sum up
what it’s about in three sentences then you don’t know what it’s about.’)
They also want to know:
1. - the genre
2. - the target age
3. - the
main character
4. -
the main theme/s.
Many US agents write blog posts on pitching and Jill recommends
doing your research on comparable books (referred to as comp books) to get your
pitch as spot-on as possible. Jill has blogged on how to research comp books at:
Jill’s blog is a
goldmine - check it out and follow Jill’s links to other agent and publisher
blogs on almost any subject you need to know more about.
