The One-Sentence Pitch
When you "pitch" a book to an agent or an editor, you are, in effect, attempting to get that person interested in reading your work.
Because agents and editors have a tremendous number of manuscripts & queries to read each day, your pitch must be succinct, intriguing, and exciting. It must leave the agent or editor wanting to read a sample of your book. Your pitch must have urgency.
If you don't understand the concept of "urgency," or "hook," or "attention-grabbing," read Alexandria Constantinova Szeman's (formerly writing as "Sherri") article from The Writer (reprinted in The Writer's Handbook 1997 and in The Novel Writer's Handbook) about how to get urgency into your work: "Urgency: Good Writing Needs It."In short, editors and agents don't have time to listen to a potential author (or even a published author) talk about his book for fifteen minutes. Editors and agents — if you're lucky enough to get their attention — usually have about one minute to spare to hear your pitch.
Therefore, the most effective pitch is one sentence long.
That may sound difficult as well as unreasonable, but if an author can't pitch his work and get someone interested with one sentence, his book probably isn't as good as it could be.
Here are some samples of (actual) unsuccessful book pitches:Now, read some one-sentence examples of (actual) successful book pitches:
- An act of revenge creates a series of events which backfires on the avenger.
- It's about loss.
- You have to read the whole book to know what it's about.
- It's about love.
- It's about life.
- Meet dentist John Matthews.
- A true account of my first week in the Navy.
- Historical Western Romance set in Oregon in 1879.
- My late father-in-law was a pilot in WW2.
- After a lifetime of gardening, an old man walks around his garden.
- At this cafe, it's always service with a smile.
- Jim Thomas is a man trying to make his way in the world.
- Bill is a failed writer.
- Memories and musings of my career.
- Max, the Nazi Kommandant of a concentration camp, forces a Jewish inmate to be his sexual slave, his "mistress," during the war; Part One tells Max's version of what happened, while Part Two tells the girl's account of events. (The Kommandant's Mistress)
- Claudia is accused of helping her terminally ill mother-in-law commit suicide; while on trial for murder, Claudia begins to suspect that her husband, Sam, may have helped his own mother kill herself but is letting her take the blame. (Only With the Heart)
- Falcon Spitzer is forced to work with CIA weapons expert Jeff Kreger to stop the development of an air transportation weapon before it can be marketed to terrorists, but their mutual dislike and mistrust exacerbate their personal conflict, jeopardizing their mission. (Stab of Intelligence)
- After Dave Razkowski falls from a rock-face he's climbing, he's unwillingly brought into the lives of Wolff Blumen, a former actor who has become an Orthodox Jew, and of Al Logan, an investigative reporter who, like Dave Razkowski, goes to desperate and elaborate measures to keep his own Jewish heritage a secret; yet when the lives of these three men unexpectedly intersect, they are forced to deal with buried pain, family secrets, lies, betrayal, and sacrifices. (The Binding)
- When four rape victims come to Ben Pace - a Lakhota healer - Ben is given the task to help these women seek justice while, at the same time, aid them in their healing process; the action they take, however, doesn't work as Ben or the women expect it to, and, horrifyingly, the serial rapist remains at large. (How the Strong Survive)
- The narrator of J.D. Salinger's classic The Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caufield, decides to reveal the untold story of his life by sharing his personal, private diary so the absolutely, undeniably, completely true tale will be recounted with nothing left out: well, almost nothing. (Holden & Me)
- Conrad has spent his life looking for meaning, for purpose, and for a spiritual awakening, but he's beginning to suspect that he's not like the other members of his family, his peers, or his co-workers; in fact, Conrad has discovered that he is a Rat, living in a world of dogs, cockroaches, spiders, plant-babes, soaring divorce rates, hostile corporate takeovers, uncontrollable inflation, feng shui, sham marriages, infidelity, duplicity, and the most important unanswered question of life: who first thought of putting a corn-breaded hotdog on a stick to deep-fry it, and why? (Rat)
Those successful one-sentence pitches, which weren't necessarily extremely short but which contain urgency, got the attention of agents, editors, and readers. Combined with their titles, which should ideally have urgency as well, and with the attention-grabbing first sentence, these kind of pitches make up a fantastic query.
in all Genres; Revised & Expanded, 10th Anniversary Edition
© 2001, 2011, 2012 by Alexandria Constantinova Szeman
(formerly writing as "Sherri")
RockWay Press, LLC Logo © 2004, 2012 by Alexandria Constantinova Szeman.
Wet-plate Collodian Photograph of Cathedral Rock © 2004 by Robert J. Szabo. Used with artist's gracious permission.
Web-site Updated: Tuesday 1 May 2012
