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HOW TO "PITCH" A BOOK
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. 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. If you don't understand the concept of "urgency," or "hook," or "attention-grabbing," read Sherri Szeman's article from The Writer (reprinted in The Writer's Handbook 1997) about how to get urgency into your work: "Urgency: Good Writing Needs It." And by the way, urgency applies as much to non-fiction and poetry manuscripts as it does to fiction manuscripts. Then, read some one-sentence examples of (actual) successful book pitches, attention-grabbing first sentences from contemporary literature, and great "hooks" from older literature. Titles should ideally have urgency as well, but editors and agents often help authors to improve their books' titles. So, while it is helpful for you when pitching your book to have an intriguing title, it's not absolutely necessary if your Pitch is effective. Now that you've read the article "Urgency: Good Writing Needs It," and read the examples of effective pitches, attention-grabbing first sentences, and great titles, pitch it to one of the editors at RockWay Press. Make us want it! \
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