At the beginning of the World Horror Convention I had the opportunity to make a pitch to a number of publishers and agents working within the genre.
Having never made a pitch before I did my research; I read up on all the participants, made notes on their interests and read and re-read this on the train down to Brighton.
I entered the room; a small, awkwardly shaped bar where they sat behind cramped tables and this was when I made my first discovery: they’re the same as the rest of us! No second heads, no-one with more than the standard 2 eyes, just normal people.
It didn’t take me long to make my first pitch, and quickly after that my second and third and so on. I came to the convention weighed down with typescripts of my synopsis and first three chapters (all double spaced, single sided, 12 font) as the grooves worn into my shoulders will testify.
So, what did I learn? There are two key things I will take away from my experience at the pitching tables:
i) Understand your book! I know this may sound strange, I have been working on the rewrite of novel for months, I can quote whole passages with my eyes closed, so of course I know it. But do I Understand it? Within a few minutes of pitching I had a Road-to-Damascus moment in explaining what my novel was about. I understood it…in the same way that writing a synopsis (or rewriting one after you’ve re-written the book) helped to crystallise my understanding of the work and highlighted issues that still exist within the narrative arc, so making a pitch required me to focus on the absolute core of my novel and deliver it. For me that process has given me an invaluable insight into my novel, and as I’m still mid-rewrite, an opportunity for that to influence the final product.
ii) Learn your pitch. This is not unrelated to my first point. I had envisaged a scenario where I would place my offering on the table in front of the publisher and they would flick through the cover sheet and synopsis and ask a few pertinent questions, and some of those I pitched to did in fact do just this. But others looked at me, looked down at the document I laid before them, and waited. And waited. And it quickly became clear I was going to be the one doing the work around here. This wasn’t like an interview for a job where the panel has a list of questions written down in front of them. I was expected to sit down, pitch my story to them without (one assumes) coming across like a babbling fool, and then the questions would begin.
So what do I take away from this experience? Well, none of the individuals I approached said, “of course I will print this,” and pulled a contract from their back pocket for me to sign, nor did any of them look at me with incredulity and ask “you’ve written what?”. Whether anything will come from the pitches I made I have no idea and I won’t know for weeks and possibly months (in some cases, many months) to come. But as a learning experience and an insight into what I need to do to develop the business-side of my writing, and another tool in my array of writing techniques, it has been a true learning experience.
