 Is everyone ready? I'm going to welcome everyone. All right, welcome everyone to this talk from Pitch to Page with Catherine Sands. My name is Taryn Edwards and I am one of the librarians at the Mechanics Institute of San Francisco. We also have with us Barbara Santos who is marketing director of the San Francisco Writers Conference. Hi everyone. This event is hosted in partnership with the San Francisco Writers Conference and the Women's National Book Association, the San Francisco chapter. And these are two entities that I work with a lot in order to at the Mechanics Institute in order to provide learning experiences that are relevant to the Bay Area writing community. Now our speaker today is Catherine Sands and judging by the number of registrants that we had for this event, maybe she doesn't need an introduction, but I'll do it anyway. She is a literary agent and the author of the book Making the Perfect Pitch How to Catch a Literary Agent's Eye. She is in normal times based in the New York City area with the Sarah Jane Freiman literary agency. And I think you'll learn today that not only is she knowledgeable about the industry but also really generous with that knowledge and her time. She will be offering a class for us on August 7th on this very topic, an expanded version of what she'll talk about today. The details are forthcoming so please check mi-library.org slash events or the San Francisco Writers Conference website and we will have those details and registration information available soon. Alright, so the way it's going to work today is Catherine's going to share her knowledge and then Barbara and I will moderate the questions and so please post them in the chat space. Some of you did email me your questions and I'm sorry about that confusion. We're going to try to make it right and answer those questions first but like I said there's a lot of people attending this event so we'll see what happens. Alright, take it away Catherine. Thanks for coming with to visit with us today. Thank you Tara and hello Literati. I hope you're safe and well during Corona apocalypse. I'm very pleased to be here. I've had a very long association with the San Francisco Writers Conference since the beginning actually so I'm particularly happy always to speak to a writing organization, a writers group, about pitchcraft. What is pitchcraft? Pitchcraft is the art and the craft of the making of a pitch. If Trump did the art of the deal this is the art of the spiel and what's interesting about pitchcraft is that it is in arguably the step in the stage not only that writers absolutely hate and despise and fear but it is what starts the ball rolling. It's what gives you every possible entree into the book publishing industry and allied industries like the film industry. Everything in the world is in your life has been pitched to you in some way this seminar every book on your shelf movies you've seen whoever you go home to or are stuck home with today virtually everything is the result of some kind of pitch and you want to remove the negative aspect of pitch from your mind escape if you're thinking of it as huckstery. I don't know I I hope I'm still on am I? You want to think of it not as selling something you want to think of this as sharing something and that means the best of the best of the best of what you offer so you want to understand several very quick principles. Pitching is a vital and dynamic a part of your writing life no matter what you are writing what no matter what subject you're covering no matter how lofty and literary your style or how true and accurate your memoir or femois or if your guy Hemois might be it is absolutely about getting other people excited about what's exciting to you so the art and craft of making a pitch means that you're going to give as much attention and as much love and passion as you do to your writing into your pitch and it follows you throughout your writing life you might be pitching blogs you might be pitching you know for blurbs not just pitching to an agent so there are a couple of things I love to quickly share and that is that your writing life is divided into an arc you get ready you get read and you get readers you get ready you get read you get readers and at each and every stage you make a pitch because the pitch that you make maybe initially in a query letter to a literary agent is what will ultimately be used by that agent to an editor and then it's picked up as a baton of sorts by the editor who then must pitch the sales reps in the marketing department on what's called the acquisitions team or pub board so everything does depend on this vital key time that and space that pitch and when I do give my full workshop on August 7th I'm going to go into many kinds of examples and practices and strategies so I only have a few minutes for some quick introductory remarks and then I'm going to hopefully answer questions for you but some guiding principles that I can quickly share are these the person who is reading or listening is in a completely different place and headspace than the person who is the author of the book for one thing they're thinking multiply they're looking at many pitches perhaps not just yours and what you need to do is distill the most salient points the core core points into a summary that could travel as this editorial baton so it isn't just the facts and there are several things that serve you and several things that don't serve you I like to work with a formula I talk about a lot from M1 fiction and that is place person pivot place where am I person who do I meet and pivot what is a moment of dynamic storytelling and that is valid for memoir and fiction more than anything else but when it comes to non-fiction the person reading your pitch or meeting you in a zoom meeting in a conference setting is really thinking why you why now so these are some quick shapes to your pitch and you want to think about shaping a pitch crafting a pitch honing a pitch because 25 words or so 15 minutes in a meeting or even three minutes in a speed date are all it takes to get you the yes and it's a thumbs up of yes thumbs up at landscaper yes thumbs up or thumbs down no so you're looking for a yes so you want to start thinking about every crafted line spoken or written is there to get you a yes nothing else so you can eliminate anything extraneous and zero in right on what is most important for the person who's listening or reading and they are always listening for different things other than what you might want to convey to them they don't have time yet for something like theme they it's often a mistake I think in pitch craft to begin with theme you want to hit markers you want to really think what are my linchpins what are my pegs what are the most unique and fresh aspects you can draw from many things the zeitgeist which is called the spirit of the times what are the theaters not that we have theaters what it's in the newspaper headlines what kind of statistics can I point to you want to think of these as highlighted bullet points because the writing you do about your writing is everybody's important as the writing or the speaking that you do about your writing and the people you are doing this to are dissension makers and they are thinking yes or no they're not at leisure to really absorb many subtleties and nuances so you want to think about several things you can do here are some very quicky exercises that i'll go into on all the seventh in much more detail but I happen to think it's incredibly useful to tear pages out of a magazine and put pictures up of your ideal readership what might be called in the industry your primary readership or your target audience you'll note maybe they're more female than male or maybe they're older rather than younger obviously you want people 18 to 80 but that's not quite how your pitch will speak you're looking for evidence of needs so to speak and this is as true for literary fiction as it is for prescriptive nonfiction so something like pay faces on the wall so that you actually make an audience when you pitch that audience you'll note it's already more dynamic already your different thought processes happen and you start to frame that pitch because you've only got that much space whether it's a cyber page in an email or a quicky face-to-face zoom meet you have that much to get a yes and you can do it you can absolutely do it I'm going to go into all kinds of strategies and techniques and tips but in general that's one thing I think that's very effective another thing I think is very effective is to actually get old-fashioned index cards or even pages and write one line per development and then walk of that as the old candy land if you know that game pathway because you want your pitch to have energy and dynamism and urgency people love to ask well what do people do wrong and I call that the series of mistakes that writers make when they set out to win in williterary agents I call that the queriel killers because there are some very predictable mistakes quote-unquote mistakes that I think that writers make and I've become somewhat evangelical on this subject because it is really what creates every possible opening door every possible yes it it does rely on the pitching and I know that writers um as a rule don't find right writing the pitch or the summary or synopsis all of which work together and I will be going into all of that but it's about creating the dynamism of what I like to say is a kind of gossip because if you think about the people you most like to gossip with your best friends or significant other there's a way that you tell the story of maybe having it you know bad day or having some amazing thing happen or even something like falling in love or when your child was born or you know when something terrible happened you're already practicing perfect pitchcraft because you're setting the scene the place you're getting the camera on the person that might be you or it might be somebody who takes part in the story and then the pivot something super dynamic and interesting not outside the story but inside the story and I call that the perch where you're putting your reader your viewer house so that they're perched and then I call another aspect of this the portal and the way that you actually bring them inside the story is very important in a pitch because if you can perhaps put a question in the reader's mind how do they get out of that situation or what was it like to be there that's already getting you very close to that yes so you get ready you get read you get readers and place person pivot is a great way to be thinking about pitching and I know I'm running out of the minutes of my introduction and we're moving into the Q&A part so fire away well thank you Catherine and I just have to tell our audience today that Catherine has an amazing ability to crystallize what you need to what you need to do in order to get your pitch ready she's already schooled me within the first five minutes of talking to her all right so we had a couple of questions that came to us via email so I'd like to I'd like to address those first let's see Linda has a question when an agent or publisher says she's only interested in non-fiction by authors with a large platform what specifically does that mean because she has a lot of work experience in the subject matter but she wants to know if that's enough or if she already needs to have some speaking engagements and published excerpts under her belt in order for that agent to think she's relevant well it's so interesting platform is such a misunderstood word and it just general definition before I answer your question it means two different things on the one hand it might mean celebrity or outreach or visibility what we call discoverability in print broadcast media something splashy like that but it doesn't only mean that it can also mean grassroots it can it speaks to how you can sustainably successfully publish a book it kind of means everything you think the publisher might do after your book is published that you're already doing in one way but it's it's all about showing how you can reach your readers and that does speak to why you why now so you already have a bigger platform than you might think you have because your platform is every way you can be in front of a reader so every organization you might be remotely connected to can you do as a piece for newsletter can you guest appear on someone's blog related to your subject it doesn't mean you know how many facebook followers or tweet hearts you have in your twitter account it can mean these things but that's not really what they mean platform is the foundation under the book that would allow you to reach readers effectively so all of the ways you're visible is one but all of the ways you're connected is another you know if you're the face of something or the voice of something and it doesn't mean necessarily mean you have lofty degrees or you've published previously you can for example be an Elvis fan and then your platform is built on all of the ways Elvis fans connect with each other it can be authority but it can also be experience you want to remember you know more very much you probably know more about your reader's need than an editor might so your platform is all of the ways anybody with an interest in the subject is already interacting in a community of like-minded people for example in nonfiction you know parents parents of children with special needs or gluten-free dietary requirements where are those blogs where are those websites where are those events then you look that into that as a primary audience followed by perhaps the answer audience that could be clergy education the medical world then all of those blogs all of those organizations you start to think where would I fit with my book not necessarily yet in book form but in the content the content that you offer so when you when you see that agents are looking for platform what they really mean is are you someone who can do this job because being an author is a job today how are you going to figure out how to reach your readers is what they mean based on what quote-unquote might be called proof so if you do some guest blog appearances you're building your platform that's a thorough answer um let's see it looks like there's perhaps you covered this a little bit adrian has a question about uh writing credits she has written nonfiction before but now she's pitching a novel um and she's wondering how much or how little she should talk about her past experience um when you know completely switching genres you know um I know writers often have a feeling about switching genres it's a case-by-case basis any kind of success or publication in any way in any form is of interest um you know if you are writing your first novel you're looking for ways to show maybe what's kind of insider experience your knowledge you have or maybe meticulous research you've done you know there are ways that your nonfiction life might serve your novel life novel writing life and vice versa um you know someone who is applying their novel aside to a nonfiction subject is also possibly going to bring that subject to life so i wouldn't borrow that trouble exactly i would look for ways to show how in some way your qualities that you've owned in one area is are directly applicable to the next area for me um someone's writing a nonfiction book that includes high quality professional photographs how do you recommend pitching something like that well it's always a good idea with visuals and i think this is true for children's books and you know possibly cookbooks you can simply attach them to your query or pitch and say you know this is either the con how my concept might ultimately look and or if you're already coming in equipped with your with photography that you have the rights to or a photographer you're connected to you know just show an example of that um from an agent point of view sometimes it's good to leave that a little open just in case the publisher says we love the writing but we don't feel this is the same vision for the book which later becomes a different kind of conversation but if you do have a professional and excellent photographer in tow that could make the deal look better to a publisher it does become about the rights in a more complex way but it's always a good idea to show everything in this business golden rule of pitching is always show don't tell um that's good advice uh shen shen woo has a question could you please repeat the part about perch versus portal ah perch is where and uh thanks for asking shen shen i guess it's just that in my class i'll be covering everything in today's really more about q and a but purchase where the reader um is perched you know if you think of a bird perched on a on a tree limb um when i read your query or an agent reads or or hears your pitch they have to be perked somewhere meaning that they understand the time and place um when a query killer comes up for example if i don't know it's 1969 or i don't know it's 1931 until the end of the pitch i'm already discombobulated because i haven't perched anywhere if you're putting me me the royal me meaning any agent in the position of understanding a novel for example or memoir um they need a perch they need to know exactly where they're coming into the story who they're seeing you know what kind of world is this it's not it's so that's the time period it's something of the culture you know in other words if you set something in washington dc or london um there are a million different worlds you could be in you must give the reader a place where they're perched to know where they are so that they can go into the portal and the portal think of you know it's it like um you know a stargate or or a doorway so that they're entering the story and it's key to understand that somebody must enter your story because they're not in your story at all you're transporting them into a time and place so um just so i'm clear on this and probably every belt has the same question um the pitch we're always told you know like 25 word pitch or whatever but there needs to be something when the agent says oh tell me more so is that where the perch comes in well perch um i mean they're all they all work together if i understand your question um and remember 25 words just means you get them that faster you don't get them um we're counting wait a minute did she come up with 33 words here it's not that it's that it has to hit you and by perch i mean what's sometimes called the grounded state editorially it means that i am perched or grounded i know what the story's about but queer killers are often all the ways you don't even know what the story is another concept i'll be talking about a lot on august 7th is the takeaway what's the takeaway takeaway is something you can take away meaning that tomorrow i can tell you what your story is if it's too amorphous or too complex or too observant of everything other than the actual story meaning there's no perch you know perch also means what um you know we're seeing we're behind these eyeballs of a of a lead character for the most part or or speaker or narrator and the perch means i'm as close to inside that character you know right up or right close up with that character as can be so perch means you've taken me the royal me and plopped me down somewhere so now i'm in position to understand what i'm going to experience that makes it a lot clearer um there's a lot of questions about um pitches and their length does it matter it what genre you're writing about your pitch should kind of be on the shorter side is there a difference if you're writing nonfiction or fiction or short collection of short stories um or a book about cats the pitch should kind of be short and sweet and hit all the major points is that correct well the thing about pitchcraft i know it's it confuses a lot of people is that there is a to back up to actually answer your question i would say you want to understand the person who's looking at it in an agency is looking for certain aspects and elements and ingredients they believe all of us believe we will see those in two or three paragraphs four at the most nobody turns the page to make a decision about whether they're going to keep reading an agent is constantly thinking should i keep reading do i want to keep reading or don't i so in terms of length it isn't that x number of words is the magic number and this is true for fonts and such um it just means that you've got to hit something on the head a hook or as i love to joke you have to be a happy hooker because we've got to get that hook it you know you've got a hook and sometimes i've heard it called a grabber which sounds a bit violent but i mean um it happens quickly if the elements are there and there's some display of writer lee chops voice something or an interesting story arc agents are trained to recognize that they don't think they need to keep on keep on keep on to understand they think in a few paragraphs they're going to get it so it's not so much the length it's the how it's you know it's what you got there you want to realize this is an audition you are auditioning for a job of book author when you send to an agency and when you send to an agency when when you query an agent or or an agency you are saying i'm ready to go you're not saying i'm ready to train i'm ready to get some feedback unless you're in a feedback program or at a conference where feedback is available to you you're saying i am ready to be a professional author and um you're then displaying why that's true and you're going to do that fast we believe rightly or wrongly if you got the stuff that you know that would be aspects elements why you why now you know something going on on those pay in those pages that readers are going to want i sometimes say it's as simple as asking yourself why would i buy this why would i buy my own book you know would i take it on vacation would i give this to my dad for father's day i mean that's how agents are thinking is there a reason that people would buy this and we're looking to understand those reasons so it's not a length thing but and sometimes people misinterpret short and they give you nothing you know they just they they say absolutely nothing it's not just short it's a very brief audition i sometimes say you know if you were casting Hamlet in your town you'd have all the Hamlets line up and they'd all do to be or not to be and you pick the ones you like the best call those back and keep winnowing that's how agents are thinking so it's not that you have to see the entire Hamlet production to choose your Hamlet to be or not to be as all you need to see the qualities that you think you would be offered from that Hamlet you know i'm going to put the link to your book in the chat space because a lot of the questions seem to be um at the you know on the basic level and so i think maybe a brief introduction to your your theories on pitching might be helpful and that will prepare them for the class that you're offering in august so i'm going to put the link to that in the chat space sure happy to see it let me quickly say i'm not exactly the author i like to say i'm the book's agent provocateur because i ran around provoking agents to get to share with me stories advice and examples mostly of first time authors you know what what worked why did you pay attention was my big yeah that's even better yeah definitely there's one story one question from monica and i really wanted to get to your feedback on this she's writing a book about an airplane crash where brother died and every time she gets ready to pitch she starts crying got any helpful advice for something like that oh yikes i'm sorry to hear of that um gee um i guess what i what i quickly come up with is that um you want to take a deep breath and a step back and think what is the what am i offering readers maybe you're offering solace and comfort to people who've also been through this and then you know or maybe you're offering um a healing journey closer to home and you want to be thinking about that because when you take it into this arena it it becomes the story that is is given to others i'll quickly share a friend of mine who i matched to another agent because i represented several of my friends and i ended up hating all of them is um selling them all but you know friends that are not necessarily the clients you want nor are you the best choice of agent um but my friend wrote a book called um the afterlife of billy fingers it's now in 20 more than 20 countries and it's a beautiful account of her grieving process for her brother um and what for her becomes a very spiritual journey so you want to be thinking perhaps that if this is a spiritual odyssey or a healing journey those are the things that you would be offering other people i'm not going to say you'll you'll stop crying but for annie this became something that that she felt so passionate and powerful about powerfully passionate about sharing if that's helpful at all robin has a great question about um does self-publishing influence agents opinions these days either better or for the worse well it's changed dramatically what i would have said even a few years ago is completely different from what i'll say today but i make a similar joke i find about self-publishing self-publishing to an agent is like meeting someone who's been married five times you spend the whole time thinking why have you been married five times like why did you self-publish instead of coming to an agency is how an agent thinks in a kind of pop-up thought way putting that aside what's different today is that if you have visibility awards attention sales big attention you know the numbers of sales and not just the numbers of books sold but the velocity uh you know how fast did they sell that is very interesting to agents in fact publishers are all over books that are self-published or hybrid published independently published books that can then reach a wider audience but there are some very predictable challenge questions if you sold x number of books does that mean there are more people to reach you know but there are some exceptions for example something like regional books a regional book might do very well regionally to the point where an agent or publisher would say you know there's even more there's a wider interest or tourism might affect this book sale something like that you know that might be true for true crime or a local hero you know something local that can you know go into a larger market um but the reason I started with the what I started with and this is also true to some extent just speaking quickly and generally about copyright because you think why did you copyright if I'm your agent and I bring you a book deal you can you would be getting a copyright and now you need another copyright because the book might change editorially so it's not even the same text so what I'm trying to say is it's a different world and a successfully self-published book is very interesting to agents and publishers but the darker news is the story we hear and say no to is often well I self-published and I couldn't believe how much work it was and I sold you know modest amount of copies and now you now I want to go do the traditional thing that's the story agents tend not to show up for but the opposite being true is very interesting to agents okay we're answering questions on the side here too sorry George has a question it it sounds like the days of hoping an agency will be interested in representing you based on your story and your writing alone are over and that the focus is more on your marketability and networking ability um his question is this can you pitch more than one agent at a time and if you do so you need to tell the agents that you're seeing several people oh well two directions for my answer let me take the first part first it's not that your writing doesn't matter and it's only about marketing and networking it isn't that it's what you want to take away from what I'm saying today is that you really want the job when you are addressing platform and ways you would promote your book you are saying I want the job of book author and writing an writer and author are two different things you might be a writer in an academic setting or a creativity you know context or writing for personal reasons or even your own family history but when you start going into this world of literary agents and editors you're saying I am I absolutely want the job of author and that is a job that requires that you have a very active role in moving those books into the hands of readers this part's too so now to your question um which was what go to think of it it just what would that that um that you might be dating other agents date date date yes just like dating you know if there's no ring on the finger you are a free agent if you have not said to someone I'm not dating other people you're dating other people that it gets a little complicated um with the agent thing but you want to presume that they presume that you're multiply submitting to many agents you should never be so courteous to an agent that you're sitting there for six months because today as you may know agents often don't respond and that's their response so um you can say it's a multiple submission or not and frankly if I were on the side of the writer I wouldn't say it if an agent has real interest in me they're going to contact me they're going to write to me or you rather in this case they're going to write to you or call you they know there are other agents out there at that time you then have perhaps a conversation or perhaps there's a request for information and then agents do get half of your angry now there's something called an exclusive if you have not granted the exclusive is what I mean is if you've never said to an agent you have this work on exclusive you can run around if an agent says I would like to read your manuscript exclusively yes you can grant that but it's within your power to grant it and you can say something like can we set a time period what is your formal response date maybe they want four weeks maybe they want eight weeks but um they should have some means of telling you what their parameters might be and then if it isn't exclusive you would grant it but that's something like early decision at a college you're saying you want me I want you it's not legally binding but you can't really say you've read my 400 pages let me go see about the agency across the street it doesn't tend to you know endear you to the agent so you can refuse them exclusively you can say you know I'm a new writer I can't believe so many agents are interested in me please allow me to send you 50 pages and if you're really interested maybe we can narrow this I'd narrow my field a little bit more um you can work it that way um you know you can but I think you always want to lean on the side of not letting an agent direct how you submit to other agents because you have no obligation on either side there is no obligation on either side and there's no reason to keep yourself in that position unless there is a reason meaning the agent is very very interested in you it reminds me of the conference when we have a speed dating people go into it saying please take my book please in effect it's an interview you're interviewing the agents to see where that it is it's a process it is and you know frankly somebody could love your early pages and then not be as excited as they keep going um that can happen too somebody has a question about they've arranged for pre-sales for their book is that something she should disclose um if I understand the question anything with the word sales in it is interesting to everybody you'll come in contact with by disclose one of the best ways to use that if I understand what this might mean for you is called the buyback commitment because if someone comes in if a doctor comes in and says I go to these three conferences and the conference directors all want to use my book as a corporate gift or you know something for early sign-ups that means it's called a commitment and sometimes contracts do detail that and sometimes they don't but that's exciting for everybody so I wouldn't say it's something to hide it's something to shout from the roof stop Catherine we've had this question a couple of times since we've all been sheltering in place but um Emily asks that she's heard that that agents right now are inundated with queries because people have time to work on their work on their books do you think it's better to wait until things shake out a little bit or is if you're ready should you go for it you know and there are often questions about timing things I think you're ready when you're ready we're always inundated I mean I wouldn't say we're more inundated now than usually I mean there's yes a lot of people are home and and are pursuing writing interests which is great but um there isn't going to be a good time when your query has more of a shot because there are less queries I've heard summer I've heard Christmas I've sold books at all times of the year I don't think timing matters that much in terms of scheduling I think what it really speaks to is when your work is ready to acquire an agent I have a question about she's having trouble finding a comp for her book and maybe more than that is um what are you looking for when you say this book is similar to mine what exactly are you trying to convey when you have that comp book well I've got a very long way to dance you want to realize like a few different terms in publishing it's not what you think it means at all it's not comp title like you might say in a writing class you're taking an mfa in writing and maybe you'd say my my ambition is to you know be comparable to this one comp title grew out of marketing inside a publishing house mostly to do with spec fiction so that if you were writing the vampire love story who else's vampire love stories were your comps it tended to be that specific it's now morphed quite a lot and it's trickled down from editorial from marketing to editorial to agents to authors authors and now ask their comp titles I hate this practice hate it hated it I think it's terrible for a lot of reasons it's always the reason not to do a book often well often the reason but that doesn't help you what you want to understand is everything that you say in your pitch especially comp titles is designed to showcase you so the comp title may not be well I wrote a vampire love story here are three other vampire love stories which is where this process this practice comes from what you want to really say is you know for anyone who loves Hamilton my story of an underdog from another place who comes and you know takes his shot is it's not that it's a comp title exactly but you're utilizing anything to to show why people would be interested in you if you've written a civil war story Ken Burns documentary is a comp because you're showcasing readers viewers for your work in fiction for example if you were to say I have a very twisty psychological thriller that showcases a woman you know during the breakdown of her marriage yes Girl on a Train is an automatic comp in nonfiction if you're writing about answering pregnancy questions what to expect when you're expecting is an automatic comp but in both cases you want to immediately showcase why readers would choose you kind of the for the same reasons those were chosen except you're offering something fresh and unique on top of that comps tend to go very wrong when people think well I have a fish tank so it's a comp to moby dick you know or I have a serial killer so here are some comps what you're really looking to showcase is where you fit in to the shelf what people reading your pitch are thinking you know they're all thinking if this is published what is it next to on that shelf which is why they're asking you for comp title and why is this leaving the shelf and that isn't or what's sometimes called a complimentary title because comp means comparable and complimentary but it also means competitive so it has a kind of you know three tiered three pronged meaning so you're looking for the way that you show up on your shelf when you talk about a comp title but what you're underlining is all the ways you're going to appeal because if they love Girl on a Train they're going to love your heroine because she may also be an alcoholic who's trying to remember if she you know to solve a murder but there's a you know there's some other aspects to your work and it's very hard to find comp titles as titles you can look for aspects is what I'm trying to say if you're doing a political backstabby Washington based thriller you can say for anyone who's loving house you know who binge watched House of Cards my story dot dot dot dot dot and that's still a comp title while Melissa says this is very revealing and very helpful oh good thank you Melissa stunned all of us with that definition of comp titles I hate them because they're you know the whole point of of being a writer slash an agent for writers is the unique and fresh and you know newness so to run around saying oh well here's some other books don't even bother to read this one it just is a stupid practice and it it's basically for lazy lazy publishing marketing departments because it can work I mean where it works is is sort of the way um you know you might see a definition of an announcement of book that and it might say pitched as sex in the city meets dot dot dot that can work if it serves you if it works it works I sold a book as sex in the city meets the witches of Eastwick because it was a very modern urban young tale of what happens when you know Biazabab meets the love of his life in New York City so the two work together and that's another way to approach comp title but it's you have to hit it you know and if you say if you're too general and you say well I think I'm you know my comp titles are so bellow you know you know and it just it doesn't speak a comp title also kind of means recent book five seven years ish recent but it's always about you know it isn't I'm writing an epic fantasy so Tolkien's my comp title no he isn't but you look for maybe any aspect showcasing interest you know viewership readership that points to why your book because it always gets back to why your book not these other titles they're there to make you look good if that makes sense when pitching an agent I can't find an exact question but someone asked would you like to see a proposal from the character in the book and if you wouldn't if that's a mistake what other major mistakes have you seen in your career oh my goodness I could keep you busy for a very long time with that one mistakes but um you know mostly you'll hear agents say don't write as your character or you know mostly not sometimes though when I'm pitching I might do some poll quotes or paragraph just to show the flavor because remember the pitch is there to get somebody to pay attention it's not instead of anything else it's just the place where they decide to keep going with you it's very rarely a good thing I think to be the character because they're also not trying to understand the character at that moment they're trying to understand the shape of it it's not the beginning of your book I like to say this is the beginning of your career as an author so as the author you want to make an appearance introducing your work more than you want to make sure that we understand your character has a certain quality um here's a here's a here's a personal question Carol is wondering do agents take into consideration how old an author is is there I'm sure subconsciously there's ageism with agents but how old is too young or too old to pitch a book I ran around with a 13 year old and sold her book a few years later you know um and you do hear you know sometimes it's interesting when somebody always older I mean that can be interesting too you know if somebody but you're always looking also for the way it speaks to readership I mean if if a woman is writing about a memoir about her life and she is of advanced years we need those advanced years to get that memoir you know to cover what she's covering and then that would be marketed perhaps in a certain way that's probably not going to be marketed to millennial guys that's going to be marketed possibly to an older female readership so I don't think we're ready to count you out exactly um there's because of an age number it's much more of a how does the marketing work thinking than not but I mean if somebody's 106 I might think you know I don't know will they live long enough to to to be published but um there are also many kinds of presses and a huge you know aging population so I wouldn't say it's the way the decision-making turns at all it's never too late that's uh helpful as long as you're up to for the rigors of the publishing and marketing and after the books written process right that would be a consideration absolutely um but sometimes you know it's it's interesting when somebody's writing at that advanced age that's also of note so it's not necessarily some sort of you know lock box I don't think so let's see Ella has a question about how sci-fi and fantasy novels often have specific settings how much time and space does one allocate to setting the scene in a pitch oh that's good as a quest that's an interesting question um well remember the pitch can only come out it can only hit you with some pegs some elements some aspects it doesn't have time but you can identify something that would be what I like to say grounding to create that perch and create that portal meaning that if I'm on the planet mango and this is a post-apocalyptic world you know of a kind of military totalitarian world um I need that piece only I'm not necessarily ready for the very complex history and how the elders work or how the senate works or you know what the secret powers might be you just need to get us some place that we can perch one thing the major query killer in fantasy and epic you know fantasy is that people either say it's like Tolkien or Game of Thrones and then you're like which are not comp titles you know you could say from viewers riveted Game of Thrones my story dot dot dot but you want to go straight to your story so if you've got a world that is it's something not something else it might be an interdimensional world it might be another planetary world you know you you just want to give us enough of an exciting flavor for that world because if you look at something like The Hobbit or even Harry Potter the charms are there on page one they really are they just really are so we just have to have enough to work work with you can't neglect it is what I'm trying to say you don't want to say you know it's like this or like that or you want to just sort of quickly zero in on ways this world is going to be entertaining is probably the quickest answer all right and this also touches on something that galley hagel asked that her her question is should a pitch always be chronological telling the story but it sounds as if maybe it doesn't need to be you don't need to tell the whole story in the pitch you're just touching on markers or the major points right well by major points I mean high points you don't have to tell the whole story I mean for example in another genre if it's a murder mystery you don't have to say and the butler did it the end but you can say all the secrets are revealed and the surprising twisty you know path has led to so that because you're you're creating excitement in this movie trailer essentially jacket copy movie trailer kind of of writing so you don't tell the whole story and as for chronological we don't know the story so we don't know it's chronological you want to zero in on what's important you know what's at the heart of it if it's somebody's journey if it's a love story if it's you know something you know in which there are stakes that's a key word to be thinking about what are the stakes a reader can immediately understand somebody's dream or their need or their fear of something they can't understand all the ways they don't get that ingredient say so you don't have to think about the chronology because nobody has anything to compare it to you just want to hit some elements that make us want to read it I'm thinking about my elements Alan how excited do you get when an author comes to you and says oh this isn't the only book I have I have other books I've written oh no you you are so much more interesting with one character one premise than you are with a million and one because that's also somewhat I'll use the word amateurish although it's not a word I like to use in front of writers your love of writing is not why you're going to succeed in the business of writing you're going to succeed in the business of writing because you're ready to offer a very specific essentially a product a project up that can travel on through all the different departments that have to give you a yes like what I said earlier about it being an editorial baton so if you can talk to the dead and tell me that dinner thighs and you know make Italian cookies in nonfiction you are less interesting than if you can tell me something that's going to improve and benefit my life right now it's the one not the most in fiction if you can write poetry and children's books and movie scripts you are less interesting than if you say what if we put a Sherlock Holmesian doctor in a modern day medical context and he will diagnostically solve you know impossible to seemingly impossible to solve cases which brings us to Dr. House as a character one premise one character because the first thing an agent's going to be interested in if you're winning enough to sell one book is well can we get a series out of this would there be a sequel to this but before that it's not yet interesting I often wince when I'm sitting on a panel with agents who say what I first look at is the word count and whether there's a sequel and I think no that's what you think you look at what you really look at is the if that comes before that which is if I'm interested in becoming your agent I would want to know these things at the present time I have no idea if I want to be your agent so you really do yourself a disservice because if you pitch too many things pitch one at a time well that's the most surprising thing you've said all day to me there's a presumption if you have one book in you you've got more in you I know that I don't need you to show me that you're serious about writing and that's why you have 12 books I need someone who's got something so interesting that I know who to call and say you know I want you to read this this is special this is interesting I couldn't put it down I loved this part and that part you know it was funny or it was so beautifully crafted something I'm not looking to say oh and she's also done this and that and the other you know it's the same thing as we're all binging away at Netflix you want to think of that that's how agents are thinking if you're surfing thinking am I in the mood for world war two am I in the mood for young coming of age like you you you're quickly deciding what you're going to choose and that's how an agent is thinking when they're going through these so you're not showing more commitment or talent by having a whole lot of possibility if you've got anything you've got more is how most agents will think but I have heard agents say otherwise let's take one more question because we're bumping up at the end of the hour Melissa has a question about if if you have any suggestions for perching a pitch in nonfiction her she specifically wondered if it's relevant or good to put current headline clippings in one's communications in order to help establish your nonfiction books relevance oh absolutely but I would do it differently and let me just quickly say perching a pitch is not how I think of it perch is the person who's reading it they're perched if they're sitting on a chair with a cup of tea in one's hand they are in a physical perch now their imagination must go to your story of its fiction or they must get their head into the space of the topic of its nonfiction so you're giving them a perch to go into this material and you're setting them up so that they're grounded so that they are they have a foundation under them to understand what they're seeing that's what I mean by perch but yes that speaks to platform to some extent because you can say you know I'm a member of these three organizations because this is a larger life challenge or problem than people realize that's one way you use that as for headlines those are excellent but you always want to be specific not general so if you're saying something like for example I'm working on a project on collaborative divorce divorce apparently Google reports a hundred that more than a hundred thousand monthly word searches that's immediately interesting establishing the vastness of interest in the subject headlines do the same thing if we're reading about climate change you know or any number of things that you can point to immediately in headlines yes that's absolutely relevant you don't necessarily need the clips you need to establish how many people are responding to this if you can you know what tends not to work is baby boomers are interested in retirement well yes but you want to immediately think of what am I telling the reader that they don't know without me so it might mean you know a statistic possibly but headlines are all you know if you were to say and I occasionally use this you know recent cover stories on xxx clearly show reader interest in this subject and you can include a link to the to the actual article as a footnote rather than you know cutting and pasting the whole article into the into the document oh but you don't you wouldn't necessarily steer them to the article because you don't want them thinking well this could be another good article why should there be a book because there's always that challenge why should it be a book what you can do you can take a pull quote you can say a recent article said xxxxx you know and in italics you can put three sentences that's actually I think more effective because the article is in a way distracting but something as simple as saying there have been multiple articles on this or that because there's so much interest in this subject and that's why my book because you always want to bring everything whether it's a comp title or a headline or statistic it is immediately married to your book because the why you right now is the most important part of what you want to be presenting in that query well that's a great thing to end on I think why you why now in a good way why you right now why this book this is a hamster wheel in all of our heads but come to me what is it August seems like April I've been locked up and and there'll be much more thank you for coming today yes thank you everyone thank you Catherine for coming I think you have made all of our little hamster wheels turn in our heads we're going to need some time to digest this uh so you have till August 7th um so the recording for this video I plan to get it up by Monday it'll be available via the Mechanics Institute's YouTube channel it'll be linked uh via Facebook via Mechanics Institute and also the San Francisco Writers Conference and I hope by Monday also to have the information on Catherine's class that we are offering on August 7th up then too I'm going to put that in the chat space where the the URL for where it will be it's mi library.org slash events and we're working out the details as soon as we're done with this webinar anyway thank you so much Catherine thank you Barbara as always for your help with this and thanks to everyone attending we'll be in touch wonderful thank you ladies great to see you Catherine you far so good to see you and and I hope to well if not exactly see um participate or rather be involved with uh with the screw we'll keep in touch we'll keep in touch all right thanks everyone bye-bye