Listening to this:

and the other 4 of them. Then I’m working with the Snowflake Method too.  Camp Nano is in a week and I’m trying to lay the groundwork.

I did okay last time. I wrote like 49.96k words out of my 50k, but I did it in a week because I had a violin recital that month as well and was manic about practicing. I’d like to actually do CampNano right this time. I have a tee shirt and everything.

The other cool thing I’m doing is that I’m paying a bit more attention to Twitter. Last week they did these pitches to agents.  I’m not ready for anything like that but I truly enjoyed watching them on the hashtag #SFFPit. You could write a tweet pitch to agents for fantasy and scifi and if they liked it, you were invited to email them chapters of your story along with a query letter.

What was interesting there was the different techniques that people used.  I’m sort of looking at it to see who was successful and why. Quite a few people used comparisons to existing books and films.

Honestly, it seemed as if those that did such comparisons weren’t getting any love from agents. But that might be because their mashups just weren’t good. Do we really need Fast and Furious to meet Lord of the Rings? I don’t think so.

My own personal favorite pitches:

(all these were successful)

In 1954 the town of Mount Pleasant disappeared. 65 yrs pass before the town returns-but for the ppl of the town its only been a week #SFFpit

— Magdalena Barys (@MagdalenaBarys) June 23, 2017

Brassy Dwarves use steam and chemistry vs magic-dependent Elves. Spies, airships, and acrophobic aeronauts abound. #SFFpit #FA #SP

— C.J. Casey (@bovisrex) June 22, 2017

https://twitter.com/laresmar/status/878042782060781569

So the cool things about watching the pitch, even though I can’t participate are:

• I’m learning to craft Twitter pitches
• The agents all put their hands up for Fantasy on this and basically said “Query us!”
• I can see what specific agencies liked and decide if we’re a fit
• I can follow the agencies I like
• I think I can also apply some of this to the query

Not a bad set of results for a tweet fest bystander.

Here’s more useful data, as well as a list of the agencies that participated. This list isn’t comprehensive because I saw quite a few tweeting the next day about being late but willing to be pitched to.

#SFFpit June 2017 – The Aftermath

I’m thinking that this sort of information will be useful for some of my buddies. (Yes I’m looking at you, Elizabeth! Maya! Sawdays!) I also think that if you can’t get to the point, distilling your story to one sentence, then you’re not ready to pitch to anyone.

Okay guys, if you have a Twitter pitch for your book (let’s practice!) then post it below in the comments. I’d love to see it and I think the exercise is valuable.

Here’s mine so far:
Trystan risks searching for illegal lute through a shadow network. Dane, wizard-luthier, escapes Conclave capture . Fates collide when both meet Sara, an artist who visits their world in her dreams. #

What do you think of it? It will probably change. But one of these days, I’ll be ready.