Here's a peek into one of my novels!
In a previous post on pitches, I explained the use and my process for writing pitches. I promised that once my books were safely out and protected under copyright, I'd share my path to getting them snagged by a publisher. As I've discussed before, I'm a fan of Twitter pitch parties and found success in the two I've entered: #pit2pub and #pitmad. Here is one of my pitches that successfully attracted the attention of a publisher, whom I queried, and they picked up the book:
The Selection meets Poison Study. Toury arrives in Fyr where magic is power, a prince’s love is deadly, and female autonomy is a dream. Prince Alex realizes Toury can break his curse and save his people, but Earth girls aren’t so easy.
This one was a struggle. It is a way more complex book than my first one, meaning the two characters have separate conflicts that come together and they are numerous. I still feel this could've been stronger but it got the job done. I started with a comparison to other novels. This gives the reader a taste of what to expect and shows you're well read in your genre. I introduce the female protagonist and her complications while also painting a picture of the world. I also insinuated my genres too, through particular word choices: a romance "love" and the fantasy genre "magic." The second sentence shows he is another protagonist, a dual POV novel, with his own problems. My pitch focuses equally on plot and romance because this is a romance driven novel. I never state "teen" or "YA" because in pitch days posts, you must label your category and genre with hashtag abbreviations; this novel had a #YA #F #R tagged onto it. Plus the comparisons should be of your category/genre and both are edgy romance novels with similar themes to my own.
Overall, I'm seeing a content pattern in my pitches which might be the recipe for success: genre, protagonist, complications, hook. These are essential to get in, but most importantly, it has to sound good. The best advice I have is to fully participate in these pitch parties, even if you're not pitching. Retweet authors' pitches you think are well written (do not like them--that is for the agents and publishers to mark their interest). This helps them and it'll go on your page where you can view them later and make a study of them. The only way I learned how to pitch was reading other authors. The same goes for queries, which I will post in a couple soon for you.
Check out FYR.
Overall, I'm seeing a content pattern in my pitches which might be the recipe for success: genre, protagonist, complications, hook. These are essential to get in, but most importantly, it has to sound good. The best advice I have is to fully participate in these pitch parties, even if you're not pitching. Retweet authors' pitches you think are well written (do not like them--that is for the agents and publishers to mark their interest). This helps them and it'll go on your page where you can view them later and make a study of them. The only way I learned how to pitch was reading other authors. The same goes for queries, which I will post in a couple soon for you.
Check out FYR.