Pitch your Novel
How to Pitch your Novel to Agents and Publishers
The First Pitch
Pitching your first novel stirs up mixed feelings amongst authors. You may love the experience of showing off the results of months, or even years, of hard work. You might be an introvert writer who just wants to get on with the fun of writing and leave all the ‘business stuff’ to someone else. Either way preparing your pitch is an essential part of the journey. If you get it right you could land yourself an agent and ultimately a lucrative publishing deal. So how do you give yourself the best chance of success? Let us look at the different aspects of pitching your novel and how best to prepare them.
Query Letters
Your query letter is the first thing in your pitch that your prospective agent or publisher will see so it is essential that you get it right. This begins by presenting it in a professional way and keeping it brief – ideally on one page. Your query letter should be typed using a professional looking font and a reasonable size such as Times New Roman in size 12. Take the time to research the best person to send your novel pitch to and address the query letter to them. Avoid ‘Dear Sir or Madam’ because psychologically this is less personal and does not convey a professional attitude.
The purpose of your query letter is to present yourself and your book in an appealing way to the agent or publisher. If you do include a brief personal description only include factual and relevant information. Generally speaking it is best not to compare yourself to a famous author. If you prefix it with ‘in the style of’ or ‘with the same target audience as’ as opposed to ‘I am the next..’. Give some consideration to who your target audience is and the genre of your novel. If your novel is in a popular genre then try to highlight what makes your novel stand out from the others.
One of the most important aspects of your query letter is to ensure that you do not send out a template style letter. Each query letter should be tailored to the specific agent or publisher you are writing to for the best results. If you are drawn to a particular agent or publisher then it might be appropriate to mention the reasons why in your query letter. Always submit your novel to the most appropriate place rather than the most prestigious one. It is acceptable to send your pitch to multiple agents or publishers at the same time.
The Synopsis
Your synopsis is, most likely, the next part of your pitch to be seen by a potential agent or publisher. Some first time novelists make the mistake of thinking that the synopsis and book blurb are the same thing. They are, in fact, very different! The book blurb you read on the back cover of a novel is designed to encourage your potential reader to want to read your book. The synopsis is essentially your plot summary and its purpose is to demonstrate to the agent/publisher that your novel has a solid, sustainable and well-formed plot structure. It should ideally be no longer than one page of typed text.
When creating your synopsis it is important that you leave nothing out. Your plot structure should, of course, detail the beginning, middle and end of your novel and include all plot twists. Remember your plot should indicate causality throughout. In other words, you should include not just what happens by why it happens too. When your potential agent or publisher finishes reading your synopsis they should have a clear idea of whether your novel is likely to work (at least) from a structural point of view. Ensure that you take equal care of all stages of your plot just as you do when you are writing the novel itself. Don’t just focus on a strong opening to your novel. Make sure it gains even more momentum as it progresses towards its climax.
The combination of your query letter and synopsis should enable the agent or publisher reading it to make a number of decisions. They should have a clear understanding of the storyline and structure of your novel. They will be forming an opinion as to whether there is a market for your novel and looking for any marketing angles that might help to sell it. Finally, the synopsis will help them to decide whether your novel has a strong structure.
Finally, you include the first three chapters of your novel in the pitch to demonstrate your writing style and ability. You should never send out your novel pitch unless you have finished writing your novel.
Literary Agents
A literary agent is usually who you will be sending your novel pitch to these days. Increasingly, mainstream publishers will only accept admissions made to them via literary agents. Of course, the agent is only likely to present manuscripts to a publisher they feel have sufficient merit. By sufficient merit, I mean a manuscript that will make the agent, and therefore the publisher, money.
Technically speaking you do not need an agent and there are still some publishers that will take on unrepresented authors. However, having an agent has a number of advantages for you as the author and so it is definitely worth consideration in all circumstances. First of all, since literary agents work on commission, if you are lucky enough to secure one you can guarantee they believe your novel will sell. Literary agents are a great support to all authors, especially first-time novelists, because of their contacts. You may send your novel pitch to a number of publishers and have little or no success. Your literary agent is likely to know what specific publishers are looking out for and where to target your novel for the greatest chance of success.
The biggest benefit of having a literary agent is their experience in negotiating the best deals for you with publishers. Whether you are self-publishing or looking to get published there are sources of advice on authors terms and contracts. For example, the Society of Authors offers support in this area. However, with a literary agent at your side this is all taken care of for you and this is something that is very appealing to many authors. These negotiations don’t just include the rights for publishing your book. Literary agents can often negotiate, or have contacts who can negotiate, a whole array of rights from translations and international publication to film, serialisation and merchandise rights.
Traditional Publishers
A publisher giving you a contract is, of course, the ultimate goal for your novel pitch. In fact, whether you are pitching to a literary agent or directly to a publisher much of the advice is the same. For example, make sure that you tailor your pitch to the specific publisher you are targeting and be professional but friendly in all your communications. However, the purpose of the pitch does change slightly when sending it directly to a publisher because their role in the publication process is obviously different. This needs to be reflected in the query letter that you send out. In order to understand this fully let’s look at the role of the publisher in a little more detail.
The role of the publisher is probably more wide reaching than you realise. Your publisher will take your manuscript and a whole team of their people will be responsible for turning it into a lovely, shiny paperback, hardback and/or eBook. You will work extensively with an editor (or editors) to ensure that your novel is a high quality, market ready product. Your book cover will be designed by a team of professional designers and the interior typeset. Typically, a marketing campaign will be formulated to co-ordinate the launch of your novel with some pretty impressive sums of money risked in some cases. Once your novel is ready to launch the publisher will take care of sales and distribution and ensure that your book is high visible and readily available to anyone who wishes to purchase a copy (usually) pretty much anywhere in the world.
So how might this affect your query letter? Well in some cases it might not make any difference at all but it is worth considering the differences between the roles of literary agents and publishers. A literary agent is more focused on the value of your novel. Therefore, the focus of your novel pitch is to show that your work is appealing to the current publishing market and that there is scope for negotiating a number of rights on your behalf. A publisher will be more concerned about the sales and marketing aspect of your pitch. Is your novel likely to have mass appeal? Does your novel have an easily identifiable reader demographic? Will you be able to write more novels to satisfy future demand?
Promotion
Marketing yourself is something that many authors struggle with but it is an increasingly important skill for you to learn. Whether you are looking to secure an agent, a publisher or self-publish you will need to be aware of the benefits of marketing. Many authors believe that if you are published then the publisher will do everything for you including all your marketing. There is an element of truth to this in terms of investing time, money and expertise into creating and executing a marketing campaign. However, this does not let you off the hook completely! Whether you are published or self-published, marketing is ultimately your responsibility.
One piece of advice that many first time authors find helpful is to think of marketing as relationship building. Marketing yourself is much easier when you think of yourself as providing enjoyment or entertainment to your readers. It takes the focus, and therefore the pressure, off of you. It also makes it much simpler to write your query letter when you are thinking about what the literary agent or publisher is looking for and making yourself appealing to them. Remember also that a non-fiction book generally makes your reader think and a fiction book such as a novel makes your reader feel.
Your pitch is your marketing calling card to get your novel noticed and encourage further dialogue. The professionals you will send your pitch to are very busy people and receive a lot of submissions. Therefore, keeping your pitch brief is essential to success. Quality over quantity is definitely the way forward. If you have ideas for thirty further novels or turning your novel into a Hollywood movie your pitch is not the place to mention it.
Rejection Letters
Dealing with rejection is another issue that you might find difficult. This is totally understandable when creating your latest novel has been a part of your daily life for months or possibly even years. Therefore, it is important to understand that a rejection from a literary agent or publisher is not necessarily a reflection upon your writing or your pitch. The frustrating thing about this is you may never know the reasons why your pitch was unsuccessful. A literary agent may not feel your work fits into their current portfolio, may not have space to take on another author or possibly feel they do not have the expertise in your specific genre. A publisher may have a very similar novelist signed up and not wish to create a conflict of interests or feel that your novel does not have the mass appeal to generate sufficient sales.
Some aspects of this can be avoided by following the advice in this article. In other words, by researching who you are sending your pitch to and adapting your submission accordingly. If you are lucky then you might receive feedback from the literary agent or publisher you sent your pitch to but don’t be surprised if you don’t. If you do, then try to listen the advice that you are given but don’t take it to heart.
One very difficult aspect of pitching your novel is that the process is very subjective. It is only ever the opinion of the agent or publisher that makes the decision. Of course, their expertise and knowledge should not be ignored, and their opinions matter, but many successful authors have encountered multiple rejections and seen ultimate success later on. A willingness to learn, take on board constructive criticism and being resilient is the key to success.
Pitching your novel is an important skill to develop if you want to secure a literary agent or publishing contract. In fact, even if you are self-publishing your novel there are benefits to writing a novel pitch. It encourages you to consider so many factors that are essential to the success of your novel. If you give your novel pitch as much care and consideration as the novel itself you greatly increase your chances of acceptance. Enjoy the journey!