Elevator pitch!
Dec. 21st, 2011 04:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
la_belle_laideMy "elevator pitch" got a good review from queryquagmire!
Who is "Queryquagmire", you ask? And I quote: Please don’t ask me who I am or what publishing house I work for. And if you know me, please try not to use my name on the blog. It’s not that I’m some super villain with a secret identity… actually, yeah. I am a super villain with a secret identity to protect, thank you very much.
If you’re an author or aspiring author visiting Query Quagmire, welcome! I hope you learn a little something from my slush pile tales and walk away unscathed. There’s no need to be offended when I poke fun at a query, and there’s certainly no reason to inform me I’m a heartless bitch. Trust me: I already know.
*Edit: No seriously, don’t ask me who I am. This includes questions about where I got my degrees, where I’ve interned, where I’ve worked, and where I currently work.
What's an "elevator pitch? An elevator pitch is what you say when you meet an agent/editor/publisher etc. in an elevator during a conference and you want to pitch your novel. Basically, it's supposed to be a brief, juicy summing up of your entire body of work, in one or two lines. Like a micro-mini-query.
My "elevator pitch" went like this:
A brain damaged, turn-of-the-century physics teacher travels back in time to prevent a despotic usurper from becoming a technological God in the future.
Queryquagmire said:
This is a great pitch. I would certainly ask for more. You can improve it by noting the market and/or genre. It’s steampunk, is it not?
This pitch works so well because it tells us everything briefly, specifically, and clearly. In other words, it tells me what I absolutely need to know about the book quickly and in a way that’s easy to understand. It would work just as well verbally as it would in writing. It is also lacking in query letter cliches, which is hard to do in such a short pitch.
“Despotic usurper” is a little redundant. But the good news is, you can change this to something that will give us even more juicy information.
~QQ
A;LDFGJHA;OFIGYAOD;IFGHAS!!
Parts of that are actually the first line of my actualfax query letter, then I just took another word or two from the query to put into the pitch. So "despotic usurper" doesn't work – maybe I can leave it as "despot" or something.
ANYway. I am so happy! Because if that pitch works, then surely some agent is eventually going to really like that hook and ask for more. That did happen once, remember, and I got a request for a full. The full got a really nice, "helpful" rejection (which I will never forget: "You're a wonderful writer but this just wasn't for me...")
Dude, every day I'm closer. Every query sent out is another link in the chain. I am so excited!
Who is "Queryquagmire", you ask? And I quote: Please don’t ask me who I am or what publishing house I work for. And if you know me, please try not to use my name on the blog. It’s not that I’m some super villain with a secret identity… actually, yeah. I am a super villain with a secret identity to protect, thank you very much.
If you’re an author or aspiring author visiting Query Quagmire, welcome! I hope you learn a little something from my slush pile tales and walk away unscathed. There’s no need to be offended when I poke fun at a query, and there’s certainly no reason to inform me I’m a heartless bitch. Trust me: I already know.
*Edit: No seriously, don’t ask me who I am. This includes questions about where I got my degrees, where I’ve interned, where I’ve worked, and where I currently work.
What's an "elevator pitch? An elevator pitch is what you say when you meet an agent/editor/publisher etc. in an elevator during a conference and you want to pitch your novel. Basically, it's supposed to be a brief, juicy summing up of your entire body of work, in one or two lines. Like a micro-mini-query.
My "elevator pitch" went like this:
A brain damaged, turn-of-the-century physics teacher travels back in time to prevent a despotic usurper from becoming a technological God in the future.
Queryquagmire said:
This is a great pitch. I would certainly ask for more. You can improve it by noting the market and/or genre. It’s steampunk, is it not?
This pitch works so well because it tells us everything briefly, specifically, and clearly. In other words, it tells me what I absolutely need to know about the book quickly and in a way that’s easy to understand. It would work just as well verbally as it would in writing. It is also lacking in query letter cliches, which is hard to do in such a short pitch.
“Despotic usurper” is a little redundant. But the good news is, you can change this to something that will give us even more juicy information.
A;LDFGJHA;OFIGYAOD;IFGHAS!!
Parts of that are actually the first line of my actualfax query letter, then I just took another word or two from the query to put into the pitch. So "despotic usurper" doesn't work – maybe I can leave it as "despot" or something.
ANYway. I am so happy! Because if that pitch works, then surely some agent is eventually going to really like that hook and ask for more. That did happen once, remember, and I got a request for a full. The full got a really nice, "helpful" rejection (which I will never forget: "You're a wonderful writer but this just wasn't for me...")
Dude, every day I'm closer. Every query sent out is another link in the chain. I am so excited!
