For those of you who don’t know, a Twitter Pitch Party is a specific day for a virtual meeting place where authors can tweet about their books and potential agents will be monitoring to see if a tweet excites them to the point of asking for more information about the book. On the day of a Twitter Pitch Party, agents will be looking for tweets with certain hash tags that denote a pitch for a book of a desired genre.
I’m going to participate in the #PitMad Twitter Pitch Party scheduled for March 11–from 8AM to 8PM EST. Today’s method for sending out query letters is a pain in the ass for me and the agent. I send out hundreds of queries and the agents sift though thousands more at a rate and timeliness approaching the speed of light in mud on a cold day in January. It’s a game of large numbers and luck–like sending out resumes for a job interview where it is sometimes better to be lucky than just good.
But a Twitter Pitch party is an exciting alternative to the query grind. There are a growing number of agents willing to try this new approach to discover unpublished talent in a way that fits into their fast pace day and time constraints. But, there’s a catch.
The challenge now is to attract an agent with just 140 characters (spaces included). And you have to send out different versions of your query tweets throughout the day. And you can’t send out the same boring tweet all day long. It has to be different, catchy, punchy and most of all has a big sharp hook to reel in that finicky agent. Once interested, an agent will “favorite” my query tweet. That tells me they are hooked and want me to send them more information about Heaven’s Ant Farm.
Remember you only have 140 characters (including blanks) to tweet your pitch. Check out the rules here: http://www.brenda-drake.com/pitmad/ and see Literary Agent Carly Watters’ blog (http://writersinthestormblog.com/2014/09/the-ultimate-writers-guide-to-twitter-pitch-contests/ ) for some helpful hints to create your perfect pitch tweet. Also, check out the comments section of this blog for any suggestions posted by other visitors.
So, I created a bunch of query tweets to send out at planned intervals during the #PitMad March 11 Twitter Pitch Party day. Now this is where you come in. I would like to get your opinion on my query tweets. The question to be answered is do you think my query tweets will put those agents under a spell that compels them to “favorite” my query tweet?
Below are three Heaven’s Ant Farm query tweets for the Twitter Pitch Party. So please, please, please comment on them and feel free to come up with any suggestions. I’ll post more later. Thanks!
Who knows, I just might catch a really big one!
Here Are Some Heaven’s Ant Farm Pitch Tweets.
What Do You Think? Please Comment.
March 7th update:
Here are the latest Twitter agent pitches:
- Yahweh must show humans loving freewill or suffer guilt for creating them n parallel cosmos. But Lucifer stands in the way. #PitMad #SSF
- In upside down #SSF secular Yahweh goes 2 show humans in parallel universe loving freewill but pious Lucifer got there first #PitMad
- #SSF secular Yahweh goes 2show humans n parallel cosmos loving freewill but pious Lucifer got there 1st. He must fix or suffer guilt #PitMad
- In a upside down #SFF tale, secular Yahweh struggles against pious Lucifer with the freewill of humans in parallel universe at stake #PitMad
- Its a upside down #SFF rumble as a secular Yahweh travels thru space&time to save humans in parallel universe from a pious Lucifer #PitMad
- To rid his guilt a secular Yahweh battles pious Lucifer thru space&time to rescue humans discovered in parallel universe #PitMad #SFF
- Yahweh lost his wife now he & humans in a parallel universe will lose their freewill if he doesn’t defeat Lucifer #PitMad #SFF
- In this upside down #SFF tale- pious Lucifer will enslave Heaven & humans n parallel universe unless secular Yahweh defeats him #PitMad
- Heaven is under siege! To save it, a secular Yahweh must defeat a pious Lucifer on a planet in a parallel universe. #PitMad #SFF
- In a parallel universe two familiar gods of good and evil battle for the fate of humankind in this upside down #SFF tale #PitMad
- Its a rumble in an upside dn #SFF jungle as 2 gods of good&evil from a parallel universe battle over the fate of humans on Earth #PitMad
- In this upside dn #SFF tale 2 familiar gods of good&evil frm parallel cosmos struggle over freewill. Now battle moved 2 Earth #PitMad
- In this upside down David & Goliath #SFF tale, Heaven is under siege as a secular Yahweh struggles to defeat a pious Lucifer #PitMad
- In this upside dn David&Goliath #SFF tale Heaven under siege as secular Yahweh struggles 2 keep his freewill from pious Lucifer #PitMad
Not bad for a first time out need more work to attract a big fish
Thanks! Any suggestions?
I’ve been studying this for a few days now and listened to the experts’ advice. You need to clearly state the stakes. Like the logline of your query letter. Don’t sumarize the plot. Basically something along the lines of: Character must do ______ or ______ will happen. Also check the date; I believe Pitch Madness is on Wednesday, March 11, this year. Not the 15th. Good luck.
Thanks for your suggestions. This is very useful and I know others will find the same! Also, I corrected the date to March 11 for the party. Thanks again!
My pleasure. Take a look at this post by the agent that created Pitch Madness: http://www.brenda-drake.com/pitmad/
Yep! Saw that and posted an update to my blog page with that link. Thanks!!
…for the “Pitch Madness” contest. The 35 word pitch.
–It’s a rumble in the Garden of Eden jungle after Professor Yahweh Tabbirs loses his telepathic soul mate and struggles against Reverend Lucifer Deville to save his homeworld and humans discovered in a parallel universe.–
That do you think?
Informative, and the names are provocative, but what are the stakes? The key to a successful pitch is stating what the hero stands to loose if they fail.
Humm… he stands to lose freewill for himself and will suffer the guilt of causing humans on Earth to lose their freewill as well. So how about this….
“It’s a rumble in the Garden of Eden jungle! Professor Yahweh Tabbirs loses his telepathic soulmate and must struggle alone against Reverend Lucifer Deville to save his freewill and humans discovered in a parallel universe.”
I like this one a little better although it is not as informative but it points more to the what will be ‘lost’ aspect that you raise…
“It’s a rumble in the Garden of Eden jungle! Professor Yahweh Tabbirs will suffer the guilt of causing humans in a parallel universe to lose their freewill if he fails to defeat Reverend Lucifer Deville.”
I think the second one is better.