Into the dragon's den

A couple of weeks ago I did a unique pitching session.  I belong to an organisation called Portsmouth Writers' Hub, and our dynamic organiser Tessa Ditner arranged a dragon's den style pitching session to literary agents for us.  I wanted to be sure that Tessa got along agents who represented SF, and we ended up with two of them in the line-up.  So I had a great chance to test out my work on agents who got my genre.

Each author read out their elevator pitch and then the first ten lines of their story.  And on the basis of that, very brief, information the  agents decided whether they wanted the writer to send them the first three chapters.  I am pleased to say that both my pitches went well, and the two agents representing SF both said yes to me.

The novel I was pitching is the one which another agent had already requested the full manuscript of, so I felt pretty confident about it.  For me, the evening was a good boost to my self-esteem about the novel.  That was sorely needed after the latest round of bruising short story rejections.

As I sat and listened to the other pitches, I decided to see if I could predict which would get a yes, and which would get a no.  And as the evening wore on I found that my guesses were very accurate.  There were some unfocused, rambling pitches for books which the author clearly didn't know the character's challenge or conflict.  There were a few 'smart-alek' pitches too, clearly by beginner writers who tried to claim that their work was unique.  These, as I expected, got nos.

The pitches that got yeses were tightly-focused, and gave the character's conflict or problem clearly.  You got the sense from them that those writers knew what their novels were about.

I did take one risk, with my elevator pitch.  I received criticism from one agent for referencing Becky Chamber's The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet in my pitch.  I didn't take much notice of this, as it came from an agent who didn't represent SF. The whole point of including that reference was as a test to agents.  If they hadn't heard of that book, from a writer who was Hugo nominated in 2017, then they weren't likely to get my work.

Seeing agents in the flesh, talking about publishing, revealed things I'd never have got from their bios on their websites.   it was a good way to get my work before an agent.