Pitching Contests
Let’s take a peek at the cogs inside the machine and talk about why I write and how I write on Behind the Scenes Sunday! Today I’d like to talk about pitching contests. You can find them everywhere online, offering you a chance to get your book pitch in front of real life literary agents and book publishers. But are they worth your time and energy?
A pitching contest usually involves creating a short ‘pitch’ for your finished manuscript, meant to entice a literary agent or publisher to read the full manuscript and (hopefully!) pick you up as a client. This pitch is generally posted to a social media platform or discussion board at a specified time (often times with specific hashtags) and agents/publishers can look over the submissions at their leisure.
Crafting a winning pitch is time consuming and mentally taxing. But it is an essential skill to hone if you wish to publish your book length work. And I’m of the opinion the opportunity to put your work (in any form) in front of potential agents/publishers is not an opportunity to be missed!
Full disclosure: my traditional publishing debut, Hungry is the Night was picked up by a publisher through just such a pitch contest!
All that being said, it’s important to level set your expectations when entering these contests. You will likely enter dozens before you find success, and defining what that success looks like is important. Sometimes a pitch falls flat for reasons beyond your control — don’t beat yourself up over it! And even if you’ve got an agent/publisher interested, the manuscript still may not land for them. But that’s okay — you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take and a huge part of being a writer is persistence; is showing up and putting in the work.
If you’re interested in checking out my traditional publishing debut, then I’ve got great news for you: my brand new paranormal romance, Hungry is the Night, is now available for preorder on all major ebook platforms! Visit the link here to order your copy in advance and, if you send a copy of your receipt to rsjromance@gmail.com, I will send you back an exclusive excerpt of the book! Three full chapters of wolfy goodness for you to enjoy!