What I Learned Participating in #pitmad & not Getting a Single Like

Except from a dear friend who didn’t know the game.

Yesterday, June 4th, was #pitmad. For those not in the know, and that was me five days ago! #Pitmad is a twitter pitching event for novelists seeking agents. Sponsored by Pitch Wars, it happens four times a year.

Their site has a whole section full of success stories of writers who found their rock star agents through #pitmad. Writing friends I know speak highly of them. It’s a great resource for writers, agents, and publishers, and very popular. In other words, well worth participating in.

Any novelist can participate in this quarterly event. The next one is on September 3rd. You will have to have a manuscript ready to go, but you will by then, right?

Then you create a twitter blurb with no more than 280 characters, spaces, and hashtags included. #Pitmad has short cut hashtags to save character spaces. For example, my blurb used #HA (humor, ha! ha!) #SPF (speculative fiction) and #IRMC (inter-racial, multi-cultural).

You can tweet or retweet up to three times only. They can be the same tweet or three different ones for the same story. Enter as many stories as you have ready to go.

The participating agents respond by liking your tweet. That’s an invitation, not mandatory, to follow up via email. Usually, you send a query, synopsis, and the number of manuscript pages they’ve requested.

I was not alone in getting no likes.

Correction. I had one like from a friend who follows me and doesn’t know to not do that so that all the likes will be agents nibbling.

Lots of tweets I saw had no likes or RTs (retweets). Some, like mine, had a few RTs and no likes.

And some had a gazillion of both. There was a strong focus on #BVM — Black Voices Matter. Rightfully so, given the murder of George Floyd, the unaddressed injustices and under-representation of African Americans in the publishing industry.

One author had over 600 likes. While I don’t envy the work she’ll be doing, sorting out all those agents and figuring out which ones are the best fit, what a wonderful challenge to have. And she was hardly the only one.

Besides honouring this trend, what did I learn or gain in the process?

First of all, seeing those successful tweets is a great education in blurbing. Some of the story set-ups made me wish I’d thought of them! Often the authors just shared the set-up, period. This left the viewer wondering what happens, does she get the guy, or what.

Well, to find out, you have to inquire, get the synopsis at least. Leave them wanting more was the take-home lesson, given the 600+ likes. Perhaps I might have had some nibbles if I left more of my plot hanging as well.

Knowing I might get liked pushed me to be prepared. Given that I might be responding to agents post haste, I got my query and my synopsis up to date and polished, ready to go.

I also updated my Query Tracker account. This is a valuable online tool for tracking your queries, which allows you to set timely follow up reminders. The site has a data bank of over 1000 agents, most of whom are looking for new writers.

These agents are organized by genre, which is a huge help. I added about 6 more agents to my list who are looking for humor/satire or offbeat/quirky stories.

As I prepared for #pitmad, I asked myself a question.

What if new-to-me agents express interest in my manuscript, and I haven’t bothered to query the agents on my carefully researched and hand-picked list?

My answer to myself was — light a fire under my butt and get going so I won’t be in that position. I picked those agents because my novel fits their wish list. On #pitmad, that’s not self-evident.

My query and synopsis are well-written and have been edited and tweaked by three professionals. #Pitmad forces us to condense our story to a tweet of roughly 35 words.

The prep process, with my mentor, Meg Stewart, was great practice in honing and re-honing my pitch. Three sentences max — set up, crisis, result. Or set up, complication, crisis — to leave them hanging, which I did, rightly or wrongly.

Tweet-sized pitch = elevator pitch.

I plan to do this with now my next novel, which I am just beginning to outline. Having a blurb to work off of is a great way to stick to the story spine and not stray too far afield.

It never hurts to be able to smoothly sum up my story any moment when asked, so what’s your book about? I plan to attend some in-person pitching events as soon as it’s safe to do so. This honing and essentializing is great practice for them.

So all that work was far from in vain. Besides, some of the agents look at the tweets after the event closes. (8 pm EST) I could wake up tomorrow morning with some requests for pages. That would more than make up for getting up at 5 am PST to put my work out into the world.

P.S.If you or anyone you know is looking for a darkly humorous, gender-bending story that deals with infidelity, abortion, and faith, I’m your girl!

Marilyn Flower writes political humor and satire to delight socially and spiritually conscious folks. She’s a regular columnist for the prison newsletter, Freedom Anywhere, where she writes about faith and prayer. Five of her short plays have been produced in San Francisco. Clowning and improvisation strengthen her resolve during these crazy times.