#pitmad

I went deep on my second #pitmad experience, and it was exhausting, quite frankly.

If you don’t know what #pitmad is, it’s ok. It’s niche to the publishing world.

#pitmad is a pitch event…to pitch one’s book…to an agent…to get published. IMHO, and, of course, others do have different opinions, getting one’s book published by someone other than one’s self is optimal. To do this, one must be aligned with a reputable agent.

This means somehow getting an agent’s attention and getting them excited about your writing, so they take you on as a client. This is HARD.

Google “agent rejections”, and you’ll get Stephen King, Madeleine L’Engle, James Patterson, John Grisham, even Dr. Suess! Read this link right here, cry, breathe, and come back!! https://lithub.com/the-most-rejected-books-of-all-time/

So #pitmad is one of those events, on Twitter, where agents will peek in and read the short pitches and ask a few writers for more. Writers do get agents like this. It’s cool.

But here’s the thing, there is SO MUCH for agents to sift through! This appears to be a place to look for something that might be a needle, but maybe it’s not, in several large, hashtag haystacks. If you are still not familiar with this, just look at the hashtag on Twitter.

For #pitmad, there’s a lot of helpful advice from authors and a whole community of very nice people who truly want to help each other. The most helpful advice, because it tackles a slightly different angle that most (i.e. doesn’t tell you how to write your pitch), is from https://daniel-roman.com/blog/ . Read it. It’s about joining the writing community.

I decided to dip my toe in the waters of Mr. Roman’s advice. Then I proceeded to almost die of Twitter drowning! I mean, once you make a PACT with other writers to retweet each other, you may then relinquish your entire day. Try it, you’ll see what I mean. And PIN your pitch tweet. If you don’t, it’s nearly impossible to make good on the pact.

The tweets and retweets come fast, and there are suddenly hundreds of them in everyone’s Twitter feed. I only had 63 people on my list, and I’m glad because I felt overwhelmed! (I’ll do better next time.)

I’m still not sure about the rate of efficacy on #pitmad, but I’d love to hear from you about your experience, so please comment!