The career novelist

3

CHAPTER

Pitching Errors

FIRST IMPRESSIONS
YOU CANNOT PUT IT OFF FOREVER: SOONER OR LATER YOU WILL
have to bring your novel out into society. It is a daunting prospect.
Invitations are scarce. Once you arrive the parties can prove to be
very crowded. Will anyone care to meet your young protege? In large
part that depends upon you. Your introduction will make all the dif-
ference. If pleasing, the suitors will flock around. If not, your little
one may never be asked to dance.
Enough metaphor. You see my point: the way in which you intro-
duce your novel is crucially important. Whether you first approach
authors for blurbs, or agents for representation, or publishers for
publication, the process begins with a pitch.
Not long ago I was a guest speaker at the Pacific Northwest
Writers Conference (PNWC), an annual gathering that brings togeth-
er agents, editors, established authors, and new writers who are at
various stages of breaking in. The pros numbered, perhaps, two
score. The newcomers numbered in the hundreds. You can imagine
what happened. Like fearful settlers anticipating attack from a
bloodthirsty tribe of Apaches, the agents and editors quickly band-
ed together.
Happily, no circle of wagons was needed. The conference orga-
nizers had told the new writers not to ambush the pros, but to shoot
their arrows only during scheduled, fifteen-minute appointments.