Hello, all! Allow me to introduce myself. When Super
Intern, aka Erica Chapman, moved onto fame and fortune
as an associate editor for Entangled Publishing, Louise asked me to step into the
heroic void. Thus, the Bat-tern has donned the mantle and sworn to save queries
from spam, defeat the specter of bad grammar, and to pluck the awesome from the
quagmires of the slush. Also, Batgirl was always my favorite superhero and it’s
shorter, which matters on Twitter.
For my inaugural
post, Louise asked me to talk a little about Pitch Wars. Pitch Wars is an online writing contest of
sorts. There were thirty-seven mentors. Each selected a top pick and two
alternates from a very large pool of manuscripts. Each mentor then worked with
their top pick so that the manuscript was the very best it can be and helped
them formulate a short pitch. The top picks and all the alternates then had
their pitch and the first two hundred and fifty words of their manuscript
posted on the hosting blogs. The participating agents got first crack on the
top picks, but Pitch Wars coordinator extraordinaire, Brenda Drake, kept track
of any other agents who wanted the manuscripts for when Pitch Wars ended. The
alternates could be requested by anyone.
Louise loves
these types of contests. It's why she's closed to queries more often than not
because she wants the freedom to request anything that catches her attention,
whether it's through a contest like this, a conference, or an intern who lurks
in the shadows of Twitter. After accompanying her onto the Pitch Wars
battlefield, I can see why she feels this way. All of the Pitch Wars
manuscripts were very high quality. There were actually two pitches that I
considered to be excellent, but I knew they didn't fit what Louise was looking
for. The authors of those pitches later
signed with other agents.
Pitch Wars was
set for January 23rd and 24th. At the time, Louise was still in South Africa.
There was an eight-hour time difference and her internet connection was VERY
sporadic, so my role was that of advanced scout. On the 22nd, we hammered out
strategy. I created a template for my scouting reports and filled in as much as
I could beforehand. This is why aspiring authors should have websites with
excerpts or descriptions of their WIPs, by the way. There were two top picks
that I flagged as definite possibles before Pitch Wars even started and Louise
ended up requesting materials from both authors. At 8am on the 23rd, Pitch Wars
commenced and we entered into battle.
I don't think
Louise slept during Pitch Wars. I know I didn't have a life.
There were 37 top
picks and 62 alternates, 99 altogether. We read them ALL. One of the
participating authors took the time to put together a spreadsheet of how the
agent requests broke down. You can download it here. Louise requested the most, 37. Out of
those 37, 2 were middle grade, 7 were adult fiction, and the remaining 28 were
young adult.
The requested
materials began to trickle in almost immediately. Three authors never responded
to Louise's request at all and one author was still revising. Louise requested
three fulls based on the strength of the partials. All in all, we had 36
manuscripts to evaluate.
Louise is home
now and back to grabbing catnaps between bursts of awesome agenting. I still
don't have a life.
So why did Louise
request those 37? Well, in each pitch, there was something that made it
different from everything else. Personal taste entered into it. The pitch had
to be something that Louise could fall in love with. I admit she did take my
preference into consideration for some, which is why she requested every fairy
tale-esque manuscript. Above all else,
though, the opening snippet had to be compelling, forcing Louise to request
more so we could read further.
Why didn't Louise
request the other 62? Mainly, it just
wasn't what she was looking for. The quality really was amazing, but not
everything fit her criteria. Some were too similar to what she already
represented, some didn't seem right for New York, and others just weren't what
she likes to read.
I feel it worth
noting that out of the 37, only 22 were ones that I marked as recommended. 2
were marked as pass and she requested them anyway because something in them
resonated with her. The other 13 were ones that I flagged as possibles. They
were either manuscripts where I liked the concept, but I was unsure about some
other aspect, or they were horror.
Since my idea of
horror is when Bambi’s mom gets shot, I believe it’s fairer to all involved if
someone else does the in-depth evaluations of horror manuscripts. Sometimes
Louise makes me read them anyway and I suspect she uses how far I get into the
book as an indicator of how good the book actually is. If the writing’s strong
enough to get me to the halfway point and I go to bed with the lights on, it’s
a mark in the plus column.
The fact that I
consider E.T. a horror movie whereas Louise reads Stephen
King before bed, it just shows how subjective this business can be. Sometimes
it's really just a matter of persistence, to keep writing and revising and
querying until you find the right agent who loves your work as much as you do.
As of right now,
I don't think anyone has released any stats how many authors received
representation offers as a result of Pitch Wars. I can tell you that out of the
34 authors who sent us materials, five received offers from other agents. As
for Team Fury? Well, it was her entry in last year's Pitch Madness that
originally got Louise's attention, but her Pitch Wars alternate manuscript
sealed the deal. Author Rachael Slate joined Team Fury on February 15. And Louise is still not done
going through all the requested manuscripts...
Currently, I am
continuing in my never-ending quest to empty the slush email while Louise
catches up on her backlog. We want everything to be nice and neat because
Louise has agreed to participate in the 2013 Pitch Madness. If you have a
completed, polished-until-sparkling, manuscript and Louise is your dream agent,
follow Brenda Drake's blog for more details. Submissions will
open on March 15th and entries go live for the agents on March 26-28th. Last
year's rules are here, but they are subject to change. Good
luck!
~K
