How to Pitch a Novel

I'll be pitching my novel at the annual Writer's Digest Conference on August 13th--if there is an annual Writer's Digest Conference on August 13th!

What this means is I will have one-on-one sessions with about a half-dozen book agents with the hope of convincing them to consider my book for representation. And I will have 90 seconds to make my pitch.

I've been honing my pitch for over a year and will continue honing and rewriting until the book is finally picked up. My current pitch includes an opening "hook" that describes what my book is about and its intended audience. This is followed by a brief plot summary and how my book is different from the usual stories of its kind. It goes like this:

COME THE HARPIES is a timely, action-packed satire with YA/adult crossover appeal. It imagines a U.S. 56 years in the future based on what’s happening right now.

Our hero Egon Pace is a shy senior at White Castle High and a total misfit in the violent polluted world of 2076. Inspired by his rebel dad, Egon hates the things that America loves most.  Shooting guns, leading Yakker troops in foreign mercenary operations, and breeding as young as 14 to repopulate a nation ravaged by environmental disease and endless war. 

Egon’s attitude makes him a target at school. He’s constantly dodging bullets, bullies and fists. When Lynette, the girl he loves, is nearly murdered in the halls, Egon snaps and fights back hard. 

But when he’s discovered with a banned book from his dad that reveals the truth behind America’s path to apocalypse, Egon realizes his days are numbered. As the state comes after him, Egon and Lynette bolt to a fabled utopian nation in the west. It’s a race for freedom…a race for survival.  

This all sounds pretty dark, but COME THE HARPIES is not your typical gloom and doom dystopian downer. Often it veers into hilarious farce as it depicts our poor twisted nation and the buffoons in charge as it circles the drain.  

I’d compare it to what the young heroes go through in the Shusterman novel, Dry, set in The Uninhabitable Earth.

This does time out a little long, but if my pitch is indeed cut off at 90 seconds, I can always leave out the last paragraph. Or figure out how to cut 20 words.

Or talk real fast!