#Pitmad: The Online Dating Experience You Didn’t Know You Were Having
I have a finished novel and I’ve been querying for (insert cough/gross hack sound) months. A friend of mine pushed me to participate (you know the drill: “You need to get out there” or “Why pass up the chance to meet someone nice?”) in an opportunity to pitch my novel to agents over Twitter called Pitmad. Pitmad is an idea brought to the Twitter world of writers by an organization called Pitch Wars. The next #pitmad is scheduled for March 5, 2020.
From their website:
#PitMad is a pitch party on Twitter where writers tweet a 280-character pitch for their completed, polished, unpublished manuscripts. Agents and editors make requests by liking/favoriting the tweeted pitch.
Oh, my gosh. I hope she likes me.
Why should you participate?
Enlarging profile pictures, creeping through timelines, dissecting word choice, and deciding to like or skip is a mainstream selecting process these days. And agents and editors are paying attention.
This hashtag has grown in popularity over the years and literary agents are aware and do use it to look out for a great pitch that works for them. Plus, they want to get at the best ones first!
Pitmad runs for one day four times a year. Think of it as your big night out once every quarter. Drink tons of water, clip your toenails, do some yoga. If you’re already querying, you probably have a working pitch to post. The query approach is a little different, though, so some work will have to go in to getting the pitch polished.
You’ll be forced to think about the novel that’s finished and waiting for the next step in its journey to publishing. Writing a pitch, rewriting a pitch, getting it ready, deciding how to dress it up or down is all purposeful practice.
Participating, whether it gets you an agent or not, will also make you do the following:
- read through other writers’ pitches, which can help you finesse yours
- become familiar with agents in your genre
- help other writers by retweeting the pitches you like
- grow your confidence in your ability to talk about your work
Safety first when meeting online
There are always rules and it’s best to follow them.
Drive your own car. Be aware of time. Mind your manners.
The rules for participating are simple:
- You are not an agent or editor — Don’t like a #pitmad post. Leave this to the actual agents and editors. If an author sees a like, he/she is going to get super excited and call Mom, and Mom will be so excited that you’re FINALLY dating…I mean pitching. Don’t disappoint them by trying to be supportive. Support an author by retweeting.
- Don’t thread tweets. Pitches are supposed to be short. Stick to one tweet.
- Make sure you’re ready to step out! Your manuscript should be finished and edited.
- You can tweet up to three times during the 12 hour period per manuscript.
- Remember: there are those who advertise themselves online as one thing and then, once you’ve met, you realize they are not who they said they were. Scammers. Be wary.
There are other rules and strategies available on the Pitch Wars site including other hashtags to include so agents can find you. It’s also good practice to research authors that retained agents through #pitmad.
Here are a few to start:
Julie Dao — @jules_writes
Kenley Conrad — experience found here
Jessika Fleck — @jessikafleck
Pitching should be exciting and maybe even a little fun. If nothing happens for you this time, keep going. Try again. Because, after all, there are a lot of fish agents in the sea.
Good luck!
