Friday, April 22, 2016

Participating in Twitter Pitch Parties

I have been hearing about Twitter pitch parties from a long time. As I was not on Twitter, I never paid attention to it. Then, I joined Twitter on September 16, 2014. But I still didn't enter because of the time difference.

Last year I had a sudden urge to take part. I succumbed to that urge. Pitmad, in December, was the first pitch party I took part in. On the designated day, between 8 A.M EST to 8 P.M, writers can tweet the pitch/pitches for their completed manuscripts, including the two hashtags #Pitmad #MG or #YA, within 140 characters, every one hour. I thoroughly enjoyed myself (I scheduled the pitches on Tweetdeck) so that even when I was sleeping it would tweet on my behalf.

Though I went to sleep fast, the first thing I did the next morning was to check my phone for twitter notifications. Sadly I did not get any likes from agents for my pitches. To be fair my pitches were very mediocre. If I was an agent I wouldn’t have favourited my pitches either. And I also heard that the feed is brutal, it moves too fast.

I wrote more pitches and took part in SFFPit a few days later. I had an agent like for a pitch. I sent the agent my query, synopsis and chapters.

Then this year I took part in another pitch party, and another agent favourited my pitch for my second book. I promptly sent her my submission.

On Tuesday 19th April there was another pitch party #DVPit (Diverse pitches). Though I just tweeted a few pitches, I saw several pitches receive an overwhelming response from agents. Two pitches in particular stood out. One had around 48 likes from big agents and another around 20.

Before sleeping I saw that one of the writers had around 7 likes from agents, the next morning the writer tells me that two agents she submitted to already rejected her MS. I felt that it was a bit too fast (within a few hours). Yesterday she tweeted she has two more rejections. That got me thinking whether these pitch parties actually help us get agents. I mean a writer can write a fabulous pitch, give awesome comp titles, but the MS may not match what the agent expects or is looking for. Or the writer’s pitch and MS may not exactly match. It’s one thing to write a solid pitch and another thing to write solid 50,000 to 75,000 words (the length of MG to YA manuscripts).

Have you ever taken part in twitter pitch parties? What do you think about them? What has your experience about Twitter pitch parties been?

11 comments:

  1. I've never done one on Twitter but have done pitch contests on blogs. I'm not really good at them. I think I'd just try with a query letter. Nothing is a guarantee though.

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  2. Sounds like pitch parties have the potential of landing an agent, so I'd say they are worth while.

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  3. I guess if you're looking for an agent or publisher, they are worth a shot. I've never participated in one though.

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  4. No experience on pitch parties as yet, though Twitter is interesting:)

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  5. I have only participated in a couple of twitter pitch fests and did end up having an agent request a full read. I still think the best way to get an agent is through pitching at a conference or a personal reference.

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  6. I have only participated in a couple of twitter pitch fests and did end up having an agent request a full read. I still think the best way to get an agent is through pitching at a conference or a personal reference.

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  7. Be sure to stop by today - have a surprise for you!

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  8. I'm here because Alex had a great shout out for you on his post today. It reminded me I haven't stopped in for a long time. My bad, but I have some good excuses! For one, the #atozChallenge! As to the Twitter Parties, no. I haven't done that, but I like to try new things, so who knows but I just might.

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  9. I've never participated in Twitter Pitch Parties.

    (I'm doing follow up...have you received the e-book of Effigy by M.J. Fifield?)
    Writer In Transit

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  10. Rachna, thanks for visiting my blog yesterday. You are brave to participate in a twitter pitch event.I haven't done one yet and don't know if I'm bold enough to.

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  11. Interesting about the Twitter Pitch Parties. I think I'll pass. Thanks for sharing your experience and also for commenting my blog. I'm not following you,

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