Write Nonfiction in November

Let’s backtrack for a day to the all-important topic of  pitches and query letters. I just received an expert blog post from agent Katharine Sands, editor of Making the Perfect Pitch: How to Catch a Literary Agent’s Eye, a collection of pitching wisdom from leading literary agents, and this one makes it well worth revisiting these topics one more time this month. Plus, not only does she offer some great information about pitching, she also discusses some of what goes on behind the scenes when agents and acquisition editors read our queries. Additionally, she offers insight into the pros and cons of self-publishing a book and then pitching it to an agent or publishing house, and tells us some important facts about becoming a published nonfiction author.

I’ve had the pleasure of hearing Katharine speak numerous times at the San Francisco Writers Conference (SFWC), and she really knows her stuff. I’ve also had several conversations with her about pitches—even sat on a panel with her for the 2009 SFWC pitch contest! There’s a lot to this post…it’s not short! She’s offered a ton of information, so be sure to read all the way to the end. It’s well worth your time. (That’s why I’ve kept my comments today short!)

The Fine Art of Pitching Nonfiction
By Katharine Sands

In a nutshell, pitching is about finding the right words and getting the right person to hear them and read them. Often referred to as “the elevator speech,” the term has two meanings: 1) You might be on the elevator and happen to meet an agent (or producer), so you want to have a pitch perfected so you can “pitch” your project. 2)  You have something to say that gets you a “yes” response, and the “yes” means your manuscript or script gets read, or you may be given a card and an invitation to follow-up with the person you have just met—all accomplished in the time in takes to ride up or down in the elevator.

Whether you are in an elevator, at a dinner party or at a writers’ conference, pitching also means you are energetic, dynamic and hurry up and get to the point. The best pitches give off sparks, create a moment, or pose a provocative question just to give a taste of the project.  In my book, Making the Perfect Pitch: How to Catch a Literary Agent’s Eye, my colleague, Sarah Jane Freymann says, “If you are able to sum up your entire book with a title or one-line description, that’s gold.”

Why is pitching your work so important? Because whether it is for nonfiction, boomer non-fic, chick non-fic, hen non-fic, reality fiction, faction, nonfiction, stunt memoir, creative memoir, fratire or femoir…it’s the pitch, and nothing but the pitch, that gets an agent’s attention.

Yes, agents are looking to connect with your work. We read your pitch to zero in on the Zeitgeist, to seek sales engines, to identify the salient points for the primary audience and the ideal, intended audience, to be engaged by the all-important voice, and to determine the answer to two pressing questions: Why you? Why now? We deconstruct pitches with the precision of surgeons. We diagnose the project to make a prognosis for the author’s potential. We only can take in elements, spoonfuls of information. A pitch is not the beginning of your book; it is the introduction to your potential as an author.

Many nonfiction writers, and other kinds of professionals, wonder why such relentless emphasis is placed on creating platform for a book. Publishers need to know from the get-go why your book appeals to readers and how much built-in media interest the book has; the biggest buzzword in the media and publishing world is “platform.”

The industry is very much in transition. LA-based agents have taken the term literary manager to cover the new roles agents play. Agents are acting, in effect, as producers, and taking a more hands-on role in developing an author for the media and in developing the author’s brand. And agents source talent everywhere. I have contacted writers based on reading airline magazines, blogs, ad campaigns, brochures, and twitterati. Today content from a book is used online, in podcasts, in products, in digital media. From the agent’s point of view, it helps to proudly introduce a client with an e-mail of the author-to-be that includes an accompanying YouTube video or footage demonstrating the potential author’s expertise. Showing the author in action makes a huge difference in breaking in a new writer. I like to stress how authors will succeed with their books through promotional possibilities and personality. Today agents want clients who offer a full package—writing talent plus promotional efforts. Agents are looking for people who can shine in the spotlight not slink in the shadows.

When pitching, remember this guiding principle: Agents are looking, first, for a reason to keep reading, then for a reason to represent you. You want your pitch to give crystal clear answers—fast.

Your Query Letter

Imagine you are Atticus Finch arguing for the life of an innocent. Because you are. From the agent’s point of view, your query letter is a plea for life. To get an agent to read past the first few paragraphs your letter must really hit home. A perfect pitch is one that shows talent, content, quality, and ingredient X.

What would you say if you were on Oprah? What would you want your listeners or your readers to know about your work? It is always best to lead with your strongest points first. Imagine you have five minutes on TV to talk about your book. What are the most engaging, intriguing, seductive, or powerful messages or narrative arcs you want to get across?

For a narrative or memoir, think of your pitch as a movie trailer—imagine your setting, your world, your universe for someone who has not lived in it before. You, the writer, are a camera. Put the camera on you, but so we can see…Have you told a story arc? “It starts here, ends there.” A book is a ride, and memoir needs to read as compellingly as fiction.

Use the golden rule of pitching: Show, don’t tell. When you hold out a promise to a reader, you want to use the pitch to deliver enough of the flavor of the book to whet the reader’s appetite for more.

Remember your book is on trial. Indeed, an acquisitions editorial meeting is a trial for life for your work. Offer evidence, statistics, sources of recent articles. Point out why readers want this book. Argue your case. What are the benefits, insights, experiences or observations for the reader? What do I do differently after I read your book. What would I not understand or figure out without you? You compete with all of the other information sources: the Internet, other authors, sources and literati. How are you better or different?

Pitching Self-Publishing Books

Many nonfiction writers consider self-publishing. Self-publishing works for you in some ways, but against you in others. If you have a means of promoting and selling your book through your own marketing efforts, you might accrue numbers of books sold (and better profits than being published by a trade publisher). You might be reviewed, get media attention and so on. If you show a strong track record, a larger entity might want to take the project to the next level and re-publish or distribute the book. Also, the book will quite possibly be the text exactly as you wrote it—no editorial changes whatsoever (which appeals to some authors).

A less successful route involves self-publishing and then shopping the book to agents, because several things kick. 1) Your ISBN number and sales record are tracked; the numbers will not be as high as a leading publisher would like to see. 2) A book from 2002 looks like what the Japanese call “old cake.” It does not look as fresh or current as it might have done five years ago. 3) I presume 58 agents have declined the project prior to self-publishing. Even though we know it may well be untrue, this is a pop-up thought in most agent’s minds. 4) Part of an agent’s job is to locate and secure a publishing contract, which always includes the copyright clause. If you have obtained a copyright and ISBN# number, it signals you might be difficult to work with—apropos the agency input and the editor’s suggestions, which would change the text necessitating a second copyright. We cherry-pick our clients and want things to progress smoothly and happily for all parties. The previously self-published client brings many complexities to the table and might prefer to be in complete charge of their book, which self-publishing offers but traditional publishing does not.

Things to Know if Your Pitch Hits the Mark

To become a full-time nonfiction author, consider the following:

1) Authors are paid a book advance by publishers.

Money due from your publishing contract—advanced to you from the “book’s bank account” the publisher sets up for you (called the advance against royalties)—will be paid to you in two or three payments, possibly with the last third on publication. If anything comes up such as a change in delivery date or cataloging the title, your expected advance payment (which you have actually earned) may be delayed.

2) Authors earn royalties.

Royalties are paid out twice yearly. If your advance is modest you will expect to earn your income when the book is in royalty. This may take longer than you’d like. It may take time to create buzz, build your author platform, and generate word-of-mouth marketing before you see the title perform.

3) Book sales are unpredictable.

Your book advance will be based on the profit and loss tabulations, research, surveys, bookspan searches that are used to guestimate what the book will earn. If the book advance (or printing) exceeds the sales—no matter how many copies are sold, no matter how well reviewed—the book costs the publisher, and this impacts your ability to publish future works.

4) Today’s publishers want buy-back commitments.

Authors who buy and sell copies of their books outside of trade channels through grassroots efforts, websites, professional organizations, specialty and retail catalogs, or corporate gifts as deep-discount copies, for example, are increasingly important to publishers. This can mean investing personal monies up front before recouping through sales of the book.

5) Your author income is separate from your writing dreams.

Income that allows you to quit your day job may come in unexpected and circuitous ways, not in the way you anticipated. You may find yourself giving workshops and seminars or participating in readings or academic panels. Many authors are asked to teach and find new careers in academe. Authors often become go-to girls or go-to guys as talking heads or media experts. I see authors make the mistake of investing only in The Big Book. Other writing outlets serve to develop you as a writer and build your platform as an author, too.

About the Author

A literary agent with the Sarah Jane Freymann Literary Agency, Katharine Sands has worked with a varied list of authors who publish a diverse array of books.

She represents a wide range of clients who publish a diverse array of books. Nonfiction highlights include: The SAT Word Slam; Taxpertise: Dirty Little Secrets the IRS Doesn’t Want You to Know; The House Handbook; Hands Off My Belly: The Pregnant Woman’s Guide to Myths, Mothers and Moods; The Complete Book of Teenage Plastic Surgery by Dr. Frederick Lukash, XTC: SongStories; Under the Hula Moon (as co-agent); The Tao of Beauty: Chinese Herbal Secrets to Looking Good and Feeling Great by Ford model Helen Lee; Make Up. Don’t Break Up by five-time Oprah guest Dr. Bonnie Eaker Weil, Give Me That Online Religion by Dr. Brenda Brasher; Elvis and You: Your Guide to the Pleasures of Being an Elvis Fan; The New Low-Country Cooking by Chef Marvin Woods, The Compete Book on International Adoption: A Step-by-Step Guide to Finding Your Child by Dawn Davenport; CityTripping: a Guide for Nighthawks, Foodies, Culture Vultures, Fashion Fetishist, and the Generally Style-Obsessed by Tom Dolby, among many others.

She is the agent provocateur of Making the Perfect Pitch: How to Catch a Literary Agent’s Eye, a collection of pitching wisdom from leading literary agents. Actively building her client list, she likes books that have a clear benefit for readers’ lives in categories of food, travel, lifestyle, home arts, beauty, wisdom, relationships, parenting, and fresh looks which might be at issues, life challenges or popular culture. For compelling reads in faction, memoir and femoir, she like to be transported to a world rarely or newly observed; for fiction, she wants to be compelled and propelled…

katharinesands@nyc.rr.com

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Please visit www.copywrightcommunications.com and sign up for the free newsletter to receive a gift at the end of the Write Nonfiction in November challenge!

Don’t forget to sign into the WNFiN social networking and chat room and tell us what you are writing about or start a discussion. http://writenonfictioninnovember.ning.com/

If you want to sell your nonfiction writing, at some point you’ll have to write a query letter. This holds true whether you are writing a book, an article or an essay. If you remain uncertain about what writing a query letter entails, return to the origins of the word itself. The word “query” means “a question” or “an inquiry.” A query letter asks an editor or an agent if they might be interested in purchasing your work or representing you.

Remember that a query letter has three basic parts: a “lead” (Yes, just like the beginning of an article…) or a paragraph that “grabs” the reader and explains what the manuscript is about; a paragraph describing the details of the manuscript; and a paragraph explaining why you, the author, are the perfect person to write this particular book, essay or article.  (For more information on how to “pitch” yourself and your ideas, read yesterday’s WNFiN post.)

Once you’ve managed to get these basic elements into your query letter, there are some other things you need to do…such as turning out a flawless letter. Here’s what Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the  multi award-winning Frugal Editor, has to say about how to accomplish this feat.

Five Things to Avoid for a Pristine Query Letter
By Carolyn Howard-Johnson

We are selling our work when we approach any gatekeeper whether that’s an editor, an agent, a contest judge, or some other person who gets to approve or nix our work. Here are five little things to avoid so you’ll look like the professional you are:

• Don’t tell the gatekeeper you always wanted to write. You can think of something more pertinent to your cause (and something more original!) than that.
• Don’t use the verb “quote” when you want the noun “quotation.” Some style books will tell you that it’s okay, but agents and editors can be a picky lot. Use zero-tolerance grammar rules for your queries.
• Don’t pitch more than one book or article at time. You want to give just one your best shot.
• Don’t call your own idea or work marvelous or awesome. Gatekeepers think these are four-letter words.
• Don’t overdo exclamation marks, question marks or the use of sentence fragments. (Yes, fragments are acceptable when they’re used for a good reason.)

Here’s one last suggestion from the stable of fiction writers’ tricks: Use anecdote and dialogue to make the nonfiction sample you submit with your query come alive.

About the Author

Carolyn Howard-Johnson is an award-winning author of both fiction and nonfiction, a former publicist for a New York public relations firm and an instructor for the UCLA Extension’s renowned Writers’ Program. She is a former journalist and editor with years of publishing and editing experience including national magazines, newspapers and her own poetry and fiction. Her The Frugal Book Promoter: How to Do What Your Publisher Won’t (www.budurl.com/FrugalBkPromo) won USA Book News’ best professional book award and the Irwin Award. The Frugal Editor: Put Your Best Book Forward to Avoid Humiliation and Ensure Success (www.budurl.com/TheFrugalEditor ) is top publishing book for USA Book News and Reader Views Literary Award.

http://HowToDoItFrugally.com
www.budurl.com/FrugalBkPromo
www.budurl.com/TheFrugalEditor

Please visit www.copywrightcommunications.com and sign up for the free newsletter to receive a gift at the end of the Write Nonfiction in November challenge!

Don’t forget to sign into the WNFiN social networking and chat room and tell us what you are writing about or start a discussion. http://writenonfictioninnovember.ning.com/

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A writer wanting to obtain a literary agent most often has to send an agent a pitch or query letter before ever entering into a conversation about representation. Additionally, if aspiring authors decide to approach publishing houses without literary representation, they must take the same route: compose and send a pitch or query letter.

Sometimes, if you’re lucky, you might have the opportunity to pitch agents and acquisition editors in person, such as at a writer’s conference or some other writing event. Or you might get the chance to do so on the telephone. I once called an agent to ask a simple question. I assumed a secretary would answer, but the agent himself answered. Before I knew it, he was asking me questions about my projects, and I was pitching them. This past summer I had a chance to meet with the actual publisher of an independent publishing company. She wanted to hear about all my projects. (I have a lot of them, so I had actually typed up all the pitches before hand and was able to hand her the piece of paper!) At such times, it’s so important to have your pitch, sometimes called an “elevator speech,” ready. Always be prepared to pitch!

A few years ago I won the pitch contest at the San Francisco Writer’s Conference. I actually was pitching a novel I wrote during NaNoWriMo. I give a lot of credit for that success to writing-career-coach and manuscript consultant Teresa LeYung Ryan and her co presenter, Elisa Southard (look for her guest blog later this month). What I learned in their session about pitching I immediately put to use. And it worked! I’ve been helping people hone pitches ever since. (It’s easier to help someone else, I must admit, than to come up with one for your own book.)

I asked Teresa to offer her tips on pitching to agents and editors here during WNFiN so more people could benefit from her wisdom. Here’s what she had to say.

Make Every Word Count When Pitching to Agents or Acquisition Editors
By Teresa LeYung Ryan

You have spent months, perhaps years, writing and rewriting your project.  Now you’ve decided to pursue either an agent (who earns his/her commission when he/she sells a client’s work to a publishing house) or an acquisition editor (who buys authors’ works for the publishing house for which he/she works). Let’s say you’ve done your homework and have compiled a list of agents or acquisition editors who specialize in the kind of project (commodity) you wish to sell.

An agent or acquisition editor receives hundreds of pitches or query letters each week.  What can you do to catch these folks’ attention?  Use the right bait.  Make every word count.

Whether you’re pitching in person, over the telephone, through an E-Mail, or by old-fashion mail, keep this in mind that the pitch (bait) has three components:

• who needs your project
• the unique qualities about your commodity
• why you are the perfect author for this work

Here are three examples of nonfiction book pitches that put these three components to work and make every word count at the same time:

Genre: Self-Help/Metaphysical/Psychology

Most people over the age of 10 dream at least four to six times per night.

Through My Dreams: A Simple Guide to Dream Interpretation, I can help everyone interpret dreams by combining their feelings with personal symbolism, dream what they want to dream and improve their waking lives through their dreams.

I am Angie Choi, a certified hypnotherapist who has utilized radio, television, workshops, classes, articles, and a website to educate and inspire people to tap into their dreaming potential.  I’ve worked with school districts, youth groups and community-based organizations. http://www.alivehypnosis.com

Genre: Journal/Guide/Inspirational

More than 50 million people provide care for a chronically-ill, disabled or aged family member or friend during any given year.

You Want Me to Do What? Journaling for Caregivers allows these caregivers to process their stress and celebrate the good in life by giving them open-ended instructions on spilling their guts in the safety of a private journal and offering two hundred sentence starts to help them begin writing.

I am B. Lynn Goodwin, a teacher of workshops on care giving.  I write for numerous publications, and, I am the founder and managing editor of WriterAdvice, which has been helping writers for twelve years.  http://www.writeradvice.com/

Genre: Biography/Women’s Studies

The birth control pill is currently used by more than 100 million women worldwide and by almost 12 million women in the United States.

Margaret Sanger: Her Life in Her Words is a collection of compassionate writings, speeches, letters, and diary entries by the controversial fighter for legalized birth control and sex education and a key player in the development of Planned Parenthood.

I am Miriam Reed, Ph.D., creator of one-woman performances, who has revitalized appreciation for Sanger and her crusade to help women take charge of their bodies and their lives.   http://www.miriamreed.com

If you follow the above examples, not only will you have the perfect pitch, but also you’ll have core messages for all your writing endeavors.

Other Tips When E-Mailing Your Pitch:

• Use an appropriate subject line.  (i.e. We met at _____ Writers Conference;  I’m referred by _____;  Book proposal from {your full name})
• Use a proper salutation. (i.e.  Dear Ms./Mr. _______)
• Provide your telephone number(s), email address and URL in your signature block.
• Never write in all capital letters. If your email doesn’t give you the option to italicize (or bold) book titles, then it’s okay to use all capital letters with titles.
• Separate blocks of text with white space.
• Send the email to yourself first; check it, then send it to the agent/editor (cc or bcc yourself).

About the Author

Teresa LeYung Ryan’s motto:  “You can be happily published by being yourself.”  As a writing-career-coach and manuscript consultant, she helps her clients identify themes and archetypes, choose the right publishing route and map out their success.  She especially enjoys helping writers craft their pitches, query letters and synopses.  As a community spirit, Ryan speaks out for public libraries, honors immigrant-stories, advocates compassion for mental illness, and, helps survivors of family violence find their own voices through writing.

www.WritingCoachTeresa.com
www.LoveMadeOfHeart.com

Please visit www.copywrightcommunications.com and sign up for the free newsletter to receive a gift at the end of the Write Nonfiction in November challenge!

Don’t forget to sign into the WNFiN social networking and chat room and tell us what you are writing about or start a discussion. http://writenonfictioninnovember.ning.com/

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Imagine yourself riding in the elevator at a hotel where you are attending a writer’s conference. The door opens and in steps the one agent you really, really think would serve as the perfect literary representative for you and your book. You open your mouth, introduce yourself and begin to speak.

What do you say? Do you tell the agent what your book is about in 25 word or less? Do you spit out the plot or the main idea in 30 seconds, or before the elevator doors open again and someone else steps in and begins their pitch? Do you offer your pitch in an interesting, dynamic way that makes the agent say, “Tell me more” or do you offer a long-winded, pointless speech that quickly loses the agents attention and your chance at representation – not to mention publication of your book?

Ah, the art of the book pitch.

Finding yourself in that elevator represents every writer’s dream…and nightmare…depending upon whether or not they have prepared a fabulous pitch or not.

What’s a pitch? It’s what people in other areas of business call an “elevator speech,” a short speech you have ready for that opportune moment – or less than a moment – when you can market yourself or your product to someone that might buy it. That speech, however, has to include all the pertinent information and be interesting, clever, thought provoking, or in some way leading so the person becomes inclined to ask you for more details.

I don’t know that I’m so great at composing pitches for my own nonfiction books. However, at the San Francisco Writer’s Conference two years ago, I won the pitch contest for a novel I had written. (I normally write only nonfiction.)  For that reason, this year I was asked to sit on a panel of much-more-distinguished judges-than-myself  at the conference’s yearly pitch contest.  I listened with interest to the pitches, as well as to the feedback from the other judges. I noticed that no one really had mastered the “art” of pitching, and many people were confused about how to pitch in person as opposed to how to pitch in a query letter. While my fellow judge, Katharine Sands, who wrote Making the Perfect Pitch, How to Catch a Literary Agent’s Eye, didn’t agree that a difference existed between these two pitching methods, Mike Larsen, another judge and the author of How to Get a Literary Agent, agreed with me.

In my experience, anyway, when you find yourself seated next to an agent or an acquisitions editor at a conference, or you find yourself in the elevator with them or getting a drink at the bar just as they are doing the same, you aren’t suddenly going to start painting a long, pretty picture that describes your book before you actually say, “Hi, my name is Nina Amir, and my book, Blah Blah, is about blah blah blah blah.”  More than likely, you are going to introduce yourself and say, “I’d love to tell you about my book, Blah Blah. It  about blah blah blah…” or “it teaches people how to blah blah blah.”

During the San Francisco Writers Conference, many writers participate in “Speed Dating for Agents.” This event gives them just three minutes with an agent. In that time, they must pitch their book and then, hopefully, get the agent to say, “Tell me more,” so they end up in a conversation that ends with a request to see a proposal. Again, I doubt they will feel comfortable – and I know they don’t have the time - to sit down and do a long pitch. If they do, they will not allow the agent time to ask questions. They want to leave time for feedback and for a discussion and, finally, for the agent to say, “Send me a proposal.”

So, how does a writer come up with a decent pitch? (You would think it would be easy; its just crafting words into a short, pithy sentence.)  As I said, despite my one “win,” I don’t find it so easy myself – at least with my own work. It’s easier to help other people with their ideas. And I do this by applying some of the things I learned that helped me win that contest.

Prior to winning, I attended a session at the very same conference led by Teresa LeYung Ryan, author of Love Made of Heart, and Elisa Southard, author of Break Through the Noise. They were teaching people how to pitch both fiction and nonfiction. The one thing I took away from that session was to make sure my pitch told the listener what my book would offer a reader. In other words, what was the benefit they would get out of reading my book? Would they gain something, lose something, learn something, improve something…You get the idea.

With nonfiction, this can be pretty easy. Take a book like Wayne Dyer’s book, Manifest Your Destiny. His subtitle is a great pitch. His book teaches you “nine spiritual principles for getting everything you want.”

Fiction can be a bit harder (which is why I was so surprised to win the contest for fiction). Here’s my pitch: Turtle’s Nest is about a woman who accidentally poisons her son and learns she doesn’t have to be a perfect parent to be a good mother.  A little more subtle, but it still tells you what you’ll learn by reading it – the same thing the main character learns.

Also, the pitch contest at the San Francisco Writers Conference requires that pitches be 25 words or less. While Mike Larsen says that is a “mindset,” the year I won it was an actual requirement. I suggest you stick close to that word count.

I remember someone once telling me that if I couldn’t say what my book was about in 10 words or less, I didn’t know what it was about. Someone else once said I had to be able to write what my book was about on the back of a business card.

In other words, don’t be wordy. If you have 30 seconds with an agent or three minutes, you don’t want to do all the talking. You want to get your message across and then hear what they have to say.

While working with writers at the conference, together we dug pitches out of their long descriptions of their manuscripts. As they talked and talked, we weeded out the best parts of what they said and then crafted those into the most perfect descriptive phrase possible. We had to work hard and long. And sometimes we went back to those pitches the next day and changed them again. We had to be stringent editors keeping to work count restrictions and creative writers turning a phrase and finding the perfect words to depict story, character, purpose, and meaning. And sometimes the writers asked other people for assistance; and sometimes that helped and sometimes it didn’t.

Once each writer had that pitch, they had to practice it. For a pitch to be really effective, it has to flow off your tongue as easily as words off a pen and onto your paper or off a keyboard onto your computer screen.  Have it memorized. Know it by rote, but deliver it with passion and conviction. And be prepared to offer at least three talking points when, indeed, you are asked for more information.

Writing pitches isn’t easy. Although sometimes they just come to you, like those magical words that arrive on your manuscript pages, and you wonder how they arrived. But the perfect pitch is miraculous in its own right. While it might not sell your book or land you that agent, it will at least get an agent or an acquisitions editor to listen long enough and become interested enough to say, “Tell me more.” And that’s your opening to offer your three more points…and then three more…And you never know where that might lead.