From the 24th to the 26th of July 2015, I was lucky enough to attend SA Writers Centre’s ‘Pitch Conference’ – an intensive three days of pitch workshops and 5 minute pitch sessions with publishers. It was the first time the conference was held in Adelaide and was made possible by the tireless work of SA Writers Centre staff including Director, Sarah Tooth and program director, Bethany Clark and funding bodies such as Arts SA.

Attendance was stellar and included the likes of Tim Tomlinson, President of New York Writers Workshop where the conference first began, and Australian publishers such as Kate Blake (Penguin), Sophie Hamley (Hachette), Meredith Curnow (Random House), Roberta Ivers (Simon and Schuster), Angus Fontaine (Pan Macmillan).

It was an extremely successful event with 27 out of 42 participants receiving requests from publishers and a total of 44 manuscripts being requested (some by multiple publishers). It was an invaluable opportunity for Adelaide writers to pitch their manuscripts directly to interstate publishers.

Here are some of the questions the publishers asked:

1. Does your book have a central question / theme?
2. What are some comparison titles?
3. What are some comparison titles from Australian writers?
4. Where did you set the book? Where would you imagine it being set? Why?
5. Can you speak to broader concerns relating to the current political landscape of your novel?
6. Main attraction of your book? Why would a reader gravitate to it?
7. Is there a love interest? What’s the pacing of the romance?
8. What’s the pacing of the story like? Backstory – journey – main conflict – resolution? How long does it take to get to the journey?
9. Where did you get your inspiration from?
10. What was your writing process in coming up with this story?
11. Plot-driven or character driven? Why?
12. Is there more than one main character? If so, how did you separate the voices?
13. In what POV / tense is your novel written?
14. What is the turning point of the novel?
15. What are you willing to do to assist with selling your book?
16. Why would our book be interesting to women? (Women make up 70% of market in terms of readers).
17. Have you been published before? If not, what have you done to improve your writing?

Extra tips (nuggets of gold)

• Answer the publisher’s questions as succinctly as possible. Don’t give convoluted answers or a scene-by-scene run-down of what happens in the novel.
• Use buzzwords and punchy adjectives. Write your pitch in an active voice.
• Use language that connects with the mood/tone of book’s world but make sure it’s not in the book’s prose.