Pitch Line

[Lost World]

In a recent rejection letter, the responding publisher reminded me that I was to include a pitch line for all submissions over 3,000 words. It was my bust; I was sending the story out to mulitiple publishers and missed this detail in the publisher's submission guidelines. Fortunately, it seems they read the story without the pitch before rejecting it.

But it got me thinking--should I include a pitch for all of my short story submissions? It's beginning to seem logical, as the only story I've gotten published was submitted with a pitch (it was a novella, so I figured it would need one).

So I've written one successful submission pitch, but is there any sort of criteria for properly pitching stories? Obviously it's a mini-synopsis, but what should maximum length be? As few as possible is the obvious answer, up to a max of 100 words, I'm thinking.

What do you think?

[Adam Israel]

Depends on the market, and perhaps the genre.

Most SF/F markets I follow don't want a summary of the story in the cover letter. They'll figure it out when they read your submission. The cover letter itself should be short and to the point. Dear $editor, story title/word count, credits (if applicable) and salutations.

With a novella, they may ask for more, or to query first. The best thing you can do is read the guidelines closely and include a summary only if they ask for one.

[Lost World]

The best thing you can do is read the guidelines closely and include a summary only if they ask for one.

Thank you, I'll keep that in mind as most of the pubs I submit to in the suspense/crime genres don't ask for a summary. I'm hoping that my new publishing credit will carry some weight in my future submissions, but it also seems that editors seem to theme--consciously or unconsciously--their issues, and a lot rides on presenting the right story at the right time. My novella fell into such a theme, though I had no clue it would as the editor didn't mention the theme for that issue. Oh well, I do so enjoy a good crapshoot...

[Jamesaritchie]

That strikes me as really odd. In almost thirty years of writing, I've never had anyone, anywhere, ask for any sort of pitch line for short stories. Pretty much 100% of them, in fact, have stated they specifically do not want anything resembling a pitch line.

Sound like a way of rejecting longer stories without having to read them, to me.

[astonwest]

I've had magazines have a field for it on their online submission forms, so they had something to start with in the case that they accepted the story. I don't imagine they read it ahead of time, but can't say for sure.