Pitch to H/S Editor

Josie said:

Hi all:

My reason for this thread is to ask opinions on pitching to an H/S editor at a conference.

I'd like to pitch if it is a good way to avoid the slush pile, as I'm unpublished.

There is a conference I'd like to go to (tho I am broke) where the editor of the imprint will be attending.


Josie

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Josie, if you are going to bust the family piggy bank to go to this conference soley because you thinking pitching to an ed will reduce your wait time -- don't.

Pitching is but ONE TOOL in the writer's toolbox. Do I think it makes things move faster? Maybe. Maybe not.

Pitching is helpful if you're talking about a publisher that doesn't take unsolicited, unagented material and you don't have an agent. But that's not the case with Harlequin.

I think you would be just as well served to simply submit to HI by following the submission guidelines found on eHarlequin. Make the writing sparkle. Make the cover letter and synopsis as tight as you can.

Then simply be prepared to wait. (and work on the next ms.)

My first sale -- I'd submitted the partial to Super months before (April) I met with Paula E. at a conference. I met with her, told her she already had a partial in the house, and talked to her about the new ms I was already working on with Super in mind. So, she said she'd go back to work and scare up my partial and take a look at that. This meeting was in July.

At the beginning of September, I got a request for the full. Mailed it off immediately. I got The Call in February. So, it takes time.

I've got a partial with a NYC house that's had it for almost a year now. I pitched to the Senior ed at last year's conference in Atlanta. I know it's still "in play" because I've touched base with the editor. Sometimes, taking longer is a GOOD thing. Rejections can come fast. Stuff they're mulling over takes more time.

Patience is more than a virtue in this biz -- it's a requirement. <G>

So my basic answer is pitching is not the be-all-end-all that people like to believe. Most editors say yes if it even remotely sounds like you're in the ballpark. (I appreciate the ones who say no, thanks, when they know that the pitch isn't right for them. Yeah, it stings, but it beats wasting your time and energy with a submission that they already know they aren't going to want.)

In the end, it's the writing that matters, anyway. Pitching can leave an editor walking away thinking, "Dear God, I hope she can write as well as she can pitch." Sometimes they find that the people who can't pitch worth squat can write circles around the best pitcher they had that day.

Does that help?

Susan G.

Hi Josie --

Other folks can offer better input than I can ...
this would be my take --

If you see an editor at a conference, she will almost certainly request your ms.
This lets you skip the 'query' and 'partial' steps and zip right on to the 'requested ms' step.
So you save time because you don't have to do the dance with the query letter.

But the ms will still land in the 'slush pile' of requested manuscripts.
Of which there are many.

By the time the editor works her way down to your ms, she will not remember your pitch.
So -- no special consideration because she's met you.

Now you have the further advantage that your initial approach to the editor puts a full ms in front of the editor rather than just a partial.

I'm inclined to think a ms turned down as a partial would have been turned down if the full ms were presented.
But nobody who has ever been turned down on a partial is going to agree with me.

So the advantages are speeding the process
and you can spread out your wares in full.

You have to decide whether it's worth the money.

Josie, also, when submitting to HI, I would skip query and simply sent the partial. It doesn't specify on the HI guidelines, but I do know that more and more lines prefer you just send the partial. Super does. They don't want to waste their time and yours with queries. They can't tell much from a query letter.

Now, at other places, if it specifically says query first, I would follow that rule. But in this case, I'd simply send the partial.

Susan G.

Josie said:

Susan:

When you said send the partial to HI, you meant send the synopsis and partial, right?

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A partial consists of the first three chapters and a synopsis, yes.

Susan G.

Josie said:

Not a good idea at this moment, because I am going on a week's trip to San Francisco in September/also called a research trip .

Josie

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Ack, now see, you should have sceduled your research trip to San Francisco next July - that's when RWA National is going to be there.

Yes, conferences are very expensive things. :-/

Susan G.