Algonkian Writer Conferences / WebDelSol

What I take away from all this is that I like Francis Bruno. I hope we see more of him.

Thanks HapiSofi, Momento Moir, et al.

I'm still here. It's like passing a car accident on the highway, cursing the rubber-neckers and then slowing down yourself as you get close (except multiple times a day).

Sorry if I'm not as coherent as other people who recently posted or if I slur my words, but I just got a filling at the dentist and my mouth is numb.

I've been elsewhere on the site, posted three revisions of my opening chapter (YA SYW), posted seeking a beta (or mentor) and sent off the first three chapters to an agent on Monday, more about that in a bit.

I've actually wanted to post something for a few days, but held myself back.

I wanted to clarify that people think learning to pitch is largely useless. Is that correct? I'm not making a judgement, just wanted to clarify.

I realize that people query agents or publishers via email or post much more often than actually bumping into one and pitching, but I think that having a pitch helps you do the aforementioned things, also. This seems to be played out via the conferences either upcoming or that I have attended where they offer classes on crafting a pitch. (Not Algonkian where that is a large part, but Writers Day or Muse and the Marketplace (Grub Street))

So, back to the agent. I had signed up to pitch an agent at Writers Day through the NH writers project (A really fun event, BTW.) I had hoped my revisions would be completed before then (I signed up months ago), but thanks very much to the feedback I had gotten in SYW, I decided that I needed another re-write.

Waiting in line for the pitch, I listened to one older gentleman who had just discovered that he only had five minutes to convey his story and he said it wasn't enough time.

When I got in, I pitched in one minute and it gave me four minutes of back and forth with the agent who then requested the first three chapters that I was comfortable with sending. She understood I was a little further behind than I had wanted to be before I had met her. It also taught me a lesson to make sure that I am actually where I want to be BEFORE I set something like this up; patience isn't a strong suit of mine.

Anyways, one thing she said, which I had understood upfront, but has also been said here (and cannot be stressed enough) was that although the story was compelling, it all hinged on the writing.

Personally, the thing I've learned the most since joining AW is that I need more craft lessons. I bought the books and read them, listened to Podcasts, but I need something like Viable Paradise. Clarion is out since I cannot afford 6 weeks at this point in my life. Hopefully someday, but not now. I just need to find the time to write up the first section of my next book so I can apply. It's my understanding that VP doesn't accept submissions if they are already being submitted to agents or publishers.

I'm still lurking, just really busy putting together a synopsis and finishing my revisions in the hoped the agent likes what she saw or to submit to more when I'm actually done. (this time)

I really like the AW community even though I started my experience in the most contentious forum here.

Pitching as a skill

Here's my experience with pitching.

Back in 2005 at BEA (a paid conference in the Javits Center), I pitched my book to Lori Perkins by reading my query letter off a sheet of paper ::cringing in memory:: I also read it so fast without taking a breath because I was nervous, that we had a few minutes to talk. She requested the first three chapters. I sent it in. She passed on it.

I haven't been to a writer's conference since just because it hasn't been convenient. I've read a bit about how to pitch on the internet. I really like Janet Reid's take on it: http://jetreidliterary.blogspot.com/2011/01/difference-between-pitch-and-query.html. To tell you the truth I think that blog post spells out all you need to know.

Upcoming in May this year, my local RWA is putting on "Fiction Fest" where Deb Werksman from Sourcebooks, Suzie Townsend from FinePrint and a bunch of other agents (http://toniandrews.com/FictionFest.htm if interested) are coming in to listen to pitches.

I'm going to pitch to a few of them. I'm not going to read my query letter this time around. I'm going to follow Janet's advice.

But the bottom line is it's hard to say no to a nice person face to face. I'm betting I'm going to get a lot of "send me XXX" unless I really screw up or on the other side of the spectrum knock it out of the ball park -- and even then it would only be a full request (I say only because no one is getting signed based on their pitch). But basically, I could send my query to any of the agents coming to fiction quest and get the same response whether I pitched to them in person or not. They'll either politely decline or ask for more.

Being a member of the RWA and being a non-psycho might give me a slight edge in the slush if they remember me/my query, but I really doubt that it will give me any competitive edge over the non-pitching slushers.

So no, I don't think learning to pitch is a skill I would go to a workshop to learn or that it's really necessary. At the 2005 BEA, I did sit in on a pitch workshop where you "practiced" your pitch on other members of the group. I don't remember any of it. In fact, if my friend hadn't forced me to calm down and not run out the door, I would have never have pitched to the agent. I was really nervous because I thought "If I mess this up my writing career is OVER before it starts!" Which was nonsense, but I still felt that way. So I think a public speaking or a Dale Carnegie course might be more helpful if you are nervous like I was. Or something like the BEA where you got to do a bunch of other workshops, take a pitch course, and then pitch to a real agent/publisher. But I think you can get your work in front of agents and editors without needing to know how to pitch.

HapiSofi said:

What I take away from all this is that I like Francis Bruno. I hope we see more of him.

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Yes, absolutely! Thanks, Francis, for sharing your own experiences with such grace in this extremely odd thread.

francisbruno said:

I wanted to clarify that people think learning to pitch is largely useless. Is that correct? I'm not making a judgement, just wanted to clarify.

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If it helps people clarify their own vision of their book, it's never useless. There are some genres in which editors routinely take pitches as part of major conferences and acquire books as a result, too (the RWA pitch sessions have already been mentioned, for example). And many long conferences and workshops include pitch sessions to agents and small presses, as you mention.

I can definitely see why people who run short conferences and workshops focus on it, because it's a discrete skill that can be taught in a short span of time. The thing is that the greatest pitch in the world will get you nowhere unless you have a rock-solid manuscript and a strong cover letter to follow it up.

My own sense is that many pitch proponents are trying to bring a feature of screenwriting and TV writing into book publication. The problem is this: almost every screenplay and TV script has multiple authors. If someone pitches a salable movie idea and their writing isn't up to par, the producers can acquire it and know that a more skilled screenwriter will be able to fix the script.

That doesn't happen in publishing. The writing itself has to stand on its own merits.

francisbruno said:

I wanted to clarify that people think learning to pitch is largely useless. Is that correct? I'm not making a judgment, just wanted to clarify.

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Mostly, yes. Because even if the agent says "send me a partial," it goes to the same email address it would've gone to before, and it goes through exactly the same process.

If you can afford the money and the time, well, it's your time and money, but it's not actually buying you anything you didn't already have for free.

Moreover, what about the pitch that fails?

The other thing that worries me about the Algonkien emphasis on pitching and "New York Literary Agents" is that the language on on the site implies that there's a fast track if you follow their steps.

There isn't a fast track. There are only the words on the page. The author isn't really even that important--the words on the page are important.

And I'm glad you've stuck around Francis. You might keep an eye on some of the N.H. smaller workshops too; I know both UNH and Keene State do writer's retreats and small workshops that focus on specific topics, like dialog or plotting.

IceCreamEmpress said:

My own sense is that many pitch proponents are trying to bring a feature of screenwriting and TV writing into book publication. The problem is this: almost every screenplay and TV script has multiple authors. If someone pitches a salable movie idea and their writing isn't up to par, the producers can acquire it and know that a more skilled screenwriter will be able to fix the script.

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That's exactly how it works. Often, whether pitching for TV or film, you pitch to a group of people, and you have two and a half minutes or so. Moreover, you can be hauled out of the writer's room and have a the assistant producer or the head writer demand a pitch--which they give to someone else to writer; the importance of pitching is handing over a story in a nutshell, so tightly compressed that only the bones are there, thus making it easy to transmit the idea to another writer.

It's an entirely different kind of writing, and it's writing that takes up at most two hours on the screen in real time.

I'm not sure it does justice to any novel to compress it and reduce it that much.

Medievalist said:

Mostly, yes. Because even if the agent says "send me a partial," it goes to the same email address it would've gone to before, and it goes through exactly the same process.

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Is that actually the case? The agent I pitched handed me a card and told me to put (Writers Day) in the subject so she would know that she talked to me. I'm sure it's in her queue somewhere, but at least she might know that she requested a read and treat it a little differently. Maybe that's just wishful thinking.

Obviously the writing is all that matters once she picks it up.

I'm always on the lookout for other courses, so I'll keep my eyes open.

francisbruno said:

Is that actually the case? The agent I pitched handed me a card and told me to put (Writers Day) in the subject so she would know that she talked to me. I'm sure it's in her queue somewhere, but at least she might know that she requested a read and treat it a little differently.

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Well, it's a partial, so it will be competing for her attention with other partials she requested on the basis of their query letters. So the only step you skipped over was the query letter.

Which is cool! It's just that pitching agents in person is less time-efficient than writing query letters, so in the long run developing great query letter skills seems more useful than developing great pitch skills. (If one has to pick only one, of course, which one doesn't.)

IceCreamEmpress said:

Well, it's a partial, so it will be competing for her attention with other partials she requested on the basis of their query letters. So the only step you skipped over was the query letter.

Which is cool! It's just that pitching agents in person is less time-efficient than writing query letters, so in the long run developing great query letter skills seems more useful than developing great pitch skills. (If one has to pick only one, of course, which one doesn't.)

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Yep. Exactly. Plus, in a large agency, it means that the assistant has an easier time sorting the 350 email queries that come in a day.

IceCreamEmpress said:

It's just that pitching agents in person is less time-efficient than writing query letters, so in the long run developing great query letter skills seems more useful than developing great pitch skills.

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No disagreement here.

Luckily it's a small agency so hopefully there won't be 350 to sort through each day... Although it seems like it when I'm waiting

Hi All,
Yes, I've been lurking!!! LOL!!! I'm just curious: When you write your query letter, aren't the first two paragraphs considered "the pitch?" And then you go into your market, bio, and thanks???
Thanks,
Robin

ROF said:

When you write your query letter, aren't the first two paragraphs considered "the pitch?"

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No.

francisbruno said:

Luckily it's a small agency so hopefully there won't be 350 to sort through each day... Although it seems like it when I'm waiting

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First duty is to the authors already under contract. When you're one of them, this will seem entirely appropriate.

Hi James,

No.

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No? Really? Ok, what are those first two paragraphs considered? Is it just a way to tell the agent what your book is about, meaning you can give more detail or what? Sorry, newby here!
Thanks,
Robin

ROF said:

Hi James,
No? Really? Ok, what are those first two paragraphs considered?

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I invite your attention to this thread: http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=59255

Thanks James-I'll be reading for awhile!!!

or look here
queryshark.blogspot.com

Hi Waylander,

or look here
queryshark.blogspot.com

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Thanks for the great blog post!
Robin

Algonkian helped me

To me, the scorecard mentality for the Algonkian conference isn’t reflective of its real value. I didn’t go into it expecting to get published, and I came out of it with some important reality checks and other helpful knowledge that ultimately can make me a better and more publishable writer.

So here’s what I found I had joined: In the room were fifteen fiction writers, mostly unpublished and mostly genre writers -- mystery, YA, vampire, zombie, historical, fictionalized memoir, horror/mystery -- and a few literary fiction writers.

Michael Neff had us do some warm-up exercises before and during the first day, and then we delivered our first draft pitches. All of them needed work. Shortening, tightening, adding, whatever. More important, it was clear that the plotting and characterizations in the books in most cases needed similar work. Refining the pitch became a litmus test for the dramatic urgency and general marketability of the text. That was the unspoken theme for the next few days. If something was flawed to him, Neff’s attitude was that it was a great opportunity to find a substitute for the flaw, and make the book even more marketable. In most – not all – cases, the writer saw eye to eye, and in some cases clearly had been unwilling to face up to a bad decision that something inside them knew was a bad decision. That’s why we all need readers and editors!

Yes, most of my fellow writers thought the point of the pitch was to get the agents to buy into the book’s concept. I was probably in a minority in not caring so much about that. But most of the value that I noticed that people actually got was seeing where their books were flawed in tone, voice, plotting, arc or characterizations. All of that was visible without anyone reading a single passage from their manuscript.

By the second day when the agents started to appear, most of the pitches were ready. The agents were struck by how many good pitches they were hearing. They were dropping their cards, and coming up to individuals afterward and asking to see the manuscripts. Just as telling, when the agents were skeptical of a pitch, they were in amazing lockstep with what Michael Neff had predicted and talked about with each of us as we refined our pitches beforehand. The weaknesses he saw, if they were still in the pitches, turned off the agents. So much in publishing is fashion, especially in genre publishing. Fairies are done. Zombies are on their last legs. Oh, that’s a twist to vampires I haven’t heard; show me more. For YA to work, the lead girl has to be recognizable here and here and here. Is your protagonist doing that? Those sorts of things. I pitched literary fiction, and the questions were the same kind.

As writers we would like to think that our rhetoric is most important. The writing is what sells, right? But agents have two gates: Plot and writing. The value of the pitch is that it persuades them that this beautifully written manuscript won’t devolve into 200 pages of angst and interior dialogue without action. Their main task day and night is to read and read and read. The pitch gives them the OK to take a longer chance on a book.

And while a hugely flawed plot can’t be improved by an editor, badly flawed writing can. There isn’t such a thing as a “good enough” plot. But there is such a thing as “good enough” writing. Go to a bookstore and pick up the books with the glossy jackets.

Meanwhile, Michael Neff took us through a lot of pithy, great readings and notes on how to outline and manage plot. I came away with five or six tools for making my process of plotting and writing more efficient. How many workshops offer that? If you’re like me, it had been many years since I refreshed my vocabulary for plotting and characterization. Neff has some brilliant little tools. They integrate well with the pitch refinement, too.

He’s no Marilynne Robinson or Bharati Mukherjee, two writers I’ve been lucky enough to study with. They helped me learn how to build a sentence, and maintain a voice. But I daresay that a much smaller percentage of the people in one of their workshops will eventually publish a novel than people in Neff’s. Part of it’s self-selection. Just being that interested in an agent-centric workshop means the writer is that hungry to produce a readable, publishable book. Lots of literary workshop participants are stuck in wanting to be a better writer qua beautiful phrases, of wanting to be more self-expressive, and those can be identities that don’t result in writing that carries the interest of a general audience. Readers have expectations, and a pitch exercise hones the book to the readers’ expectations.

I think the agents probably do automatically give a better look at a manuscript from a client of one of Neff’s workshops. But that’s not the whole value. I got some good practice on my chops during the workshop, and immediately afterward started churning out stories with much more efficiency than before. I didn’t expect to get a book published from attending, but I have no doubt that I will get a book published quicker because of what I heard and learned.

NealAllen said:

I think the agents probably do automatically give a better look at a manuscript from a client of one of Neff’s workshops.

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I agree that when writers meet and talk with an agent at any writers' conference or workshop, that agent is going to pay some special attention to any manuscripts they request from those writers, just because some level of connection has been established.

Whether that attention results in an offer of representation, though, is still going to depend on how strong the manuscript is.

Thanks for sharing your own experiences. Glad to hear you enjoyed the workshops.

Thanks

I just wanted to say thank you to all that cautioned about this conference. I was on the phone to my husband telling him the only way I would probably become published was to go to this conference. Then I did what I always do. I researched. Found this thread and read it through. Invaluable. I've since joined the community. Thanks again to everyone willing to face conflict in order to help authors find their way.

Hope you stick around! There's lots of helpful information here.

I attended one of Neff's conferences a few years ago. Almost exactly two years ago to be exact. It was my first conference. About half-way through I realized it was a scam.

Well, that's not true. It was NOT a scam. It was an attempt for Neff to make some money and he did offer a service for it. But the field had definitely NOT been vetted as claimed. There were some real nuts and crackpots in there. Ultimately I got little from the experience and no one in my group got an agent or a deal of any kind out of it.

But that isn't the end of the story. I met my writing partner at that conference. But it wasn't until six months after the conference we realized we were made for one another. Without her I'd have quit writing at least a year ago. Now I have the best products I've ever had and recently got offered a three book publishing deal. None of that would have happened without Terri, who I met at an Algonkian Conference. She and I have been to two other conferences since then, and work together almost every, single day. She is the other half of my brain. The sine to my cosine. Together we are transcendental. But only in a literary sense. We are both still happily married to the same people we were before meeting.

And that is the reality of conferences. It isn't what you get from a conference, it is what you take from a conference. There's only so much Michael Neff or anyone else can do for you at a conference. It is up to you to meet people, find the ones who help you and who you can help, and make literary history.

So: Algonkian Conference? The best I've ever been to.

I think I feel a blog post coming on...

Hi John,
Welcome aboard!