Pitch Wars is no more.

[EVanMoore]

I wasn't sure if anyone else had seen the news that Pitch Wars will not be happening anymore.

I thought it was a cool idea, but never submitted to it myself. Curious if anyone has any thoughts on this? Are you sad? Disappointed? Feel like it was a good choice?

Also, sorry if this is in the wrong section. It seemed so Social Media heavy that I thought this was the right forum for this post ....

 

[Cobalt Jade]

It was a good idea at first, then, like so many social media things (like bucket challenges) it just got out of hand and became Too Much. I can see how it would suck up huge amounts of an agent's time and energy.

I pitched a work just for fun and got one or two offers to send a manuscript, one from a problematic publisher that isn't around any more. The manuscript wasn't complete so I didn't follow up.

 

[gtanders]

@Woollybear pointed out to me that it was getting weird. Agents looking for mentors as writers seeking agents...

 

[Woollybear]

That was so bizarre. The agent stepped down from being selected and the mentors then picked a fantastic writer (who is not an agent) as their mentee.

But it was a weird day on twitter, that day was.

 

[Nether]

Yeah, that's an obvious eligibility issue even if a lot of agents aspire to write themselves.

Anyway, there was another topic about this somewhere. I believe either the consensus -- or maybe just my opinion -- was the whole thing got too big and it'd slowly stopped working.

It sucks because I only learned about relatively recently and subbed one thing to it. I'd hoped to have another go but then it closed.

 

[EVanMoore]

That was so bizarre. The agent stepped down from being selected and the mentors then picked a fantastic writer (who is not an agent) as their mentee.

But it was a weird day on twitter, that day was.

Ooooh I missed all of this tea. Can anyone fill me in?

 

[Woollybear]

I mentally blocked the names and much of the story shortly thereafter (early last November, if that helps), but it definitely was a sticky situation for a few days.

Here's a different thing entirely: A kind of pitch wars data analysis that I've always wondered about.:

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1437119793816088579

 

[Maggie Maxwell]

A shame, but not a surprise. Pitch Wars and Pitmad got too big to be beneficial to most people. They were fun for a while, and we got some good books out of it, no doubt, but it's outgrown itself.

 

[EVanMoore]

I mentally blocked the names and much of the story shortly thereafter (early last November, if that helps), but it definitely was a sticky situation for a few days.

Here's a different thing entirely: A kind of pitch wars data analysis that I've always wondered about.:

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1437119793816088579

Very interesting! I never thought it would immediately lead to representation. I'm a tad surprised at the 43(ish)% rate, but I don't know what I was expecting.

 

[gtanders]

Very interesting! I never thought it would immediately lead to representation. I'm a tad surprised at the 43(ish)% rate, but I don't know what I was expecting.

That's... incredible. I work in marketing, and that conversion rate is to die for.

 

[Woollybear]

Very interesting! I never thought it would immediately lead to representation. I'm a tad surprised at the 43(ish)% rate, but I don't know what I was expecting.

Right? I have no idea what to expect. I think it fits with the idea of 'you need to reach a certain level, and after that it's out of your control.'

It helps me to know that plenty of the unselected manuscripts were also published without Pitch Wars.

 

[Woollybear]

That's... incredible. I work in marketing, and that conversion rate is to die for.

But it's a conversion rate after the thousands of potential products (hopeful writers) are culled for the top few percent....

Does that pertain to the analysis?

 

[gtanders]

But it's a conversion rate after the thousands of potential products (hopeful writers) are culled for the top few percent....

Does that pertain to the analysis?

I think so. In marketing terms, a conversion rate that high is usually only found at the bottom of the funnel, where the sale is close to closing. That's what's so surprising. It makes me think Pitch Wars was happening way closer to the bottom of the funnel than I realized.

Dang, why'd it have to end?

 

[Nether]

Dang, why'd it have to end?

Because we can't have nice things

 

[Brigid Barry]

I wasn't sure if anyone else had seen the news that Pitch Wars will not be happening anymore.

I thought it was a cool idea, but never submitted to it myself. Curious if anyone has any thoughts on this? Are you sad? Disappointed? Feel like it was a good choice?

Also, sorry if this is in the wrong section. It seemed so Social Media heavy that I thought this was the right forum for this post ....

I am quite bummed about it. Not because I really got anywhere but WOW was it great for building your Twitter feed to connect with other writers like that! Most of my Twitter connections happened because of PitMad.

ETA: Here's the link to the announcement.

 

[EVanMoore]

I am quite bummed about it. Not because I really got anywhere but WOW was it great for building your Twitter feed to connect with other writers like that! Most of my Twitter connections happened because of PitMad.

ETA: Here's the link to the announcement.

I'm new to Twitter but the writing community on there is AMAZING. I love it!

 

[Woollybear]

Here's another new opportunity. Write Hive is fantastic.

http://writehive.org/home/mentorship-program/

 

[Woollybear]

I forget all the threads that we use to track new online pitching opportunities but evidently Savvy Authors has put one together.

https://savvyauthors.com/community/help/pitchrules/

Next one is fall 2023.

 

[Woollybear]

Here's another new opportunity. Write Hive is fantastic.

http://writehive.org/home/mentorship-program/

The 2023 conference is FREE and starts tomorrow. Lots of great sessions, great community.

https://writehive.org/writehive-annual-conference/

 

[lorna_w]

For the short period of time I pissed away my writing time on social media, I picked one pitch wars or pitch mad (I forget which) and did some careful following up on the requests for partials, all that I could find. I looked up everybody involved. Exactly zero requests were by good agents. All but one of the "agents" didn't have a single Big Five publication to their credit and exactly 0 of them lived in the NYC metro area. Anyone can say "I'm an agent" and throw up a website, I noted. As you can get to small publishers directly, there's no point to getting an agent to do that for you (except handing a stranger 15% of your income, which if you want to do, is odd to me but also fine by me.) Maybe this was one strange instance I chose, but I chose to do it because of seeing a post by some excited writer before that and chasing down who'd asked for her mss... and I was singularly unimpressed with who had.

What you want on social media is not writers following you but paying readers. If you start writing to/for authors on your feed, you're not talking to the right people on your social media about the right things with the right mindset for growing your audience or serving your existing readers. Having 3000 Twitter followers that are mostly writers and none of them buying your new book or sale book means you're not leveraging social media well. You're, in effect, letting the bear eat you. You're supposed to be eating the bear.

 

[Mevrouw Bee]

Having 3000 Twitter followers that are mostly writers and none of them buying your new book or sale book means you're not leveraging social media well. You're, in effect, letting the bear eat you. You're supposed to be eating the bear.

Unless you're like me and you're on Twitter to engage with other writers, not to sell books.

Some of us aren't able to meet other writers face-to-face.

 

[J. A. Zentner]

I wasn't sure if anyone else had seen the news that Pitch Wars will not be happening anymore.

I thought it was a cool idea, but never submitted to it myself. Curious if anyone has any thoughts on this? Are you sad? Disappointed? Feel like it was a good choice?

Also, sorry if this is in the wrong section. It seemed so Social Media heavy that I thought this was the right forum for this post ....

I did pitch wars probably three or four times and I say good riddance. I'm sure it might have helped a few authors back in its conception, but a few writers out of thousands upon thousands of pitches is not necessarily a formula for success. Pitches are nice and all, but sending them into the flood of social media is about as effective as yelling the pitch on top of a roof in New York City at five in the afternoon. And I would imagine agents don't have time to find the next big pitch on twitter when they already have the slush pile of formal queries that come with query letters and novel excerpts. Pitch wars was fun, making you think more about how to sell your book, how to utilize social media, but for all intents and purposes, it only served a very lucky few.

And there were people who didn't know how it worked, liking your tweet, giving you a false sense of hope until you saw their profile list student as a profession.

 

[taylorquills]

This is disappointing to me, but only because I LOVED going through the #PitMad tag and seeing everyone's pitches and comp titles and moodboards. I never got the chance to participate myself, so the discontinuation doesn't really affect me too much, but I'm bummed that I won't be able to scroll through and get inspired by the tag anymore!

 

[Brigid Barry]

DV Pit at least is moving to Discord, so I would like to think others might find other platforms as well.