What's In a Pitch? is a new series that takes actual novel pitches and examines why they work successfully.  This series is designed to help writers who need help composing the pitch paragraph of their query letter, or pitching an agent in person.

By the way, since I read mostly kids fiction, it will be mostly kids fiction here, too, but the framework of a successful pitch is the same no matter what category or genre you're writing.  Today's pitch to dissect is Greg Logsted's Alibi Junior High.  I saw the book at the library, read the inside cover (the pitch) and immediately wanted to read this book. 

ALIBI JUNIOR HIGH:

Thirteen-year-old Cody Saron has never lived in one place longer than a few weeks, and has never attended a regular school.  Growing up on the run with his father, an undercover agent for the CIA, Cody has traveled the entire globe; he speaks five languages; and he has two black belts.  What Cody isn't prepared for ... is junior high. 

When the danger surrounding Cody's dad heats up, Cody is sent to stay with the aunt he's never known, Jenny, in her small Connecticut suburb. Cody has no idea how to fit in with other kids, how to handle his first crush, or how to make it through a day of classes.  As Cody struggles to adapt to the one thing he's never experienced - a normal life - he starts to fear that his father's world has followed him and no one he loves is safe. 

Why does this pitch work?

Immediately we know the protagonist and his age: Cody Saron is our main character, and he is 13.  Next: His place in life is intriguing, no?  He works with his CIA agent dad and is skilled in dangerous things, such as foreign languages and combat.  And now comes the real hook: Can a kid who is prepared for any mortal danger or espianoge situation ... survive normalcy?  The hook is laid.  It's a unique take on the "fish out of water" story.

Then the "promise of the premise" is unveiled.  (Screenwriter Blake Snyder came up with this term.)  What it means is this: When you or I hear the big hook ("...survive normalcy?"), what scenes start to pop into our minds?  Cody struggling to fit in, Cody struggling to woo a girl, Cody struggling to find classrooms - these are ideas that popped into my head.  And as the pitch continues, it lets us know that those scenes are indeed in the story, thereby delivering on the promise of the premise.

The conflict is laid out and clear: Can he fit into a "normal" world?  Whether he does or doesn't, what will happen to his father?  And will his old world catch up to him in a bad way?  Multiple layers of conflict are here. 

One thing that struck me immediately was the name.  Cody SARON.  Sarin gas?  Like in The Rock?  A chemical agent used by special forces and shizz?  Good name!  Cody is like the typical boy name, and then you have a name signifying danger.  Nice combo. 

The pitch is not long - only six sentences - and it works on all levels.  We know who the character(s) is, what the conflict is, what the stakes are, and a nice hook links it all together.


Want more on this subject?    

• Read How to Establish a Connection with an Agent.
• Read about How to Make a Good Impression at a Conference.
• What's in a Pitch? Examining "The Undomestic Goddess."
• Confused about formatting? Check out Formatting & Submitting Your Manuscript.
• Read about What Agents Hate: Chapter 1 Pet Peeves.
• Want the most complete database of agents and what genres they're looking for? Buy the 2011 Guide to Literary Agents today!

I've meant to start this new series on the blog for a while now, but am just now getting around to it.

It's called "Successful Queries" and I'm posting actual query letters that succeeded in getting writers signed with agents.  In addition to posting the actual query letter, we will also get to hear thoughts from the agent as to why the letter worked. 

The first installment of this series is with agent Michelle Wolfson, and her client, Mark Di Vincenzo, and his book, Buy Ketchup in May and Fly at Noon: A Guide to the Best Time to Buy This, Do That and Go There.

Dear Ms. Wolfson,
 
Have you ever wanted to know the best day of the week to buy groceries or go out to dinner? Have you ever wondered about the best time of day to send an email or ask for a raise?  What about the best time of day to schedule a surgery or a haircut? What’s the best day of the week to avoid lines at the Louvre? What’s the best day of the month to make an offer on a house? What’s the best time of day to ask someone out on a date?

My book, Timing is Everything: A Guide to the Best Time to Buy This, Do That and Go There, has the answers to these questions and hundreds more.

As a long-time print journalist, I’ve been privy to readership surveys that show people can’t get enough of newspaper and magazine stories about the best time to buy or do things. This book puts several hundreds of questions and answers in one place -- a succinct, large-print reference book that readers will feel like they need to own. Why? Because it will save them time and money, and it will give them valuable information about issues related to health, education, travel, the workplace and more. In short, it will make them smarter, so they can make better decisions. 

Best of all, the information in this book is relevant to anyone, whether they live in Virginia or the Virgin Islands, Portland, Oregon, or Portland, Maine. In fact, much of the book will find an audience in Europe, Australia and Latin America.

I‘ve worked as a journalist since 1984 and have made a name for myself as someone who exposes wrongs, such as rampant abuses at mental hospitals and decades of neglect by government agencies that monitor the environment.  I've won numerous awards, competing against reporters from The Washington Post, The Washington Times, the Associated Press, the Richmond-Times Dispatch and The (Norfolk) Virginian-Pilot. In 1999, the Virginia Press Association created an award for the best news writing portfolio in the state – the closest thing Virginia had to a reporter-of-the-year award. I won it that year and then again in 2000. The next year I beat out reporters from The Charlotte Observer and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution to win the Southern Environmental Law Center’s first-place journalism award. I then became metro editor at a 100,000-circulation newspaper in Newport News, Va. Over the years, I’ve honed my long-form writing skills by doing magazine cover stories and writing short stories. During the summer of 2007, I left newspapering to pursue book projects and long-form journalism.

I saw your name on a list of top literary agents for self-help books, and I read on your Web site that you're interested in books that offer practical advice. Timing Is Everything offers plenty of that. Please let me know if you'd like to read my proposal.

Sincerely,
Mark Di Vincenzo  

Commentary from Michelle:

This query caught my attention and I requested it less than 3 hours after I received it.  I’m pleased to say that Mark became my client and his book, with the new title Buy Ketchup in May and Fly at Noon: A Guide to the Best Time to Buy This, Do That, and Go There will be coming out from Harper Collins in October.

I loved the opening to Mark’s query.  I tend to prefer it when authors jump right into the heart of their book, the exception being if we’ve met at a conference or have some other personal connection.  Otherwise, it’s safe to assume I know you are looking for representation and I like to get down to business.

Mark chose clever questions for the opening of the query.  All of those questions are in fact relevant to my life—with groceries, dinner, e-mail, and a raise—and yet I don’t have a definitive answer to them.  Then the next paragraph he got a little more offbeat and unusual with questions regarding surgery, the Louvre, buying a house and dating.  This showed a quirkier side to the book and also the range of topics it was going to cover.  So I knew right away there was going to be a mix of useful and quirky information on a broad range of topics. 

The next sentence was great.  By starting with “As a long-time print journalist,” Mark immediately established his credibility for writing on this topic.  While I needed more—which he provided later—this was great to know right away that he had experience researching topics.  And the second half of that sentence helped show that there is a market for this book.  This established the need for such a book.

And what do you know? Mark had the solution!  A book that answers that need.   And he does, in the rest of that paragraph.  I think he could have shortened it a drop maybe to “…hundreds of questions and answers with valuable information about issues related to…”  I would also be careful not to be too specific about how you envision the final book, and this is something I am always changing with authors in their proposals, since if editors see it differently, you may turn them off by having such a rigid format already described.  Why large print?  Who knows.  I would not put that in a query.

Mark’s next paragraph is interesting because I like it if an author can describe his target audience.  However, when most authors say their audience is everyone, as many do, I pretty much automatically reject it.  And even as I type this, a query comes in for a YA vampire novel that will, “find a market in most reading ages, similar to the first couple Harry Potter books.” But Mark’s book really does have broad market appeal and he made his point based on a regional basis rather than age, although I think it cuts both ways in this particular case.  But keep in mind this is a reference book—and facts are facts and they really do apply to all people. 

Mark’s bio paragraph is a little on the long side but offers a lot of good information.  Again, I think a journalist is the perfect background for this kind of book since being an expert on any one thing wouldn’t help; you really need to be an expert in researching information and delivering it in an entertaining readable fashion. Overall, I felt I gleaned enough information to feel confident that we could present Mark’s platform in an impressive enough manner to find a publisher.

I liked Mark’s final paragraph, of course, since it’s all about me!  Seriously though, it is nice when I feel like an author has sought me out specifically and thinks we would be a good fit.  Here I am saying Mark is going to be doing a research heavy book and he has taken the time to research agents as well and has personalized his query with a little flattery thrown in.  Always a nice touch.

Of course, now that I’m looking at the query with an eye towards critiquing the query itself, I will comment on the little nitpicky things that I notice, but wouldn’t necessarily stop me from requesting something.  Since I just mentioned personalization, I’ll say that on closer inspection, I noticed that the "Dear Ms. Wolfson," is in a different font than the rest of the query.  Now I don’t expect you to send me an exclusive query; in fact, I hate them since I then feel pressured to respond right away when that’s not how I generally work if I’m not interested.  But you could at least make me feel like you’ve typed it out just for me, and a different font calls attention to a writer's admirable, yet meant to be secret, time-saving methods.

I got in on Tuesday afternoon and visited a literary agency to meet some agents in person.

An actual NYC agent slush pile.
The real deal.

On Tuesday night I got to see a little bit of Brooklyn.  Fellow WD staffer Zac Petit and I visited Brooklyn and had drinks at the Clover Club.  That was fun because we suddenly decided to have an impromptu photo shoot with Zac's awesome camera, and we used the bar's many candles to light ourselves in different ways.  It was very high school, which is probably why it was so much fun.  Employees eventually asked us to stop.

Fun with candles in Brooklyn!  Never
underestimate the sheer entertainment
of a camera and lighting equipment.

The agent panel had the whole place roaring.  The agents were cracking jokes while answering questions. 

Following lunch, I was supposed to give a 50-minute presentation on helping writers prepare for the monster Pitch Slam to follow.  That is, I WAS, until agent Janet Reid told me ever so bluntly, that she "could do it much better" than me.  So we agreed to split the session in half.  I took the first half and give some tips.  Janet took the second half and listened to sample pitches then gave feedback on what worked and what didn't.  It all went smoothly.

Note from Janet: "What I said was 'let's give them some actual practice and examples, oh fearless leader!' Smoothly? Chuck, I shrieked, fainted, cursed and carried on. Smooth is the last thing that ever describes moi. You on the other hand ARE full of awesome."
       Janet even posted about this whole pitch event and was in awe of those brave enough to face her in front of hundreds.

After that, people started to line up and flooded in the rooms to pitch 68 agents.  Considering the insane logistics of this whole thing, it all went very well.  I have to give mad props to all the WD staffers who helped run these crazy rooms.  And also I should thank all the attendees, especially those kind souls who stopped to tell me how much they enjoy my blog/newsletter.  You guys are the best.

Following the whole shebang, I had dinner with some agents and editors at Dos Caminos in Midtown (50th and 3rd) and it was soooo good.  A great way to end the night!