Tips for PitMad – Twitter Pitch Event

Hello to whoever is reading this, welcome! If you’ve stumbled on this post it’s because you’re looking to participate in PitMad on either December 3rd or September 3rd and are looking for some tips on timing and well, what sells in terms of pitches? I am absolutely no expert but I did land my two agents during a pitch event (LatinxPitch) and have learned a thing or two about pitching and would love to extend the knowledge that I have to the rest of you awesome writers out there! I also thought typing everything up here may be a little easier to read through than a Tweet thread!

When you first participate in PitMad, a few things run through your head, when should I pitch, what should I pitch, how do I pitch, what are the rules? Let’s get started!

1. Tweet Early

I’ve been getting this question a lot recently in my Twitter DM’s: when should I send out my pitch? This is a great question that I can provide a simple answer for:

You will want to send out your first pitch as soon as the event starts which is 8am EST (5AM PST) and if you can’t send it out exactly at 8am, shoot for sending it out close enough to that time. Why? Most agents are up early in the morning itching just as much as you are to jump in and snag up all of your amazing pitches! This is such an exciting and wonderful event that the newsfeeds starts to get FLOODED with pitches, so you want to make sure yours is set and ready to go!

BUT I’M NOT A MORNING PERSON/I’LL BE AT WORK

Ditto to both of those statements, there’s a solution for us, don’t you worry! You can pre-plan your pitches and schedule your tweets by using Tweet Deck! I did this for my first PitMad and I can tell you, it worked! I scheduled my posts the night before and they were all sent out on time!

2. Be Concise

This is extremely hard to do and something I myself struggle with outside of Twitter, hello we’re story teller’s, we’re not meant to be concise! Until today. PitMad forces us to consolidate our 60,000 to 150,000 word book into a measly 260 character long tweet so conciseness is our only option and our only friend if we want to fit our comp titles, our pitch, and our hashtags at the bottom. Practice your pitches and get rid of unnecessary wordy-words, you know the kind I’m talking about.

3. FOLLOW THE FORMULA

A formula that has been spread around Twitter and has helped me a lot in terms of pitching is simply this: MC (main character) + Plot + Stakes = why the hell an agent cares. You want to hook your agent like a reader, you can name your MC or say a young man/young woman, etc! But you want the agent to follow okay, “When MC does blank this happens and this is what can go wrong/what they will lose.” Even leaving the agents on a bit of a cliff hanger is okay as well! I will post snippets of my pitches at the end of this post that I used for LatinxPitch so you can get an idea of where my head space was at!

4. Use Relevant Comp Titles!

This is very important, if you want your dream agent to get an idea of the ‘vibe,’ or feel of your book make sure that you use comparable titles that describes it well! I have found that popular/known titles have helped me i.e. Gilmore Girls x Buffy the Vampire Slay and the movie Split meets Annabel Lee. You want to use titles that people will know, ones that will gain traction.

5. Utilize Your Hashtags!

Make sure that you do not forgot to add in your hashtags to your pitch! First of all they are needed to participate in the event/get seen but you also want to make sure that you are reaching the right agents with your pitch. For example, if you are trying to target an agent that enjoys and/or specializes in Thriller novels then you will want to use #T at the end of your pitch, I will leave a link to PitMad’s rules for the event and hashtags to use right here: https://pitchwars.org/pitmad/

6. Pin Your Tweet

Remember to pin your favorite pitch/the pitch that has the most traction thus far to your profile so when you share other writers tweets, your pitch doesn’t get lost in the shuffle on your profile!

7. Have Fun

Remember, this is a STRESSFUL event! To sit there and put together a condensed version of your book is A LOT of work and brain power so when the time comes for you to tweet your pitches/ideas into the Twitterverse, remember, this is meant to be a fun and exciting time! The rush you feel when you send out your pitches and receive likes, comments, or follows is out of this world to describe, so remember have fun with it!

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A List of Do’s and Don’ts

Do:

Retweet, quote tweet, and comment on other writer’s pitches to show support! Try not to retweet like crazy as you do not want to drown the entire feed and get locked out of sharing posts. I suggest commenting and QRT!

Don’t:

Like other writer’s pitches. I understand you want to encourage other writer’s and cheer them on, hell, that’s what we look forward to in these events (aside from interest from agents) but please, for the love of humanity, do not like other writer’s pitches. Why? Liking pitches is for agent’s only during these pitch events. When a mix of writers and agents start to like a certain pitch, the agent likes get lost in the shuffle! Imagine being at work, coming back to 100 likes on your post and seeing some familiar names of agents throughout the day but then when you go to look for them, they aren’t coming up because Twitter only allows you to see your last 50 likes.

Do:

Have 3 pitches ready PER manuscript and spread your pitches out throughout the day!

Don’t:

Create a thread of pitches, tweet more than 3 pitches per manuscript, nor add any pictures/gifs to your pitch unless it’s a graphic novel!

Do:

Use hashtags to attract your dreams agents

Don’t

Pitch them directly or tag them UNLESS specifically asked for it on their profile!

Do:

Have fun during this event and interact with other querying writers! You can meet some incredible people during this event and grow your follower count with like-writers!

Don’t:

Worry about the amount of likes you receive during this event! Some incredible pitches get lost in the shuffle and not all agents get a chance to see your ideas! Remember that as long as they are open to queries, you can still query these agents without a like.

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My Pitches from LatinxPitch:

One Final Note:

I cannot stress this enough, do not fret if you do not receive a lot of like or any likes, my first time pitching I received 2 likes. I was new and I had no idea what I was doing and having that struggle of condensing my ideas down to a simple tweet – plus, though I knew my story and my characters, I feel like I didn’t know them well enough back then. Even if you are confident in your pitches and they are amazing (which I’m sure they will be), sometimes the greatest pitches often either get overlooked or lost in the sea of other awesome pitches. Have fun with this day and interact with your fellow writers, we are all cheering each other on on this stressful but great day! Remember to share other’s pitches but DO NOT like them. I wish you ALL a ton of luck! Though we are only hours away, if anybody needs any help perfecting their pitches, even the day of, feel free to DM on Twitter or message me through here.

My Twitter: https://twitter.com/Amandabadillo25

My Fiverr: https://www.fiverr.com/share/XX1QVm & https://www.fiverr.com/share/a7D35W

PitMad Rules: https://pitchwars.org/pitmad/

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