Pitching Your Book

K
Hello, my beautiful cinnabar moths or any kind of moth you’d like to be. Welcome to The Writer’s Triangle, a podcast about publishing and all things books. And today we’re going to talk about pitching your book. So I think for a lot of authors, there’s some mystery around how do agents and publishing houses make decisions about which books to buy. And I’m very fortunate and that I belong to a lot of indie publishing different groups and different go to attend different conferences in session, I do actually get to talk to agents, I’m always curious how agents make their decisions, versus how a press makes their decisions. And I was surprised to find out, at least at the indie press level, that it’s all very much the same. And we don’t always go based off of and this might sound horrible, we don’t always go based off of our submission pile. And so submitting directly to an agent or submitting directly to a press, you’re also in competition with what they find on their own through their own discovery methods. And I found that we all have the same discovery methods. And that is, we’re all on social media. And we’re all talking with authors on social media. And sometimes something an author does can inspire us to want to work with them. And as soon as we, as soon as we’re inspired to want to work with someone, they jumped the line. And we find that we’re not being faithful to our submission, stack, and to our our to be read list or TBR. And that’s because we’re people. And this really is I say it all the time, is an industry of relationships. So I advise authors to start pitching their book, as soon as they start writing their book, and have a social media presence. We had one author who I came across their Nano, I think it’s called Nano Rio de writing competition, I came across their thread about their writing process on Twitter. And it was just really interesting to me, it completely fascinated me. And I liked their tweets. And I started having conversations with them about their process and encouraging them on the way and through this process of interacting on social media, I became really invested in the book. But I also became really invested in the author and I really wanted them to do well. And when their book was finished, I was like, Hey, can you send me the first three chapters I, I’d love to read the book. And it was a really rough draft, their first three chapters, I read, the first three chapters fell in love, and we got into a development deal, where I help them fix up some of the storytelling issues that I felt, were in the book and ended up publishing their work, and I’m very, very happy the book is selling well, they’re doing great. Their story is not my story to tell. So I’m not going to name them, I’m not going to give any specific names, because some of the authors, I know that I’m going to talk about them before I get on the mic, and I’ll ask them, and other authors, it just comes out spontaneously. And if I don’t have permission to tell their story, I don’t name them. So I just like to be considerate in that way. So that’s one way that that really talking about the process of, of your book on social media, and they have a rather small social media following. So it wasn’t the size of their following. It was just their commitment to this thread, where they were honestly documenting their process. And I just absolutely just really, really enjoyed interacting with them. I just really felt connected to them. And I thought, you know, this is someone I would really like to work with. And that’s something that all of us are doing in publishing is we’re not just deciding if we want to publish the book, we’re deciding if we want to work with you. And that really not to be pointed, but that really is it’s a long term relationship that we’re getting into right? Especially if we’re if you’re a small press or an agent, you’re going to be working with this person for years. And having that be a positive process and having it be someone that you believe in someone that you want to invest your time into someone that you’re that you feel connected to on a personal level, not is so rewarding when you’re in their process. And also on the other side of it if sales aren’t what we predict it’s going to be it helps you stay connected and helps you stay as a press and helps me You stay invigorated and excited about promoting and, and entering the books into awards and such.

K
And some awards. They look at the character of the person. And some awards have author specific, defining things. And so when I’m looking at authors, I’m also thinking about awards, and the different awards that require different things from authors. And all of that goes into every book decision that we make. And I’m, I was really surprised that the agents are making these same types of decisions, that they’re also thinking about the award process. And they’re thinking about book lists than book clubs. And where will this author fit in? And how will this author and how, who this author is impact the promotion of their book, and impact the promotion of their favorite ability for different reading list. And I think that, that knowing that, that the whole package, that you and your book are a package from the moment you start writing it, I think might help some authors, land agents and land book deals. And so that’s why I’m talking about how to pitch your book. And I think one of one of the best authors experience I’ve had in terms of a book is for the bleak fall series that we haven’t published yet, but we’ve purchased is coming out in 2024. And Shaughnessy Highcroft did such a wonderful job on Twitter, with the Twitter pitch with fantastic mood boards, I was really struck by the mood board for bleak faults, it just spoke to my heart. It really did the first time I saw it, I just felt so drawn in. It was such a gorgeous mood board. It was black and white, it had nine images. And then it said Bleak Falls in the center. And I was like, Ooh, I want to know more about that book. Like the name of it was just so interesting to me. And then the the mood board didn’t really give anything away. It was so titillating. And what I found titillating about it was there were no faces. And I find mood boards that don’t have any faces to be really interesting. And just having abstract details. And it had like a young sort of punk, hard rock kind of vibe to it that was really dark and foreboding and not just suck me in. And then there was like five bullet points about Bleak Falls in a great tagline and is just like, this is a great pitch. And I was so drawn. And then as I got to know her as an author, I was just really drawn in because I read the pages. And I was like, This feels like the most non political political book ever. It just spoke to me on so many different levels. It was such a fun story. It was so creative. And I felt that, you know, this could be seen through a political lens. And we’re talking about cryptoads. And we’re talking about in groups and out groups, and we’re talking about state police and secret police and, you know, magical towns and I don’t want to give too much away because I want to spoil the story.

K
I saw that some people might be drawing some political parallels. And in the conversations back and forth, I really felt like she can handle any angle that the reader is coming to this book from coming to this series from and really, she can converse in a way that that felt right and true and authentic. And honest to me and it it made me super, super excited about the book and super super excited to work with her. And what that has led to is there’s a year of promotion and advance of the book coming out this book is being promoted even before we have a cover because she’s doing an amazing job of creating bonus material and and we just have scads and scads of bonus material because this role is so well thought out. And I was like, wow, she gets it and not made me excited and author who gets it an author who’s speaking about her books and doing all of this before it’s just a presses dream, right, is to get an author who’s excited about their book who’s comfortable talking about their book and uncomfortable promoting their book. And that’s the vibe that I got through interacting on social media and it made me super excited about the series and it makes me super excited. had to talk about it. You see, it’s here on the podcast, Master kind of thing that you want. That’s the reaction that you’re trying to create in the person that you query. And I think that’s so important, more important than any specific book that I talk about from us. Listen to my energy, listen to my point of view, listen to what’s inspiring me. And know that that’s actually what you have to do as an author, I think it’s so unfair. And it’s, it’s so hard. And there’s so many good books out there, written by amazing people that just don’t connect with agents and don’t connect with the people who are making the decisions. Because they’re not having that 360 view, as horrible and trendy and icky as that, you know, 360 views sounds like you’re having to look at everything and you’re having to be a brand. That’s always been the nature of the business. It’s not just because of social media, it’s really down to do I want to work with you. And the agents are making the same decision. Not only do I have to love your story, but I kind of have to fall in love with you a little bit. Because we’re going to be in a very intimate relationship. And if you’re going to be an author, we have authors that do zero promotion of their books, once we publish them.

K
And one example of that is Hector Duarte Jr, who I am just, I just love the their view, I love what they’re doing in the literary space. They write bilingually and I just love normalizing language switching most of the world is multilingual. And I, I love that point, it’s just done so effortless, effortlessly with great storytelling. And the books still feel really accessible. They’re not on social media. They don’t promote the book at all. As far as, as I can tell, it’s just down to us. And our PR list basically, that does all of the promotion. And, you know, we send it out for rewards for awards and, and different lists. But the reason that I believe in this author so much is we met because I did and we had an open submissions for short stories. So if a press or an agent has an involvement with a relationship with something that produces short stories, it is absolutely worthwhile if you’re a novelist to, to write some short stories, and get your name out there in that space, because we met when I met Hector, when we were doing our Anthology, and I just really enjoy the way his mind works. And I enjoy his worldview. And I like talking with him, and I enjoy interacting with him. So it makes me excited about him as an author, it makes me excited about what he has to say in the literary space, as I said before, so it’s not just about being on social media, not the only way to make a connection. But you have to be doing something that is going to get you in front of or engaged with the people who are decision makers, whether that’s going to a book fair, whether that’s going online to see who has opened submission calls, whether that’s writing for a small, you know, writing short stories, or poetry, you have to be doing something that’s going to have people meet you. And how are you going to do that is really down to you. I have another great example of an Instagram a book that I bought from off of Instagram. I was just going through Instagram and I I saw some this incredible art. And I was really drawn to the art. It was just eye catching. And I loved it. And I started conversing with the artist about it. And they DM me, and they were like, hey, you know, I checked out your website, and I really like what you have going on as a press. What kind of books are you looking for? I know that your subs are closed. And I was like, Yeah, I know our subs are closed, and we’re just having a conversation back and forth. And I got really invested in them.

K
And I said, you know, if you’re willing to wait until 2025, you know, and we’re talking. We were talking to each other in 2022. And I just feel like that’s a really long time to ask somebody to wait, even though it’s the average waiting time. They said, Yeah, we’re willing to wait, I’m willing to wait and I said, okay, right on, send me your book. I read their book and it needed some developmental work. I As most books that I just purchased off of getting to know an author, I know that this probably going to be a developmental journey. And you know how much I love, first time authors and being open to that, think the next podcast. Next episode, I’m going to talk about how to handle the editing process because it can be rough. But I find that it’s just so rewarding. And I love investing. And first time authors, and especially an author that’s been trying to get their book published for a decade. And we have several authors that their journey was a decade long. And so I tell people, don’t give up believing your artistry, believing in your talent, and get to know people and talk to as as many people as you can. And so, when it comes to pitching your book, if somebody is liking social media post, the thing to do is to respond and start a conversation with them about it. And then check out their website, check out their feed their social media feed, and see what they have going on. And ask them questions about their point of view on writing and literature and just have a really casual conversation, and then say, Hey, would you be interested in publishing my work? Or would you be interested and representing me, don’t start with the hard sell and the hard pitch. For me, I have some authors that come on too strong, too fast, and it shuts me down. Like will be a like a post that they have on their timeline that is not specific to any pitch, because like when you’re doing a pitch, you know, hey, if I like it, I want you to submit to me, I want you to query me. But if I’m just liking something that’s not part of a pitch contest, that’s an opportunity for you to start a conversation with me, rather than do a hard sell.

K
So I find the soft pitches more effective with my temperament and easier to get my buy in than having, I’d like to post and then you hit my DMs that and you hit my DNS with, Hey, I’ve got a book, do you want to publish it? What you’re going to get in that case is you’re going to get I’m sorry, our subs are closed until January right now currently, in August of 2023. They’re closed until January 2024. And I’m probably going to have to extend that a bit. Because we don’t have any openings until 2027. And so I like to open our subs, when we can get a book published any year is when our subs are open. And I also open our subs, when all of our known authors, all of the authors known to us that we have relationships with, I asked them first if they want to be on the calendar before I open our subs. And that’s another barrier that I think that a lot of authors are unaware of something that we do is that submissions are closed means several different things when agents are close to new clients. And when presses are close to submissions, there’s different levels of close like right now, we’re hard close. But I have to be honest, for the books that we that are part of a series. If an author wanted to add a book to that series, I would put them on schedule. Because that’s a continuation of the series. And then there’s a close to people that are known to us. And in that case, we had an author that had written a book with us and they said, Hey, I’m writing this other book that wasn’t part of a series. Would you like to publish it? And I said, Sure, but you know, it’s going to be several years out. And they were like, That’s fine. They were fine to wait, you know, a couple years to get it published. And that’s great. And then there’s the submissions are closed for authors we know and friends of authors, we know where as and that happened to us last year ourselves reclosed, an author that we had worked with whose book got away. I always think of it as the one that got away. We couldn’t quite close the deal. But we still have a very friendly relationship. I still love their books still support their book and the work that they do. They referred as an author to us and I read the book and I enjoyed it and we had a developmental process. And their book will be coming out with us, I think next year. So that those are the different levels and that’s what you’re coming up against when you’re looking at pitching your book.

K
Now, I think it’s important to keep that in mind, because I want you to start thinking about the relationships you’re creating and the relationships you’re not creating. And that’s more important. If you go to an author’s reading, right? If you, if you’re local, if your local bookstore has an author who is giving a reading of their book, and you’re also an author, that’s a great opportunity for you to go to that reading, talk to the author, get to know them, and get them to maybe do a blurb in your book, and maybe introduce you to their agent, or maybe introduce you to a press and say, Hey, I’ve met this author, they’re really cool. I read their pages, what do you think about giving them a chance. And that is another way that you pitch your book. So it’s not just always the hard pitch for me, it starts with relationship development first. And then mentioning that you have a book, getting to know something about me getting to know something about cinnabar. Moth press, saying something meaningful, interacting with our social media, interacting with our authors, developing those personal relationships, so that they can advise you on how to approach their agent, that they can advise you on how to approach their press, and tell you what’s the best way to do it. All of this happens before the query letter ever gets written, and ever gets sent. And if all of this goes well, you never have to query, instead, you’re just in the lane where you’re pitching. And if you want to draw attention, where it’s more positive, and you’re just putting information out, and you want to catch someone’s eye, then that is about being on social media. And it is about really creating striking images. And so for me, I want to give some rules of thumb for mood boards, if you’re trying to catch my eye with the mood board. If you put a person’s face on it, I feel like all the mystery is lost. And I don’t even read the tweet that goes with it. I’m not saying that to be mean, I’m just sharing information that is specific to Christopher and cinnabar. Moth press. This is the case also for some of the agents that I know but not for all of them. Some of them really like having a character image on it. So you just have to think about the type of press that you’re going and know that you can’t do anything that’s going to please, everybody. So the main thing is with creating a live board, have it be true to you have it be honest to the story haven’t fit the story that they’re going to read that’s associated with that mood board, because Bleak Falls is dark, but it’s also funny, and quirky and engaging. And I just I love it. I’m just so in love with the world that it’s in and, and all of the characters and the mood board really fit well. It just was a really good representative representation of the story I was going to read and when it comes to, like the I love bullet points. And for me if he can do a bullet point, like, you know, deal with the devil sacrifice of self, time, travel, whatever, just like some quick little snappy thing, 200 year old werewolf, just do three or four of those, and then give a really great tagline for a book that will catch our eye and draw us and give a little bit of what to expect. And all of our books have a tagline. I’m going to put a link down to cinnabar moth pressed our website for you to just go and check out all of our cinnabar moth books that that have because they are the tagline. And the reason that they all have a tagline is because we put them on books, sirens and books has give us a tagline and make it witty and so bad sort of just develop the habit but it’s also really great to use and promoting of the book and it’s also really great for tweets. I will say that our first book has my favorite tagline is teas tea centers, Claire knows only bad girl shoot people and set fires, that being good won’t save her best friend. And that encapsulates the main characters so well that I just absolutely love it. And everybody has responded well and everybody, the book will wreck you not my raucous will rathkeale But at the end of it you will be satisfied and whole I just want everybody whenever I talked about that, but because that was my experience the book wreck me, killed me And then rested me gently to stop. And I felt like okay, and when I closed the book, I felt really satisfied.

K
And I was like, Okay, that was that was a rough but but fulfilling ride, having a tagline and having a mood board and having art that reflects all of that is part of pitching your book. And as part of drawing your audience in, and as part of creating an audience for your book, before your books ever published, and before your book, even has a deal that can make or break your relationships and your ability to have a successful query. Because I’ll be honest, when someone sends me a query, I do go look at their social media. And if there’s nothing about their book on their social media, and I don’t know them, there, my entire relationship with that author is the query letter. And it’s really, really hard to write a query letter that creates a personal relationship. And if that’s your starting place, and then you don’t have social media, and you don’t have art, and you don’t have anything that tells me anything about you, as an author, your racks in that query letter, have to speak to me, you’re not your racks, your comps, rather, your comparison titles in that query letter have to speak to me they have to be books that I know, books that I love, and books that when I read your first three chapters, I do a partial read for everything, I always just do the first three chapters. And that’s pretty much the industry standard. I advise when you do a query letter, be the first three chapters, but read everybody’s query instructions. And then those first three chapters better be correct. Find dv, at that those books I love, because that, for me is a huge disconnect, where a lot of authors fall short when they finally get to that queering space. So basically, it boils down to what I say almost every time I talk about selling books is it’s personal relationships, the fastest way to sell your book is to make me care about you, the author.

K
Because if I care about you, the author and your books, not there, I will do a development deal with you, because I’m invested in your success, I want you to have the thrill of signing a contract, having your book published out there in the world, because I care about you. And I want you to have a positive experience in the industry. And in the publication process. And that makes me very protective of every author that we work with, I genuinely care about all of them on a personal level. And I genuinely care about their books deeply. I love every book that we’ve published, I’ve enjoyed reading, every book that we’ve published, and I have a relationship. And these characters are real to me, they become like these characters become part of my my world in my universe as any good book does, right? So that’s something to think about when you’re pitching your book, is think about what happens before the query, think about how you can make those relationships. And think about how you can develop yourself as a brand that’s authentic to you. Because if your brand is I’m not a brand, that’s completely a brand, and I hate to break it to you. But your identity becomes then what I’m connecting with. And I really, genuinely like every author that we publish, I’m genuinely care about them. And I think because we’re a micro press, we publish 11 books a year, that that becomes super important. And I know for Asians, that becomes important. And I did talk with some with some people that work for big four. And I was surprised to hear that that was the case, even for them. And I’m like but y’all are publishing 1000s of books a year. And they’re like, No, I’m not. I’m one person you think I’m really did making a decision on 1000s of books a year. And so looking at no matter what level you’re trying to achieve. There’s always a person behind that process. And that’s who you want to connect with. And you want them to realize that there is a person behind your book and that’s who they want to connect with. And that’s what sells books. It’s connections. I hope this is helpful in the pitch process and has kind of opened your mind to understanding when the pitch process begins, and how you can start pitching your book as you’re writing it and how You can help people get invested in your story and get invested and you as an author, I want to thank all of our beautiful cinnabar moths for listening. You don’t have to be a cinnabar moth you can be any kind of moth you want to be or you can even be a butterfly but I’m not Mariah Carey, and I’m not trying to bite her rhyme. Bye