Video Transcript (computer generated - may contain errors)

Sara Gentry: Hi writers. I know that we have a lot of you out there who are interested in the pitch process and the querying process, and all the things that go with that. And you are in for a real treat today because we have Julie Artz with us who is practically an expert in all of these things. Welcome, Julie.

Julie Artz: Thanks so much for having me.

Sara Gentry: So let me introduce our writers to you just a little bit more. Julie has spent the past decade helping writers like you slay their doubt demons and get their novels and memoirs reader-ready. She's worked with both award winning and newer authors across the publishing spectrum from Big 5 to Small and university presses to Indian hybrid. She is an Author Accelerator certified founding book coach, a sought after speaker and writing instructor, and a regular contributor to Jane Freeman, and writers helping writers, and a regular instructor for authors published, IWWG, ProWritingAid and more. Her work as a Pitch Wars and Teen Pit mentor, a former SCBWI regional advisor, and her memberships in the EFA, WFWA, AWP, and the Authors Guild keep her industry, knowledge, sharp, consummate, social and environmental justice minded story geek Julie lives in an enchanted forest outside of Redmond, Washington, with her husband, two strong-willed teenagers (when they're not off at university) and 2 naughty, furry familiars. She's built a thriving book coaching business based on her values, her editing chops and her knowledge of story. And I have a follow up question. Is there any other kind of teenager than a strong willed teenager?

Julie Artz: Exactly, exactly.

Sara Gentry: Oh, my goodness! But writers! As you can see, Julie has been doing this work for a while, and has worked with just a load of writers in a lot of different capacities. But today we're specifically gonna talk about pitching and querying. And Julie, just because I want to make sure we're not leaving any writers behind here in this conversation, could you maybe just give us a basic overview of like, what a query is, what a synopsis is, and what we generally talk about when we're talking about pitching?

Julie Artz: Yeah, absolutely. So when I say, pitch package, what I'm talking about is a combination of your query, your synopsis, and whatever set of sample pages that an agent or editor is looking for. And so let's break each of those down. The query letter is a business letter that introduces you in your work either to an agent or an editor that you're pitching. The synopsis is less salesy than your query letter. It's actually just a full description of your plot and character arc, and how they come together. And we'll talk more about that in a minute. That spoils the ending, and really just gives them a summary of the events that happen in your story. And then, of course, the sample pages are, as I said, whatever the agent or editor asks for some, ask for 5 pages or 10 pages. Some ask for one to 3 chapters, maybe even the first 50 pages, and whatever they ask for is, of course, what you should give them, because the first rule of querying is always follow the submission guidelines. Right? So.

Sara Gentry: Yeah, play by the rules. Okay. So maybe we should also talk about pitching to both agents and editors. When might be a situation in which we're doing one or the other, and, you know, what is most appropriate? I mean, I know it's situation dependent. But maybe if you could cover a little bit of that as well.

Julie Artz: Yeah, absolutely. I don't usually recommend querying both agents and editors at the same time, because, of course, the role of an agent is to sell your book to editors. So if you've already sent it to every editor in the whole world that is accepting unagented submissions, then it might reduce the number of people that the agent can take the the book to when the time comes. So generally, if you're seeking Big 5 publication, that's your Penguin Random House, your Simon and Schuster, like those guys. You're going to want to get an agent because most of those editors only accept agented authors works. So I recommend starting, if that's you, if that sounds like you, you're going for that traditional publishing big 5 deal, starting with querying agents. And it is true in this market that there are some books that are not right for the Big 5 that won't get picked up for by an agent, and then you might want to go to some of the mid size and smaller presses that don't require agent submissions, and, in fact, some people are going straight there because there's some really great stuff happening in in that space in that small press publishing space that some of you have seen in the news that the the big publishers are consolidating a little bit. They're taking on more books by celebrities or existing authors that already have existing backlists. That type of thing makes it a little bit harder, not impossible, but a little bit harder for a new author to break out. So some people are saying, hmm! I'm gonna go to my local, my regional press the mid size and smaller presses so that I can get a little bit more of that personal touch with a press that's publishing fewer books per year and so in that case you might go directly to editors that are at those types of places.

Sara Gentry: Very good, alright. So, since you have worked with a lot of writers who are specifically working on their query or their pitch package, what are some of the most common problems that you see? Maybe let's start first with the book itself, with a story that maybe a writer thinks, I think, that this is ready to go. What are the most common mistakes that you're seeing?

Julie Artz: So my most popular package that I offer is actually a 50-page pitch, package, evaluation. And I look at your pages, your query, and your synopsis. And most people, of course, that sign up for that think that they're ready to pitch, and almost across the board. I will say in the entire time I've been doing it, I've probably done more than a hundred of these. One person has actually been ready to pitch. One person. So I find that people it takes quite a few tries to get a story that you've written to the point where it is truly pitch ready. And so there's almost always something that I can identify when I look at the pitch package, either sort of mismatch of tone or voice for genre. That's a really common problem. Getting started too slowly, starting in info dump in or backstory instead of in story present, not really developing the character voice in the right way. Those types of things are things that you might have a great concept. You might have strong line level writing skills. But they can really hold the manuscript back from being something that an agent or an editor is gonna read and be like. I can see this as a published book, so those are probably among the most common problems I see. Certainly length, for genre is often off as well. So if you're querying middle grade, for example, and your manuscript is 100,000 words long, one of the things that I would be recommending is that you need to cut that way down to get it into the publishable range.

Sara Gentry: Yeah, so right. Writers, you'll notice that Julie did not talk about spelling errors, or, you know, punctuation issues or things like this, she's talking about much bigger story level issues, making sure that those are all squared away before you pitch. I think sometimes writers have this misconception that they're just going to make the pages look real clean. But that's not exactly what we're going for. So that was one piece of a pitch package, maybe like some sample chapters, for instance. But what about the synopsis. What's going wrong in our synopsis that we're sending?

Julie Artz: Yeah. So I know, a synopsis can feel like a really really hard thing to produce. Because how are you supposed to condense this entire 60 70,000 word story down into 2 or 3 pages of a plot summary. But it can be done. And it's very, very important to spoil the ending. That's probably the number. One thing I see is it? The writers think to themselves. Surely they don't want me to spoil the ending, because then they won't have fun reading it. But the problem is that when you make your living reading stories as agents, editors, and book coaches do, we do want you to spoil the ending, and we have already seen, you know there's that saying that most of the stories have already been told. We already are very familiar, probably, with the general arc of your story. We're, of course, hoping that you're gonna surprise us with some twists and turns, some fresh characters and some fresh perspectives. It may be a different setting than we've seen before, but we're essentially looking for those pieces that make this a story and not just a collection of events. And the synopsis is the way that lets us see that it lets us see how the character arc and the plot arc work together, and it identifies if there's gonna be, for example, a pacing problem in the middle or maybe it's going to explain why the manuscript is a little bit longer than it should be for for genre age categories. So you really, really wanna make sure that you're getting those elements on there. The thing I will say is, many people when they embark on writing a synopsis, they say, well, I don't know how my plot or character comes together, and that, my friends, is a manuscript level problem that you learn about when you write the synopsis. So it could be a really good tool for that, too, making really sure that you actually know what your story is about, and that you have fleshed out all of the things in the manuscript itself that need to be there in order to make it a story that's ready for publishers.

Sara Gentry: Yeah, and I think it's worth pointing out here writers that editors and agents they're looking at your book as something to be sold. They're not necessarily looking at it, as the reader experience the very 1st time they see it. They want to know is this something that I can sell? This is how I make my living. So Julie's point, they want to know the ending, because if you botch the ending, then maybe it's not going to be sellable, or like you were talking about with the plot holes or the sequence of events. So, the query letter, that's maybe the thing that causes a ton of stress here for writers cause that's even shorter than the synopsis. So what's happening with our query letters that is not so good?

Julie Artz: Yeah. So the number one thing that I see is that query letters that run too long. I want you to imagine an agent or an editor reading on their phone.

Sara Gentry: Hmm.

Julie Artz: Because that's what they're doing. They're reading it between. Their primary job is to work with the clients that they've already sold right, that they've already signed on to work with. So looking for new clients is something that gets slotted in on the train. Ride into town. In between meetings. That sort of thing. So you have the time it takes for them to scan that query on their phone to grab them, which means shorter, is always gonna be better. But that said there are some key pieces that you need to make sure that you have in your query letter. So you don't wanna get shorter by cutting out any of these following pieces. So the 1st one is what I call the nuts and bolts. The title, the genre, the Age Category, and the word count right. That's your nuts and bolts. That's also where your comparable titles will fit in. Those are those recently published titles that are somewhat similar in tone, in concept, definitely in genre and age category to what you're doing. It might be, for example, where you mash up stranger things meets something really juicy in a fresh way. If that's an accurate description of your story. So that goes in the opening of your query. Alongside any personalization. If you met an agent or an editor at an event, if you attended a class with them. If you're comping one of their clients. If you saw a manuscript wish list that they're looking for something that looks like your book. You'll also mention that at the front of the query in your nuts and bolts line after the personalization and the nuts and bolts you get into the body of your pitch right? So you wanna keep that really short. I really tell writers all the time to keep this less than 200 words. I can hear your existential screams of dread, but it is possible, and if you look at some of the places where there are some published successful queries that you can look at. Agent, Eric Smith, from Ps. Literary, for example, has some successful queries on his website that you can take a look at, you will see they are very, very short. You wanna hit the major things which again, are that story goal, the character arc, the plot arc, and the stakes right? The stakes are what happens if they don't achieve the story goal. You know, in a blockbuster adventure, that's probably the end of the world, or death and destruction of life as we know it, that type of thing. But there are also much quieter novels that have stakes that are more like a metaphoric death. Right? I lose my best friend. I don't find true love. Those types of things that are still very high stakes, very important to the characters, and therefore then to the reader as well. But don't involve that real true life or death aspect to them. So again, the stakes are a place where, if you're having trouble getting them down into your pitch, it might be because they're not strong enough in your manuscript yourself. Itself. So that again, this is a place where you can start to identify some story problems, even when you're writing the query, the final piece of the query is just your bio. This can be short and sweet. It does not have to include writing credits, if you have none. There are people all the time who sign with agents and get book deals that have no previous writing credits. Everybody has to start somewhere. It is a good place, if you have an MFA, for example, or if you do writing in some other capacity in your day job, so that they understand that you know how to work through an editorial process. For example, it's also a great place to show your personal connection to the story. Maybe, for example, you're writing about children and you’re a high school guidance counselor. There, that's gonna show them that you have some real world experience, or you're a teacher in the classroom, or even you played volleyball when you were in college, and you're writing a volleyball story to use something that we were talking about before we started this recording. So whatever it is, you can just put that in the bio again. You wanna keep it short and sweet because you want the entire query letter to be about 300 words or less. That's 200 for the pitch, and that only leaves 100 for the rest of that stuff. And then you just want to say, thank you for your time and consideration and close, get out of there quickly, right? So that they can read it on their phone. The number one job of the query is to make the agent or editor want to read your pages, so that's great. If you can grab them and grab them quickly and make them want to read the pages. But the pages then have to live up to the promises that you're making in the query. And that's probably a very common problem that I see with the pitch package as a whole. There's a lot of places you can go to get your query looked at and you can polish it up. They'll give you all these tips, and sometimes they polish it up so well that it doesn't match your book anymore. And so no, the best query in the world is not gonna sell your book. It's only gonna make the agent or editor read the pages and it's the pages that have to sell themselves right? 

Sara Gentry: Yeah, I'm glad you talked about new writers. I know that people get really worried about, I don't know what to put in my bio and, you know, you don't have to make it too big. Just don't try to say what isn't right. I mean, you can be honest about where you are and how far you've come in your writing work. So what I'm gathering from you is that I don't wanna promise, though, that I've written like the most amazing book in the world, and that I have a guaranteed New York Times best seller in my query, right?

Julie Artz: Right, absolutely. It can be tempting to say, like my critique partners say that this book is laugh out loud, funny, or will be the next major franchise with a movie deal. Let the agent or editor make that assessment. Of course they know the market very well, and they'll know if they have a bestseller on their hands from reading it. Instead, stick to the facts. Not the subjective stuff definitely. Not that your mom said it was the best book she has read, right? I have seen that in inquiries before. Not that your husband couldn't put it down and stayed up all night reading. He is, you know, morally obligated to think that it's the best book you've ever read that he's ever read. So keep that kind of subjective stuff out of it. You'll see that type of stuff in an Amazon description of a book, and sometimes even on the jacket copy for published books. But that's after the fact, and it's not the writer themselves putting those accolades on there. It's the publisher who has gotten, you know, other authors to blurb the book or gotten reviews from some of the major reviewers that they can then use in the marketing language. And so that's a little bit different. We don't wanna include that in our query itself, because that will come later in the process.

Sara Gentry: Very good. Well, writers. Julie has already talked about this query package that she offers as part of her one to one book coaching services. But there might be some of you here that are like, well, I'm not quite ready for a submission of that sort, but Julie does have some other fabulous resources for writers around querying and pitching. Julie, would you like to talk about those for us?

Julie Artz: Yeah, absolutely. I have a Mini course called Weekend Pitch Perfection that will walk you through a more in depth version of what we just talked about today. How do you assemble that nuts and bolts line? How do you find comp titles? How do you know if your title is right for age, category, and genre. And how do you write that pitch so that it answers those essential questions that I was talking about? So it's designed to be done in a weekend. But it is actually like 6 hours of videos, multiple lessons and that sort of thing. So it could take you longer than a weekend to work through. But I do have that available. But I also have a free resource. That's the Craft Your Query Workbook, which I believe is going to be in the show notes for this talk, so that you can get just a little bit more information. In case you didn't wanna furiously scribble down notes as I was talking just now. The workbook will really walk you through the query writing process. And there's details there about how to connect with me as well. I'm on Instagram, and have a newsletter as well, where I'm sharing tips with writers and true stories from the writing life. Every week in my newsletters. 

Sara Gentry: Fabulous, fabulous. Well, thank you so much, Julie. This has just been an amazing conversation that I hope will help a lot of writers who find themselves in the just about ready to pitch stage. So I thank you for your time and for sharing your expertise with us.

Julie Artz: Yeah, thanks so much for having me.

Sara Gentry: Alright writers. Thanks for joining us, and we will see you next time. Bye.