Pitching – (or what am I getting myself into?)

Next weekend is the Emerald City Writer’s Conference sponsored by the Greater Seattle Romance Writers of America chapter of which I am a member. This is the 20th anniversary for this conference. If you’ve never been, romance writer or no, I’d highly encourage you to check it out next year.

This year is my third year attending. It’s also the first year that I’m going to pitch at it. They have three editors and three agents attending. When you register you indicate your preference and find out who you’re pitching to when you get your registration packet upon arrival at the conference.

Pitching at a conference (from what I’ve been told anyway) is a group pitch. Meaning that you are with other people and you get literally a couple of minutes to make the editor or agent want to request pages from you. The ECWC has a great event on Friday evening called “Pitch Fest” where you can ask questions of the editors and agents and then get help from people who’ve done this before on toning up your pitch.

I have two things I can pitch depending on who I get. My historical western and my romantic suspense. I realized this afternoon I have no idea what I am doing. I mean I get a few sentences to talk about my story, make sure to mention the conflict and hope that it doesn’t sound like a snooze-fest. One thing I have in my favor is that I’m at my best when I’m presenting something to people whether it’s a job interview or at a meeting. Hopefully that will help.

So this weekend will be spent tightening up my pitches. Check out my post on Friday when I’ll be blogging (late) about the first part of the ECWC.