If we were having coffee, I would confess it’s been a crazy, exhausting week. We would grab seats in my garden, since I just refinished some lawn furniture for the occasion.
I have some interesting news to share; I took part in PitMad this week. I suspect some of my friends don’t know about this event, so let me explain. PitMad is a Twitter contest for writers looking for agents. You simply tweet a logline from your book project on the day and time of the contest. You can tweet up to twice an hour and change your tweet each time. That way you can search for the right combination of information to catch an agent’s eye. Agents and small presses will favorite the pitches they want to see sample chapters from. I know it sounds unconventional, but it works. Heather and I know a writer who signed a two-book deal after a small press found her book at PitMad.
There were about 50,000 tweets on June 4th, all within a 12 hour period. I got three agent favorites. All three from well-known agencies. And on three different pitches. Here is Heather’s favorite tweet:
I’m not going to lie, I was hoping for a few more requests. But since only a tiny fraction of the tweets get any favorites at all, I’m beyond thrilled. Now comes the hard part: waiting quietly while they read my sample chapters. Check back with me in a few weeks and I bet my nails will be bitten the quick, and I’ll have worn a grove in the floor from pacing.
The next good part about my busy week is I’ve been a writing machine lately! Since I have of writing commitments stacked up this burst of creative juice is a blessing. I tend to work this way, in super productive spurts and dead stops. When I get into a spurt, I milk it for all it’s worth and get up at 5am to work when the house is quiet and cool.
Cool is especially important to me right now because summer is in full swing in California. Actually it arrived about 6 weeks ago, but the summer thunderstorms just started. I live in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains and big storms hit us pretty much all year, but the summer ones are especially dramatic. Fat black clouds appear out of nowhere, darkening the sky to dusk in minutes. Then Mother Nature puts on an impressive sound and light show. Sometimes the storms will dust us with summer snow or hail.
The storms disappear just as fast, and magically reveal a vivid blue sky, and sun kissed but dripping trees. The storm Friday night rattled the kids and the cats into hiding, but also gave us a few drops of much-needed water in my parched home state.
Another storm is due today and since you don’t like driving the mountain roads when they’re wet, we end our visit early. The family and I wave goodbye to you just as the first fat raindrop lands and we scurry inside.
If We Were Having Coffee is a blog hop inspired and run by the lovely and talented Diana at Part Time Monster. Please drop by her place for coffee. You can also see what other bloggers are up to by checking out the hashtag #WeekendCoffeeShare on Twitter.
PitMad was a lot of fun to do; I’ve done many of them, and met some amazing friends. Stupidly, I never sent manuscripts to the small presses who requested my manuscripts. Back then I believed there was only one way to get traditionally published. Boy, was I wrong! I wish you the best of luck, Robin! I’m so thankful I don’t have to go through that stress anymore. The waiting can be maddening!
Thanks, Sue. I didn’t get any small press favorites, but I noticed quite a few of them on there and they seemed to be actively requesting in several genres, just none of them mine. : (
Wow! PitMad sounds exciting. While it could be very low key if you just tweet without expecting much, it can also be high pressure if you are tweeting expecting to get a deal. It sounds like it is something for everyone, or everyone’s expectations. And you got favorited, not only once but three times! Super! I would be so excited and so nervous! I hope it works out with at least one of them. Much luck!
Hi Corina, I think doing PitMad with low key expectations is best way to handle it. But it was my first Twitter pitch session, so I don’t have anything to compare it too. Thanks for the luck. I’m stockpiling all the good wishes into a neat little pile! : )
I love that tweet–I see why you got some favorites! Good luck with the whole process 🙂
Thanks! I’ll take all the good luck I can get.
Hi, Robin – I think that’s awesome that you received three agent favorites at #PitMad. 🙂
@dino0726 from
FictionZeal – Impartial, Straighforward Fiction Book Reviews
Thanks, Diane! I’ve been around too long to think an agent request means anything too significant, but it was a nice moment this week. And it was fun to share it with everyone over coffee. Heading over to your blog now, I just finished a book, so maybe you’re latest review can help me pick a new one. I need something super distracting to read while I wait on agents to get back to me. : )
That’s so wonderful for you! Congratulations! I hope for some good results from the agents that you submitted to. What a great thing! And that tagline was perfect. Just the right amount of pun. 😉
Thanks, Alex. I’m not counting on anything happening but it would be nice if something did.
I’m not great with pitching, that’s Heather’s thing, but I think I did okay this time. I came up with 12 tweets and tweeted the six I liked best. And the ones the agents favored were all slightly quirky or funny. I guess agents like to be amused too. : )
Thanks for sharing this! And the coffee!
Thanks for stopping in, Noelle. I’m glad you liked the coffee share. : )
PitMad does sound a bit ‘mad.’ Glad you got some faves 🙂 The weather sounds really amazing. Both the before, during and after. I’ll bet there are some amazing photo ops there.
It was busy, and I only did six tweets. Some people stay on Twitter all day tweeting and rounding up their friends to retweet their tweets to get more exposure.
The weather in the mountains is wild. We had a huge hailstorm last night and today it’s in high 80s again. I don’t get much chance to take photos during the storms, my youngest hates them. I end up being his pillow the time. Last night we just sat on the sofa for about an hour, under a blanket for “protection” of course. : )
Oh my goodness, that is sooo exciting! Congratulations on getting those favourites. I’ll keep my fingers crossed for you. I needed a little good news today 😀 Thanks for coffee. I’m glad you sent me off early – I hate driving in the rain!
Thanks! I will never turn down a spare set of crossed fingers. : ) Don’t get too excited, this is just the first of many gatekeepers to come. However, it is nice to know I might be on the right track with this manuscript.