Challenging Perfection: Pitch Perfect for Landing a Literary Agent

Notes From the Author

I hope to use this blog as a diary of sorts, in order to document my quest of perfecting my skills. Areas that I am particularly fond of include: photography, gardening, cooking - baking -canning, painting - sketching and of course writing. Like so many others, the word 'perfection' haunts me. I strive to reach it daily not truly knowing what it is or how to achieve it. Yet, I won't settle for less. Here is my blog showing my struggles and my hopeful successes. I don't need to be perfect but I must try to ascertain it.

Monday, October 17, 2016

Pitch Perfect for Landing a Literary Agent

This year I've been working with the talented Book Doctor's, Arielle Eckstut and David Henry Sterry. After purchasing their must-have-so-very-helpful book The Essential Guide to Getting your Book Published, I spoke with David. I'd been trying to perfect my skills at pitching to a literary agent, and David offered some additional advice. He wanted me to video myself giving my pitch. It sounded like such a simple request, but as it turns out, it's hard--very very hard to do (at least for me--it took me at least three tries just to be able to speak my name and the name of my novel).

A couple of tips I learned while trying to file myself are:

1. Don't watch the screen.
I would forget my pitch and loose my focus each time I caught a glimpse of myself
2. Find a quiet location.
This proved trickier than I imagined between dogs, ringing phones and odd lighting
3. Have fun.
I tried several takes before I gave up and had my niece join me. She lightened the mood and after having some fun goofing around I was finally able to look more natural behind the camera.

You can view our goofy out-takes at: https://youtu.be/zlJcX7YU5cw